Pascal CHALAMET

Chef : 1 restaurant After a rich career in the four corners of France, Pascal Chalamet is now sharing the fruit of his experience with his family, at Le Menna, in the heart of Nîmes.

Presentation

"I didn't come from a family of cooks at all," says Pascal Chalamet, who discovered what was to become his vocation at the age of 7. Four years later, he experimented at the Beau Rivage piano in Condrieu (Rhône), under the guidance of one of Lyon's last mothers, Paule Castaing. At the age of 15, he entered the house as an apprentice for two years. At the end of his training, in 1978, he officially became a chef de partie at the entrances: "I was treated like a professional".

He stayed there for just under a year, before moving to La Régalido, in Fontvieille, as head of the fish section. After his military service, he moved to Les Roches-de-Condrieu, at Le Bellevue, in the kitchens of chef M. Bourreau: "Despite my young age, I was more or less his right-hand man." In 1983, Pascal Chalamet joined Jean-Marc Reynaud in Tain-L'Hermitage, where he worked until 1985. After various experiences, he joined Hostellerie des Pins in Montélimar in 1995, then Domaine de Terrebrune in Ollioules (Var). He then returned to Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid, where he had already spent some time under the guidance of chefs Marcon and Chatelard.

In 1998, Pascal Chalamet became head chef at the Hôtellerie de l'Abbaye in Le Thoronet (Var). He stayed there for four years, before taking over management of Le Clos de Saveurs with his wife in 2001: "We had already begun to develop this entrepreneurial spirit. " In 2006, they took over management of Restaurant de la Poste, in Poisson (Saône-et-Loire), before arriving at Café Fleurs, in 2014, in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. The chef then moved on to Château de la Borde, where he opened a restaurant, followed by Le Vivier, in Grau-du-Roi ("a very simple house, with excellent quality products"), and La Belle Vie, in Saint-Hilaire-d'Ozilhan (Gard). In 2021, he joins his daughter and son-in-law, Jonathan and Clémence Coute, who have just opened Menna, in Nîmes: "We all take great pleasure in it."A pleasure that is shared on the plate, for the man who doesn't hesitate to assert: "I've always cooked from the heart".

T. L.