Philippe LAGRAULA

Chef : 4 restaurants Manager : 2 restaurants

Presentation

" I was immersed in cooking from an early age. I'm like Obelix, I fell into the cooking pot," jokes Philippe Lagraula. This early determination led him to work with some great names. While studying at the Institut Paul Bocuse in Écully, he did an internship with Michel Troisgros in Roanne, followed by another with Michel Bras in Laguiole. He goes on to train as a pastry chef with Pascal Molines, MOF and world pastry champion. He even qualified for the final of the French dessert championship,"much to my surprise", he says.

But what really interested him was cooking. That's why, after a season as head pastry chef at Café de Paris in Biarritz, he joined La Cour des Loges in Lyon. "Nicolas Le Bec was working at 3,000 an hour, so you had to keep up with him and be a hothead. It was one of my best experiences."

In 2004, at the age of 24, after a year with Jean-Georges Vongerichten at Le Market in Paris, he embarked on a new adventure. "I wanted to come back home, but nobody wanted me as a chef, they thought I was too young. So I decided to set up my own restaurant. "That's how Une Cuisine en Ville was born, in Dax (the restaurant moved to Bordeaux in 2012). Gault&Millau quickly awarded him 2 toques.

After fifteen years on his own, Philippe Lagraula joined Villa Mirasol in Mont-de-Marsan in 2020. Since then, he has managed the Table Mirasol gourmet restaurant and the Bistrot 1912. He won 2 toques in his first season, and Gault&Millau awarded him the Tradition d'Aujourd'hui Nouvelle-Aquitaine 2022 trophy.

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