International
Philippe ZEIGER
Chef : 1 restaurant
"Raymond Oliver passed on his passion for cooking to me. As a child, I used to watch him cook his recipes on television. He was a forerunner in this field", recalls Philippe Zeiger. To be sure he wanted to make a career of it, as a teenager he took a short training course at the restaurant Le Pot d'Étain, in Danjoutin (Territoire de Belfort). He bought the establishment thirty years later.
Convinced of his vocation, Philippe Zeiger entered the Lycée Hôtelier in Luxeuil-les-Bains (Haute-Saône). At the age of 18, with a CAP and BEP in his pocket, he set off on an adventure to Germany, taking up his first position as a kitchen assistant at the Vater und Sohn in Stuttgart. Back in France, he embarked on a long tour of France's "toqué" establishments: La Ferme de Mougins (Alpes-Maritimes), Le Prieuré alongside Charles Plumex, in Thonon-les-Bains (Haute-Savoie), Jean Bardet's table in Joué-lès-Tours (Indre-et-Loire), Hostellerie de Levernois (Côte-d'Or) and Martinez, Cannes. At the end of 1994, he completed his course at Bernard Loiseau, in Saulieu, where he met Florence, his future wife, who was at the time half-chef de rang.
Under Patrick Bertron's management for five years, he wrote the menus and helped open the Parisian brasseries Tante Louise and Tante Marguerite. In 1999, the couple moved to Château de Coudrée, on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Philippe Zeiger took up his first position as head chef. Some time later, a supplier informed him that Gilles Blandin, a young Meilleur Ouvrier de France, was leaving the Armes de Champagne in L'Épine (Marne). "He'd moved to Thonon-les-Bains to teach at the lycée hôtelier. When he emptied his moving truck, I filled it with my things and took his place at Armes de Champagne."
After four years of loyal service in this restaurant, which was awarded 2 toques, Philippe Zeiger learned that Le Pot d'Étain, where he took his first steps in the kitchen, was up for sale. In 2008, he and his wife bought the restaurant and wrote a new culinary chapter. "I wanted to differentiate myself from my colleagues. As my partner has Breton origins, I've always been keen to cook fish, razor clams and caviar, in a nod to seafood." Gault&Millau named him Jeune Talent in 2010, awarding him 2, then 3 toques.
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