Sébastien SAIZ

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

In Cherbourg, from 1970 to 1990, people worked either at "Coge" (Cogema, a company in the nuclear sector) or at the arsenal, building submarines. Sébastien Saiz's father would have liked his son to join the nuclear industry, like him, as an engineer. "I did a seconde générale, then entered the première scientifique, but it was forced and coerced. " He decided to leave the classical high school to go to the hotel school to study for a vocational baccalaureate. "I was finally in my element.

If the future owner of L'Antonelle remembers with emotion the "timbale of macaroni with cock's crest we cooked in the first restaurant where I learned the trade, in Versailles", it was really from Armand Arnal, at La Chassagnette, that he learned the most. "I'd spent a few seasons at Le Belvédère in Porto-Vecchio, then Les Fermes de Marie in Megève and Le Fitz Roy in Val-Thorens, but it was when I arrived at Armand's place, in the heart of the Camargue, that I really understood the full dimension of the job. We worked with vegetables from the garden, organic and obviously not aesthetically perfect, it was exciting and formative."

The two chefs hit it off so well that, after opening Chez Caro in Arles for a few seasons, Sébastien Saiz crossed the Atlantic to manage Armand Arnal's restaurants in New York and then Toronto. "It was an exciting time, but I was drifting further and further away from being a chef." He returned to Provence in 2018 to open the L'Arlatan hotel in Arles, again alongside Armand Arnal, before opening L'Antonelle in 2019.

In this small bistro, the man who will never work in the nuclear industry now thrives on offering seasonal cuisine that's both lively and gourmet. "Fish and vegetables play an important role in my cooking, but I love working with meat. Proof of his mastery , in 2024 Gault&Millau awarded him the Cuisine des Prairies et des Pâturages trophy for the PACA region.