Simon DESILES

Chef : 1 restaurant On the banks of the Indre, Simon Desiles and his partner Eleanor Thomas have breathed new life into L'Aigle d'Or, a historic restaurant at the heart of the Loire Valley châteaux circuit.

Presentation

When you grow up, as Simon Desiles did, in a hamlet of 300 inhabitants in the heart of the Sarthe countryside, with a stay-at-home mother and a father who, as much out of passion as to improve the family's daily routine, raises pigs, you know how to keep your feet on the ground. And yet, when I graduated from hotel management school and started working season after season, between Courchevel and Saint-Tropez, I could have lost my way," recalls this young family man. Well-fed, well-washed, well-paid, with an apartment by the sea and friends, I lived a dissolute life for a few months until my parents called me to order. It was a salutary experience, no doubt."

Groundbreaking experiences with Marcon and Guérard

At just 20 years of age, Simon Desiles joined the kitchens of Régis and Jacques Marcon, where he made friends with sous-chef Benoît Vidal. Two and a half years of intense work, as well as the following two years with Olivier Brulard at Michel Guérard's in Eugénie-les-Bains. "I then had the opportunity to join Benoît Vidal in Val-d'Isère. It was there that I met my future partner, Eleanor Thomas, then a pastry chef at Chevallot."

After spending a few months working alongside Vincent Arnould at Le Vieux Logis in Trémolat, the two young men are already planning to open their own restaurant. "But we obviously needed some start-up capital. We started out as private chefs in Courchevel and Saint-Tropez. It was an intense period, with requests that were sometimes totally crazy, but during which we learned a lot."

A successful takeover

With a small nest egg "that obviously didn't allow us to buy the restaurant of our dreams", Simon Desiles and Eleanor Thomas acquired L'Aigle d'Or, in Azay-le-Rideau, in the summer of 2019. A historic house, run for over thirty years by Ghislaine and Jean-Luc Fèvre. "We've obviously revamped the decor, but we've kept the brassware, silverware and soul of the establishment. Eleanor is in charge of the patisserie, and we've also opened a tapas bar on the banks of the Indre. Our days are very full, especially since the birth of our little boy" Gault&Millau rewarded them with a lovely score of 13.5/20 and the Terroir d'Exception 2024 trophy for the region.