Tatenda MHENDE

Chef de service : 1 restaurant Tatenda Mhende has lived in Europe since the age of nineteen, and was raised in the demanding Swiss school before settling in Burgundy.

Presentation

Tatenda Mhende's passion for the hotel and restaurant business goes back to her early childhood in Zimbabwe. "I was lucky enough to grow up in a fairly well-off family in Harare, the capital. My parents and I often stayed in hotels, provided my father had a golf course nearby. And I remember, around the age of four, being amazed that I could leave the room without making my bed, and when I came back everything would be straightened up.It was magic for me. My path was clear" .

A seminal encounter in the 5ᵉ arrondissement

at nineteen, the young man left Zimbabwe and joined the Swiss HotelManagement School in Caux, near Montreux. Switzerland is renowned for the quality of its training, and courses are taught in English, which Tatenda speaks fluently. But it was during an internship at a small boutique hotel near Pouilly en Auxois that the young man fell in love with France. He completed his training with a Bachelor's degree in management in Paris, and met Natasha Watson, an English-speaking Canadian chef then working at A.Noste with her partner Marc Marchetti. " The three of us struck up a friendship and soon began planning to open our own restaurant, preferably in Burgundy. Dijon seemed too big a city to us, so we decided to settle in Beaune, a city of character on a human scale."L'Alentour opened its doors at the beginning of July 2023, and quickly found its audience, enthralled by the fine cuisine and Tatenda's infectious energy in the dining room .