Thibaut RUGGERI

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

For Thibaut Ruggeri, the years he spent in Switzerland as a teenager were decisive. "It wasthere that I realized that in France we had a way of eating, a conception of the meal and of gastronomy that was precious", he explains. On graduating from hotel school, the future chef set his sights on"cutting-edge, recognized establishments". From 2001 to 2007, he worked with Michel Guérard at Les Prés d'Eugénie in Les Landes, Michel Kayser at Restaurant Alexandre in Garons, and Jean-Claude Vrinat and Alain Solivérès at Taillevent in Paris.

He then joined the creative workshops of Maison Lenôtre, where he stayed for six years. "I was deputy head of the savoury division. Every six months, we renewed all the products. That's where I learned to tame my inner creativity."Never short of ideas, Thibaut Ruggeri imagined a"phantasmagorical universe around Versailles and Louis XIV" during the 2013 Bocuse d'Or competition, and came out on top. "I was looking for something that would be intelligible to a jury of 24 nationalities," he explains.

A year later, he managed the restaurant at Fontevraud Royal Abbey and, in 2022, was awarded the Techniques d'Excellence Gault&Millau Loire trophy. "I'm touched that the inspectors were able to see, in a dish that may seem simple, all the work that goes into it", he confides.

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