Tugdual DEBÉTHUNE

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

Tugdual Debéthune remembers his grandfather's garden, but also his grandmother, whom he helped to peel beans and make jam: "I have many memories of flavors and aromas". He decided to do a pre-apprenticeship at the age of 15, then to take his CAP in cooking.

During his training, he completed his apprenticeship at a Relais & Châteaux in the Perche region, an ideal setting for his training: "there was the mill, the river, the vegetable garden and the kitchen". He was then hired as a commis at Château d'Audrieu (Calvados), then chef de partie at Castel Marie-Louise, in La Baule. He returned to this hotel-restaurant in 1979, after his military service. With this experience behind him, he spent eight years in Alsace, working at Les Armes de France in Ammerschwihr (under Pierre Gaertner), as chef de partie saucier, then at L'Auberge de l'Ill, in Illhaeusern, with Marc Haeberlin.

Tugdual Debéthune then returned to Brittany, where he worked at Ti Coz in Rennes, before moving into culinary consulting in 1999. But after many years, something was missing: "cooking again behind a stove, being creative, touching up products". Faced with this realization, he took over a restaurant in Rennes in 2018, which he calls Holen ("salt", in Breton) and where he deploys a cuisine that is "very organic, centered on the spirit of Northern Europe. For me, the product is really a local product, close to me." An approach quickly rewarded by Gault&Millau with 2 toques and the Terroir d'Exception Bretagne trophy in 2023.

T. L.