Virginie BASSELOT

Chef : 2 restaurants

Presentation

Andrée Rosier, forever the first female MOF Cuisine, must have been relieved when, in 2015, Virginie Basselot also passed this competition. Only two female MOFs - a historical anomaly that's still waiting to be rectified - but Virginie, who as a child dreamed of becoming a fighter pilot, didn't wait for this award to establish her place and name in the profession.

The daughter of a restaurateur in Pont-L'Evêque, the Deauvillaise was not yet twenty when she moved to Paris, where she gained experience at Les Ambassadeurs (Dominique Bouchet period), at Le Grand Véfour with Guy Martin and then with Eric Frechon at Le Bristol.

Her first position as chef? Le Saint-James, Paris, when she was not yet 35. Her very precise ideas, her great capacity for work and her very solid training were to work wonders in this fine establishment in the 16th arrondissement. In fact, she was one of our "Grands de demain" in our 2016 edition, a few months before leaving Paris to settle at La Réserve in Megève. There, she will quite simply win the title of Cook of the Year from our friends at Gault&Millau Suisse.

But Virginie isn't one to rest on her laurels, and she soon leaves the shores of Lake Geneva for the warmer waters of the Mediterranean. Le Chantecler, the restaurant at the Negresco in Nice, is opening its arms to her. In just a few months, she was to dust off this palatial restaurant, modernizing the cuisine while preserving the myth.