Yves KIEFFER

Chef : 1 restaurant

Presentation

" I already knew in seventh grade that I wanted to be a chef," says Yves Kieffer. The reason? Perhaps it was his great-grandmother, Marie-Jeanne, who passed on her love of cooking to her descendants. It was she who founded the Kasbür restaurant, which has since been taken over by her great-grandson.

Yves Kieffer began his career at La Vieille Enseigne, Strasbourg, then at La Tour d'Argent, Paris, under MOF Manuel Martinez. After military service at Matignon as cook to then Prime Minister Édith Cresson, he joined the kitchens of Château de Divonne.

In 1993, he became chef de partie at L'Espérance, Saint-Père-sous-Vézelay, under Marc Meneau. "A customer ate a turbot à la moelle, came into the kitchen and asked who had cooked it. He gave me his card, and that's how I left for Canada. It was a dream," says Yves Kieffer. That's how he spent a year and a half as second chef at Relais & Châteaux The Inn at Manitou, in Ontario.

On his return to France, he became executive chef at the Hôtel Cosmos in Contrexéville, where he met his wife, Béatrice. In 1999, they decided to revive his great-grandmother's restaurant in Monswiller, near Saverne, which had been closed since 1978. " It was an abandoned house, there was nothing there at all. "Since then, the Kasbür chef has written a book retracing his career, and has been awarded the Gault&Millau 2023 Grand Est Techniques d'Excellence trophy.

I.B.