My first career discouraged me from the start. After studying business in Lille, I worked in the mergers and acquisitions sector in London and Paris for five years. It gave me a working method that served me well afterwards, but it didn’t inspire me at all. At 29, before starting a family, getting into debt and getting stuck in a system that didn’t suit me, I decided to change direction. I had no culinary knowledge, but I had many ties to the agricultural world.
When I was a child, I spent all my holidays in Normandy, with my grandparents, with friends who were farmers’ sons, moving cows from one enclosure to another, riding tractors, plucking birds. Coincidentally, these experiences influenced the decisions I made later. During the summer of 2015, after obtaining a conventional graduation, I had the idea of doing something linked to peasant agriculture. I wanted to rediscover the products I bought with my grandfather, to define what good beans and quality meat really were.
For a year and a half I went from farm to farm to meet the producers, to understand how they work, their needs, their obstacles. Sometimes I spent a whole day on one farm, observing the whole spectrum of agricultural professions: horticulturist, livestock breeder, salt worker, fisherman, winemaker… I discovered how diverse the world of agriculture is, how the choices made have an impact on the quality of the products… It was a whole vision of the world that turned my life upside down.
A virtuous ecosystem
I wanted to set up a restaurant that would work directly with all these people. We opened Les Résistants in 2017. Luckily, the restaurant quickly filled up. Two years later, a team from the Slow Food International association came to study our system and our carbon footprint, showing that a restaurant that does not compromise the origin of its products emits five times less greenhouse gases than a traditional establishment.
We work with more than 150 independent farms around key principles: the promotion of small structures and extensive livestock farming, the promotion of local and rustic species, peasant seeds… It is a virtuous ecosystem for farmers, restaurateurs and consumers. The idea is that everyone is there, that producers receive a decent salary for their work and that restaurant prices are affordable.
The supermarket allows us to sell surpluses, compensate for seasonal fluctuations and continue to adapt our menus to arrivals. Among the signature products of our restaurant is gwell, known as “big milk”, a kind of yogurt made from Breton Pie Noir cow’s milk, which I like to combine, in summer, with Barbentane aubergine, a rustic variety, and a virgin sauce with heirloom tomatoes and fresh herbs. It’s simple, fresh and nutritious. Everything you need, just the right amount.
Les Résistants, 16-18, rue du Château-d’Eau, Paris 10my.
