THE CHEF AND THE SEA
Gérald Passedat brings his special brand of Mediterranean cuisine to Paris
“Anice brasserie where we eat well, that’s convivial, where we can have fun with very good products and, of course, highlight the Mediterranean because this style of brasserie doesn’t exist currently,” says French chef, Gérald Passedat, 59. “We are the first to do it in Paris, or elsewhere. I want to establish something where we feel the Mediterranean sun, where we have as many different fishes as possible that come from the Mediterranean, where the spirit and recipes are Mediterranean.”
We’re sitting on the peaceful terrace of the Brasserie Lutetia, his latest venture situated in the fabled Hotel Lutetia on Paris’ Left Bank. The chef from Marseille has dropped anchor in this bijou of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco movements that once welcomed the 20th century’s luminaries from the worlds of literature, art, cinema, music, fashion and politics. The French capital may be a far cry from the serene coastal backdrop of his restaurant Le Petit Nice in Marseille – a bastion of gastronomic excellence that has held three Michelin stars since 2008 – set in a magnificent villa facing the horizon and overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, itself located in a five-star hotel. However, both offer customers a generous, seafoodinspired and sun-drenched menu filled with the tastes of southern France.
In Passedat’s Parisian outpost proposing hearty cuisine in a welcoming, nonpretentious setting, typical Provençal fish dishes abound like bream flambéed with pastis and the chef’s famous bouillabaisse, where weever, scorpion fish, sea bass, monkfish, cuttlefish and many others – depending on the catch and the season – flavour the rich saffron-infused stock, which is offered with rouille, croutons, grated cheese and potatoes, resulting in a subtle explosion in the mouth. Most of the fish is sourced from the Mediterranean Sea, primarily from the Port of Sète, with the rest from Brittany. Nonetheless, there are also dishes like duck foie gras with seaweed, free-range chicken breast with einkorn and tarragon juice, home-style veal cannelloni and grilled flank stank with sea butter and anchovy juice.
A culinary heritage
Passedat is the third generation to take the helm of Le Petit Nice, which was established by his baker-pastry chef grandfather, Germain in 1917, and his chefopera singer father, Jean-Paul, who earned it its first Michelin star in 1977 and a second in 1981, while transforming it into a luxury hotel. Succeeding his grandfather and father at Le Petit Nice came quite naturally to him. “It was obvious because at that time, Marseille was not really well regarded and it was a kind of revenge,” he explains. “I always said to myself that in my life, I would try to build, alongside my city, something credible, and not leave Marseille in its descent into hell because it was a city that was lawless, yet that had an extraordinary geographic potential. Now it’s headed back in the right direction. It’s good to see that during my lifetime.”
Following traditional cooking studies from the age of 14, attending the Hotel School of Nice, Passedat then worked at Le Coq Hardi in Bougival, the prestigious Bristol and Crillon palace hotels in Paris,
with the Troisgros brothers in Roanne and at Les Prés d’Eugénie with Michel Guérard. In 1985, he entered the kitchens of Le Petit Nice as his father’s apprentice, before taking over in 2000. However, it wasn’t simple finding his place within such an impressive culinary heritage, imposing his own style while respecting the DNA and familial tradition instituted by his forebears.
“At the beginning, very slowly, with a lot of humility and respect, I looked at what was being done during my father’s time, and then I looked at what we were doing. We were doing haute cuisine, with poultry, beef and so on, but it wasn’t really what this place expressed. It wasn’t what the Mediterranean offered us.”
“Cooking is territorial”
Drawing inspiration from the many marine treasures offered up by the Mediterranean, Passedat came up with numerous seafood recipes married with the vegetables and herbs of Provence. “I always thought that cooking must be territorial, that it must be influenced by where we are located, so that people who come from all over the world can understand the terroir of where we are. That’s why I did an aboutturn, cooking only fish and crustaceans, which was not easy at first because at a restaurant you normally find almost anything you want: meat, fish, crustaceans, vegetables, pasta, pâtés.”
His cuisine of the sea is profoundly attached to the nearby land with its fiery and fragrant flavours. He turned to the Marseille fishermen to find fish that had long been forgotten or ignored. While nobody dared to work with modest fish like whiting, leerfish, forkbeard, dentex, sea bream, bonito, porgy and moray eel, over 70 species parade through his kitchens season after season today. Rather than invent something, he went back to basics, magnifying local ingredients, just like his ancestors who had eaten what they had caught. It was a question of common sense; he chose to work as closely as possible with nature.
Future plans
Awarded the French title of Knight of the Legion of Honour in 2010, Passedat, the only triple-Michelin starred chef in Marseille, shows us that haute cuisine is the result of great discipline, where time and work determine excellence. He continues to carve his own path by bringing together chefs from his region to promote Mediterranean cuisine through the Gourméditerranée association, and overseeing Le Môle Passedat in Marseille since 2013: three different dining experiences and a cooking school within the Museum of European and Mediterranean Civilisations.
Passedat details his future ambitions, “Launching the Brasserie Lutetia in the right way, and working so that Le Petit Nice continues to be part of the 100 best restaurants in the world. Those are my priorities. If this brasserie can work, why not go see elsewhere, maybe overseas? If the opportunity arises, why not, but we must study the question. A brasserie would be nice, a Michelin-star restaurant too, but it would be much more complicated. Three years ago, CMA CGM, a Marseille-based world leader in maritime transport, asked me if I wanted to open a restaurant in Singapore. I thought about it. But everything depends on the proposals. Nothing is closed off. All options are on the table.”