Dior’s new chef, Jean Imbert, combines fashion and gastronomy
PARIS — Talk about a new look.
The christian Dior headquarters and boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne have undergone a comprehensive makeover, expanding to include interior gardens, artworks, a gallery that will be the permanent home of the Dior retrospective that has been traveling the world, a pastry shop and a restaurant, called Monsieur Dior. There, guests can dine on Dior fine china and sip from Dior crystal.
Dior hired Jean Imbert, the popular veteran of the French version of “Top Chef,” who runs two other restaurants on Avenue Montaigne. Last year, Imbert, 40, took over the kitchens of the two restaurants at the Hotel Plaza Athenee, across the street from Dior, from Michelin-starred restaurateur Alain Ducasse. Imbert’s reboots of those dining rooms have drawn a lot of attention.
“I’ve never wanted to run a fashion restaurant,” Imbert said of the Dior restaurant, designed, like the entire complex, by New York architect Peter Marino. It is a project Imbert has been quietly working on since 2019, even studying the Dior archives to understand the sensibility of the brand’s founder.
“Monsieur Dior liked real French cooking,” Imbert said. “Dishes like roast chicken stuffed with herbs and fromage blanc, endive salad and poached eggs with artichoke hearts. So the menu is inspired by his favorites.”
Dior himself also saw a powerful convergence between fashion and gastronomy. “The ingredients used in the kitchen are as noble as those we use in haute couture,” he reportedly once told a friend, chef Raymond Thuillier. “What I like in my work is that you must unite your mind and your hands. Nothing can be perfected if the creativity of your imagination isn’t expressed by your hands.”
Many in the Paris food world were astonished when it was announced in May that he would step into Ducasse’s shoes. There had been rumors that Francois Delahaye, the general manager of the Plaza Athenee, was considering various chefs as successors to Ducasse, but Imbert’s appointment was a surprise.
“It was time for a change,” Delahaye said. “So I decided to go for a really big change.”
Imbert, who won Season 3 of “Top Chef France,” opened L’Acajou, his first restaurant, in Paris when he was only 21. The showbiz clientele it attracted later went to ToShare, the Saint-Tropez ode to street food he runs with Pharrell Williams.
More recently, his restaurant Mamie (“granny” in English, now closed) showcased the cooking of Nicole Imbert, his late grandmother, whom he adored. He also runs the restaurant at Le cheval Blanc hotel in Saint Barthelemy, which, like Dior, is owned by LVMH.
Some in the French food world were skeptical of the media-savvy chef, including food writer and television host Francois-Regis Gaudry, who wrote in L’express: “He doesn’t have the resume or the experience necessary for such a job. I’m not saying he’s not talented, but there are 100 other chefs who are more experienced and harder working.”
And while others were more positive, Jean Imbert replied to his critics on Instagram: “One could maybe wait to see my project and give me a chance, no?”
Imbert has loved cooking since he was a boy growing up in the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses, where his parents own a printing and binding company. After high school, he was among the youngest students ever to enroll at the prestigious Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, at the age of 17. He then did apprenticeships with a series of famous French chefs, including Marc Meneau and Michel Rostang, before opening his first restaurant in 2004.
The comfort food Imbert introduced at Le Relais Plaza at the Hotel Plaza Athenee won polite praise, but his haute cuisine at Jean Imbert au Plaza Athenee has won raves, including a superlative-filled review from emmanuel Rubin in Le Figaro. There, he showcases traditional French dishes like lobster Bellevue and veal Orloff in the grand style of celebrated chefs like Francois Vatel and Auguste escoffier.
He also pays close attention to other details. “I loved working on the table settings at my new restaurants,” he said, adding, “I like working on all of the parts of a restaurant.”
The new Dior restaurant is right across the street from L’Avenue, the brasserie that has long been the canteen of the international fashion crowd. The LVMH executive suite provided a steady stream of diners, too, but their lunch (and dinner) plans seem bound to change.