Thierry Marx, un chef étoilé, innovant en cuisine et engagé socialement

Media star chef Thierry Marx, elected on Thursday to head Umih, the main employers’ union in the hotel and catering industry, is a connoisseur of Japan, a fan of martial arts and known for both his innovative cuisine and for his kitchen. social commitments.

The “malicious alchemist” of the Parisian palace Mandarin Oriental (2 Michelin stars) for 11 years, according to the famous culinary guide, he “works the material like a meticulous jeweler” of the restaurant “Sur Mesure”, with the decor “of an immaculate white and cinematic – one hesitates between A Clockwork Orange and Welcome to Gattaca”.

On Thursday, the shaven-headed, green-eyed 63-year-old chef, widely known for his role as a tough but kind judge on the cooking show “Topchef” for five years, was overwhelmingly elected president of Umih for a four-year term.

One more commitment for a chef who has been concerned for 20 years with the social and environmental impact of his activities, who employs 20% of the people in the integration, tries to reduce the carbon impact (distribution, optimized waste management, water, energy, etc. in its dishes and protects the label Bleu-Blanc-Cœur “to eat well”.

Sometimes criticized for his partnerships with big brands or retailers like Lustucru or Intermarché, within Bleu-Blanc-Cœur, he wants to “gobble up market share in junk food” to “reconquer popular audiences”, he said recently in an interview with Le. Monde.

“In Italy, in Spain, in Portugal, there is still an accessible cuisine, linked to local, rural agriculture. In France we lost it”, added Thierry Marks, for whom “food is a political war”.

This soft-spoken ex-soldier with a black belt in karate does not forget his childhood in the popular Ménilmontant neighborhood in eastern Paris. He learned the trade of pastry chef with Compagnons du Devoir before training at internationally renowned restaurants such as Ledoyen, Taillevent or Robuchon.

Space gastronomy

Today he transmits his knowledge to his ten “Cuisine mode d’emploi(s)” schools, reintegration and training centers for catering professions. The latter show a 90% return to work for the 4,000 people trained, who too often “believed they were assigned to precariousness or failure,” he told AFP in September 2018.

Since 2005, he has also worked in detention centers where he gives cooking lessons to detainees.

A great traveler, a connoisseur of the Japanese art of living and its gastronomy, a fan of judo, whose events commented on the Tokyo Olympics, Thierry Marx asserted in June, when he took over the kitchens of the Eiffel Tower bar , no longer “. knowing without Paris” after having lived in New York, Tokyo or Hong Kong.

At “Madame Brasserie”, he serves seasonal products, from “reasonable” agriculture, supplied mainly in a short circuit – less than 200 km – by local producers and food artisans, for some members of the “Guilde artisans of the Eiffel Tower”. created to highlight the Ile-de-France region.

Offering cuisine with avant-garde flavors, Thierry Marx aims to reconcile tradition and innovation. He was one of the leaders in molecular cuisine and is continuing his experiments in this gastronomy at the Paris-Saclay Culinary Innovation Center.

At the request of the European Space Agency and Thomas Pesquet, he created with Raphaël Haumont, in 2017, a gastronomic menu enjoyed on board the International Space Station by the French astronaut and his crew.

A tireless entrepreneur, he is the head of the bakery, the first of which opened in 2016, the same year as his first venture in Japan in Ginza, Tokyo’s trendy neighborhood.

He has just signed off on the new TGV bar menu – a hyperactivity that some competitors in the race for Umih have criticized, questioning his ability to free up time to look after the union.

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Chef Thierry Marx poses on March 7, 2022 in Paris
• JOEL SAGGETS

Star chef Thierry Marx, on June 15, 2022, in the kitchen of his latest restaurant, Madame Brasserie, on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
• Emmanuel DUNAND