Cyril Lignac, bespoke comfort

Gastronomy

During the day, he offers cakes and chocolates to the attendants. In the evening he shares his recipes on M6 so that we can reconnect with the homemade ones. Encounter with a phenomenon.

The white-blue packages, pastries inside and smiles on the faces. Cyril Lignac was one of the first chefs to offer his cakes to the nurses who were mobilized against the epidemic. In a few days, at Easter, he will deliver 500 boxes of chocolate eggs to the hospitals of Paris. “Small attentions are encouraging. My mother was a nurse, my sister is a nurse, she is on the front line. I know the strength, courage and resilience of the people who do this work.”, trusts the boss.

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To narrow down, he chose his Paris apartment. “You’re never better than at home!” He closed his restaurants, but not his stove. ‘I don’t watch the news anymore because it’s scaryExplain. I am not sick, I have no right to complain. Even in terrible times, there are opportunities for positive reflection. There will be a before-and-after detention. We question ourselves, we ask ourselves. When I had my scooter accident in 2016, I was bedridden for 45 days. I realized that I had to accept that I wouldn’t control everything anymore. If I had been told “slow,” I wouldn’t have listened.”

He is not lonely, but sometimes contemplative: “I can sit for two hours and look at the horizon and think.” Hyperactive on social networks, on the other hand followed by 1.3 million followers on Instagram He posted a live video of a cookie recipe from the early days of captivity. The idea was successful and a few days later he started the show Everything in the kitchen On M6.

“Cooking is form, background is fun. I want to bring joy. I discover the pleasure of preparing simple dishes without equipment and without brigade. It’s been ten years since I made a calf bloquette! I take a crazy pleasure because this program is me, it’s not the chef who speaks. I come back to my roots. Good food is not reserved for the rich, it was born in the countryside, it is that of mothers. Mine had nothing but his dishes had everything, remembers the child of Aveyron. Our society wants more and more… A water-cooked asparagus with a drizzle of olive oil and a little Fleur de Sel, for example, is excellent and there is nothing to add! »

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For this show, this enthusiast, who always has a head start, has exceptionally opened his “cocoon” to the audience: his kitchen, spacious and modern. A state-of-the-art hood and a chain of knives. “If you miss something, I’ll give you alternatives”, he reassures. To be inspired, he draws from his cupboards and childhood memories. He goes shopping every three days and buys only fresh from craftsmen, fruits and vegetables from small producers. “This containment must lead us to think about our lifestyle, our ecology, our diet. We have everything, the excellence of the products, and yet we buy on the other side of the world”, the boss notes.

This year it just released Stories of taste in which he tells the recipes of his childhood. “40 is the age at which you lose a little lightness, you have to figure out what counts. I notice that time is fast. Today my mother is gone. A son and a mother are an alchemy. It’s been my whole life. My mother passed on kindness, sharing and simplicity to me.”Cyril says. In his dishes he never deviated from his values: the green of the landscape, the rhythm of the flowers, the products of the farm. “Sunday was a day of celebration. My mother cooked a duck and we scratched the frying pan.” In a few months Cyril will leave the flavors of the southwest for those of Italy. He will open a restaurant in the capital called ischia, ischia, in the Gulf of Naples.

Cyril loves travel, adventure, meeting people to enjoy the stories and tastes of other countries. In 2016, he was inspired by Japan with the Bar des Prés in Paris. Ischia will open in place of its restaurant Le Quin, which earned its first star in 2012. “I had reached the end of the story. I gave my star back. Maybe one day I’ll be back… » Even today, so strict, he has not forgotten that he has promised to land the stars of his dreams. “A few months ago, my sister found a birthday card that I had written to my mother when I had just entered the hotel school. I had written on the back: “Mom, I’m going to revolutionize French gastronomy and I’m going to be the chef of the year 2000.”  »

When I started with the TV, everyone was screaming scandal.

From his youth, he exercised audacity. Before he was boss, he wanted to be a firefighter. “My mother, who worked in the ER, discouraged me and when I told my parents that I wanted to be a chef, she cried with joy.”He remembers. Cyril shook up the family codes by moving to Paris at the age of 22 after earning a CAP while cooking and baking. “Paris was my America.” He learned from Alain Passard and Pierre Hermé to climb the ladder without forbidding anything. At the age of 27, he cultivated the difference when he M6. “Television didn’t fit in the middle of where I came from. I was shy and reserved, but I took care of myself. My job is to cook. When the TV stops, my life will continue with my restaurants””” says Cyril.

In his early days, he was sometimes criticized for being known before he had proven himself. “When I started watching TV, everyone was screaming, but fifteen years later we realize that these shows have brought a lot to the world of gastronomy. It opened doors, changed our habits, promoted vocations. If I can give young people the taste to go to the kitchen, I’m happy.’Explain. What will happen in ten years’ time? ‘I can’t project myself, life has always had more imagination than me. I’m very lucky, I’m moving forward, I’m taking the opportunities, I’m wrong and I’m doing it again! »

Read: “Seasons,” ed. “Stories of Taste,” with Elvire of Bardeleben, Ed. Robert Laffont.