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The Times, August 3 2019, 12:01am

hen news broke this June that a restaurant in France had been named theworld’s best, the reaction among certain French people was puzzlinglyrestrained. While the world’s foodies went bananas and Mirazur (the

restaurant in question) took 8,000 bookings in 72 hours, the local paper, Nice-Matin,

Meet Mauro Colagreco, the genius behind Mirazur,the world’s best restaurant

When Mirazur on the Côte d’Azur secured top place in the industry’s annualglobal awards, it was the first time a restaurant in France had won. The only fly

in the soup for French foodies? The chef is Argentinian. By Stefanie Marsh

Mauro Colagreco, 42, at his restaurant, Mirazur, in Menton, FranceHEMIS .FR

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MENU tuesday august 6 2019

for example, greeted the announcement with a sceptical headline. “Is Mirazur reallythe best restaurant in the Côte d’Azur?” it queried – the article underneath put forwardLa Vague d’Or in Saint-Tropez as a better choice. Given that this is the first time in theprestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards’ 18-year history that a restaurant inFrance has won, it seems odd that the nation wasn’t celebrating more.

“

ColagrecoMATTEO CARASSALE

Mirazur’s founder-chef is warm and energetic and many other good things besides, butthe one thing he isn’t is French. Mauro Colagreco is Argentinian, born and bred –France’s only non-French three Michelin star chef. Would cheers for his achievement inhis host country have been louder if he, like the head chef of La Vague, was French?

Colagreco is still buoyed by the prize-giving when I meet him in the cool, bright lobbyof Mirazur. In other parts of the restaurant and the five acres of organic gardens thatsurround it, television crews from abroad are trying not to get in the way of chefsscurrying between services in their Crocs and stainless whites.

I was ’the Argentinian’ – ’What is he doing here? He’ll steal our recipes’

An energetic, earthy, cheerful man, at 42 Colagreco has the compact, bullish body of aformer amateur rugby player, which he is, and the mind of what one might describe asa chef-philosopher, with a terror of pesticides and a determination to unleash thecreativity of his sta^ by any means – group yoga and, separately, acting classes were asuccess.

He describes his first, somewhat tough years in France, having come to the country at21, as a university dropout with few language skills: “Some welcomed me, of course.The only reason I got where I am today is because France opened its doors to me. But itwasn’t easy. My first job was in Saulieu, a village of 3,000 people in the middle ofnowhere. I was ‘the Argentinian’ – it was meant pejoratively. ‘What is he doing, thisArgentinian here with us? He’ll steal our recipes. We need to stop him from doing that.’

Well,” he reflects, “that’s what I imagine they were saying. I always had French friends,but there were some people who put barriers in my way.”

Being an optimist who reframes diecult periods in his life as important learningexperiences, he intercepts this trajectory of thought. “The way I’ve overcome life’sobstacles is I worked very hard. I was the first one there in the morning and the last toleave. Everyone worked very hard, but I worked even harder. I knew to keep my headbecause it was a big opportunity for me. So I didn’t fall to pieces because of the firstperson who annoyed me. It wasn’t funny. But I tried to see the wood for the trees.”

Geographically, Mirazur is barely in France. If you continue up the steep road out ofMenton, you can walk across the border into Italy in under three minutes. But therestaurant’s modern floor-to-ceiling windows look squarely onto French territory – theRiviera.

If you’re hoping the world’s best restaurant will cater to the budgets of ordinaryhumans, the truth is a meal here costs 250 euro (£225) a head. Wealthy people will flyinto Nice to dine here, then fly out again to other award-winning restaurants such asGaggan in Bangkok, Central in Lima and, in London, the Clove Club. (The only otherBritish restaurant in the top 50 is Lyle’s, London. Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck fell o^the list years ago.)

The view of the Riviera from Mirazur

Colagreco doesn’t use the word “expensive”. It takes one and a half members of sta^ tocreate every dish – Mirazur has earned him accolades but not a fortune. And here whatyou’re eating is high art, although in a less visually Dada-esque form than, say, El Cellerde Can Roca in Girona, where “the old book essence” listed as one of the ingredients inits pu^ed pastry of butter cookies, cream of Darjeeling tea and lemon madeleine icecream is the shredded page of an actual book. Dishes here have low-impact names –“Pommes de terre”; simply, “Green” – and their aesthetic draws from the bold Mirósculptures in the gardens of the Fondation Maeght and the stained glass windows ofMatisse’s Rosary Chapel in Vence – all the saturated yellows, greens, blues, reds andpinks of the Mediterranean. Naturally, there is foam. Too much, complains a revieweron TripAdvisor. Another reviewer complains that the bowl of cherries picked freshlyfrom the Mirazur garden she was served wasn’t complicated enough.

Colagreco’s career, emotional and intellectual life have been shaped by a series ofsignificant realisations, the first of which was that he hated studying economics.Reluctantly, aged 20, he dropped out of university in Buenos Aires. “I had a crisis. I feltlike a failure. I felt contemptible. A loser.” He corrects himself: “What I thought was a

failure. I had a period of depression. I was lost. I was sad and proud and I didn’t want toask my parents to bail me out financially.”

His father, an accountant, did however provide his son with the emotional support thatset him on his way. “It was diecult to tell my parents, but I was very lucky in that theynever put pressure on me. My father said to me, ‘Listen, if you’re not passionate aboutthis, you’ll never be able to do it. You will find your path.’ He was extraordinary at thatmoment, not that I realised it at the time.”

He doesn’t really know why his next impulse was to ask a friend who ran a restaurantin Buenos Aires for kitchen work. “A week later I enrolled in a cooking school. I’vealways loved cooking. My father, mother, sister, grandmother all cook. But I neverthought of cooking until I was 20, at that restaurant.” This, too, was a life lesson. “Itwas a good lesson in not giving up – because we all have a passion. We all havesomething hidden that will reveal itself, not necessarily from one day to the next, in aflash.”

Salt crusted beetrootLOPEZ DE ZUBIRIA

Pigeon, wild strawberries, spelt, yarrowEDUARDO TORRES

It’s interesting to contrast the arc of Colagreco’s rapid professional ascent from whenhe arrived in France in 2001 with the diminishing reputation of French cuisine at thesame time. The first hammer blow to France’s longstanding gastronomic hegemonycame in 2003 when The New York Times Magazine ran a devastating cover storyalleging that the cuisine that had revolutionised cooking in the Seventies had“congealed into complacency”. Barely a year later, came the second blow, delivered by aveteran Michelin Guide inspector, Pascal Rémy, whose tell-all memoir revealed Galliccultural imperialism at the leading food bible. French chefs such as Alain Ducasse,Rémy said, were regarded as “untouchable” by Michelin sta^ and ratings wereprejudiced towards French cuisine.

Zagat and the recently set-up World’s 50 Best Restaurants exploited the moment tobecome rivals to the Guide Rouge. Soon restaurants in France and French restaurantsoutside France began to disappear from the top ten, replaced by the work of moreprogressive chefs in Spain, Denmark, the US and Asia.

And in the middle of all this, a horrible tragedy. Bernard Loiseau, the world-famousFrench chef, committed suicide, fearing he’d lose one of his three Michelin stars. It wasat Loiseau’s restaurant in Saulieu that Colagreco was working at the time. “Loiseau wasmy boss, my mentor,” he says. “Sometimes you’re put in a position that will go beyondwho you are. And, with Bernard, I think he built a persona around himself and thepersona ate the person. And when everything [he’d worked for] seemed suddenly veryfragile, he fell apart. It was hard for me because I had a very good relationship withhim. He was the person who opened the doors of French cuisine. Even 15 years later, Ihaven’t been able to go back. I think it’s important to stay who we are and try not toshow something we are not. Or to think you always have to be at the top, like he did.”

There are plenty of women in Colagreco’s kitchen – his pastry chef, for example, isfemale – but of those top 50 restaurants, only 5 have women at the helm. It’s apersistently intriguing state of a^airs, given that, traditionally, in the domestic realmthose statistics are reversed. “We [men] can cook at home,” suggests Colagreco (whodoes), “but maybe some of us don’t want to.” There’s more glory being a chef. “Menwant to show o^ their feathers,” he grins. “They’re peacocks.”

Having babies is still a problem for women with professional culinary ambitions.“Unless you have a partner who will look after the children and is supportive, it’sdiecult.”

He attributes his recent success – the two Michelin stars he’s won since he was namedchef of the year in 2009 – to a woman: his wife, Julia, whom he met in 2010. “It was loveat first sight. When I met Julia, I was completely, madly in love with her. She imprintedsomething feminine in my work. It really helped me. She’s my business partner and mywife and she’s my rock.”

He has two children, one from a previous relationship. “The birth of my children wasvery powerful for me. I realised that the first act of love is this mother who is exhaustedby the birth but still has the strength to feed her child. For a chef, it’s profound torealise that feeding someone is the primary act of love.”

Colagreco in Mirazur’s organic kitchen gardenMATTEO CARASSALE

Having children also intensified his worries about modern food production, switchinghim on to the Japanese microbiologist and agriculturist Masanobu Fukuoka, whosework changed Colagreco’s vision. Most of the food at the restaurant now comes directfrom Mirazur’s organic garden. “All the chemicals in food – I’m terrified of pesticides.The way we destroy the earth and the sea and it makes me feel conscious of tomorrowand it is worrying. The e^ect is on our health and on our gut.” He blames weakenvironmental legislation in France. It took the team three months to findbiodegradable gloves for use in their kitchen.

Looking back on his life, “I’m grateful I did all these stupid things when I was young.Drugs. Alcohol. At 13, I was travelling around South America with friends. Those arethings that formed my character.”

Later I scan the French reviews of Mirazur. They’re very positive, but I was surprised tosee it all the way down at No 476 in La Liste, the French food guide launched in 2016 asa response to the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. This year Emmanuel Macron hosted itswinners at the Elysée; four in the top 10 are in France, with Guy Savoy at No 1 and AlainDucasse third.

Of course, the World’s 50 Best is fallible too – its voting system is vulnerable tolobbying. But I can’t help but feel that France’s attitude to food remains determinedlyaloof. Colagreco thinks that’s changing. “It’s true French chefs have a reputation fornavel-gazing, but I think there has been a real regeneration of French cuisine. It ismuch more open, full of people who share, people who travel, on a mission to inject anew freshness.” What a nice symmetry in a future where it’s Colagreco who helpsreinvigorate the gastronomic reputation of a country which, however inadvertently,turned “the Argentinian” into a culinary star.

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CommentsComments ((33))

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C C Mills

I can dream but never a4ord it. I appreciate the kitchengarden. Greece tavernas in the

right place are(?were) pretty good at that.

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F Frobisher

Délices des méfaits!

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F Furious in Tunbridge Wells

#FracturedFrance

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