The secrets of Amandine Chaignot’s heart of leek



A heart of leek baked in the oven to retain all the flavor. Amandine Chaignot will demonstrate to
Taste of Paris, the culinary festival which celebrates its sixth edition on Thursday at the ephemeral Grand Palais on the Champ de Mars (Paris 7th). On arrival, we obtain a nice bowl with smoked bacon, in bacon and in a whipped cream, to accompany the most tender part of a leek which has cooked with its leaves, for half an hour in the oven at 180 ° C.

” I really like the leek, explains the chef. It is a slightly unloved vegetable whereas frankly, it is super good, it just has to be fresh, that it has not spent two days in a cold room, but the leek is hot! I also love smoked bacon, so having it “grilled” on one side and infused with cream on the other… “, Amandine Chaignot salivates before tasting it.

A new restaurant in the heart of Montmartre

This dish, she does not yet offer it on the Cafe de Luce, the new address that Amandine Chaignot, who lives nearby, has just opened on Place Charles Dullin, in the heart of Montmartre. “But it will come”, reassures the one who still serves, on the terrace, pretty tartares covered with flowers and sublime starters to share: egg mayo, smoked herrings, frogs’ legs, calf’s head … This is the second address of Amandine after
Filly, which resumes after having served, for a time, groceries, during confinement.

“The health crisis was still violent,” recalls Amandine Chaignot. When we tell you at 8 p.m. that you have to close your business at midnight, how do you manage everything on your own, to manage with your staff, with your clients, with your drug and the economy of your business. What a shock for the whole profession! Then, me, I tend to look in front of me and then rather quickly to find ideas to continue to advance… ”We were thus able to appreciate his “Tutorials for friends” on YouTube, recipes filmed on demand, before transforming his restaurant Pouliche into a grocery store. “I moved the chairs and tables, I turned over crates and sold leeks, I was surprised, but it worked pretty well by maintaining social ties in the neighborhood. “

Now is the back-to-school time for Amandine Chaignot, with this new Café de Luce and this Taste of Paris festival which begins Thursday evening. “For me, who am a regular,” she said, “it’s a bit of a meeting place for friends, an opportunity to meet up, to chat, to have a drink, to hear from us, all that… And then to meet foodistas, to party, to celebrate food, especially after the year we have just passed… ”

Being a female chef at “Taste of Paris”

The event planner, Mathilde Delville, intends to highlight female chefs, especially those, like Amandine Chaignot, who have been able to reinvent themselves after confinement and create new offers. We take the opportunity to ask him the importance in his eyes of having so many guest chefs this year at Taste of Paris.

“It’s true that women in the kitchen are a little more visible, but not yet enough,” she says. During confinement, it drove me crazy: all the round tables with chefs and restaurateurs, there was not a chick. You say to yourself OK, the representation, it is still not very diverse. And I am talking about women, but I could also talk about blacks, Asians, gays … Finally there is a real problem of representation of the diversity of minorities in restaurants, that is extremely clear. Here it is… so this year, Mathilde Delville particularly wanted to put the girls forward and me, that makes me happy! “



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