He was crowned by “Best Chef in the World” as The Best Chef in the World for 2019. It is Arnaud Donckele, the 35-year-old guy who has earned as many as three Michelin stars, making him the world’s youngest chef to be honored with the maximum number of stars.
Originally from France, he works as chef and manager of the Famous Restaurant La Vague d’Or in Saint-Tropez at the Cheval-blanc Hotel. Born in Rouen, after an initial training at the Gourmand Prunier in Paris, he was the student of chefs of the calibre of Michel Guérard and Alan Ducasse, he later worked with the famous chef Jean-Louis Nomicos.
His passion for cooking gives those lucky enough to enjoy his dishes, new and original flavors, he describes his work as “a rustic journey through the Mediterranean” inspired by the very area where the restaurant Saint-Tropez and Provence is located. Tasty and ingenious dishes, a mix of flavors that collects the essence of good food and Mediterranean cuisine, in the restaurant managed by him you can choose from three tasting menus. One of these is called “The walk in the gardens“, thanks to which vegetarian guests can taste five dishes of haute cuisine with products collected from the garden of the restaurant, directly from the producer to the consumer.
Well-known is the huge attention that chef Dounckele has for ingredients and food quality, which must be genuine and seasonal. Not only good food at the Vague d’Or the attention to detail is at home, a beautiful location by the sea elegant and fine, class and style associated with good food make it one of the places to visit at least once in a lifetime.
What makes Arnaud Dounckele’s cuisine unique and special is his professional experience, which has allowed him to work alongside and capture the secrets of his famous master chefs, his innate ability and talent to work in a personal and refined way in the culinary field. That ability to combine ingredients from different territories, textbook cooking, fried food with an all-Japanese intangibility, sauces pulled without indulging in excessive fatness, nuances dosed with the balance define a picture of absolute top level.
In Donckele’s kitchen, the sauces are so light that they don’t affect the taste at all, proportions are impeccable, not to mention the perfectly “al dente” cooking of macaroni, a clear homage to Jean-Louis Nomicos but one that is clearly linked to the teachings of Michel Guèrard’s cuisine minceur. This has allowed the famous chef to be appreciated and known all over the world for his culinary art with simple and never predictable tastes. With a passion for his region, imagine a gourmet cuisine inspired by the flavours of Provence.
A true artisan of taste, Arnaud Donckele carves the ingredients to extract their true essence, his dishes are an invitation to a magical journey between land and sea. He himself said that his cuisine is above all Mediterranean cuisine. It is a pastoral journey that leads through Provence, flirting with subtle flavors of vegetables, sunshine and aromatic richness of regional herbs. A taste journey you cannot miss.
by Stefania Abbruzzo