 |
Alain Coumont (born 4 March 1961) is a Belgian chef and restaurateur, and founder of Le Pain Quotidien. [1]
|
Alain Coumont (born 4 March 1961) is a Belgian chef and restaurateur, and founder of Le Pain Quotidien. [1]
Coumont is the son and grandson of grocers. His grandmother ran a hotel in front of the train station in Huy, Belgium. As a child in Belgium, Coumont spent countless hours perched on a chair, watching his grandmother make bread.
In 1977, after a voyage to the United States, where he was impressed by the success of Michel Guérard, he abandoned his classical studies and enrolled in the Hotel School of Namur in Belgium. After graduating, Coumont worked in several highly regarded restaurants including Michel Guérard (Eugenie Les Bains, France), Georges Blanc (Vonnas, France) and Joël Robuchon (Paris, France).
As a young chef in Brussels, Coumont could not find the right bread for his restaurant. [1] Passionate about quality, he returned to his roots and opened a small bakery where he could knead flour, salt and water into the rustic loaves of his childhood. Coumont opened his bakery in rue Antoine Dansaert in Brussels in 1990, [1] in those days an avant-garde quarter of Belgian fashion. He named his bakery “Le Pain Quotidien.” Brussels quickly took to the taste of this traditional bread. Alain evolved his offering to include simple salads and tartines, keeping bread the cornerstone of the menu. At a local flea market, Coumont found a long table where his guests could sit to eat together; it became Le Pain Quotidien's first communal table.
Success was rapid and Coumont had numerous candidates who wanted to open other Le Pain Quotidien outlets. In the space of a few months, 10 locations opened in Brussels. Coumont then followed his dream to open restaurants in the United States. In 1997, Coumont opened his first store on 1131 Madison Avenue in New York City, which was an instant success. Shortly thereafter, he met a group of Belgian investors who backed his U.S. expansion plans. With this financial support, he opened several locations in New York City and later in Los Angeles. Today the company operates over 260 restaurants in 22 countries, with a workforce of over 5000 employees.
Coumont currently serves as the company's chief creative officer. In this role, he is the driving force behind the brand's dedication to organic ingredients. Coumont spends most of this time traveling to support the concept throughout the world.
Coumont is also the co-founder of BioGhetto.com, and partnering with natural wine maker Philippe Formentin. The company produces a line of Natural organic wines with no added sulfites, Under the "Opi D'Aqui" estate Labels. The small production 18,000 bottles is exported on four continents. Specially in Natural wine stores & Bar, and numerous Michelin [2] Star restaurants. Alain Coumont share his time between New York City and his farm/organic food research and training center in the Languedoc region in the south of France
Alain Coumont also created Le Botaniste, a plant-based fast casual restaurant concept and natural wine bar, 100% organic and 100% botanical (vegan), and gluten free; the first restaurant opened in Ghent, Belgium in September 2015. A second restaurant opened in New York City in January 2016. With the success of the two first locations, the company decided to expand so a third opened at 127 Grand street in New York City in November 2017, a fourth in August 2018 in Brussels, Belgium in the EU Schuman area. The company aims to have 10 restaurants by mid 2020.
Alain is also a cookbook writer, with Minceur Exquise (1990), Cook & Book, Le Pain Quotidien cookbook, Le Pain Quotidien recettes originales.
Thomas Aloysius Keller is an American chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He and his landmark Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry in Yountville, California, have won multiple awards from the James Beard Foundation, notably the Best California Chef in 1996, and the Best Chef in America in 1997. The restaurant was a perennial winner in the annual Restaurant list of the Top 50 Restaurants of the World; the voting process has since been changed to disallow previous winners from being considered.
Nouvelle cuisine is an approach to cooking and food presentation in French cuisine. In contrast to cuisine classique, an older form of haute cuisine, nouvelle cuisine is characterized by lighter, more delicate dishes and an increased emphasis on presentation. It was popularized in the 1960s by the food critic Henri Gault, who invented the phrase, and his colleagues André Gayot and Christian Millau in a new restaurant guide, the Gault-Millau, or Le Nouveau Guide.
Alain Ducasse is a French-born Monégasque chef. He operates a number of restaurants including Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester which holds three stars in the Michelin Guide.
Alain Passard is a French chef and owner of the three Michelin star restaurant L'Arpège in Paris.
Starr Restaurants, stylized as STARR Restaurants, is a restaurant group headed by founder and CEO Stephen Starr, with restaurants in Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., South Florida, and Paris, France.
Le Pain Quotidien is an international chain of bakery-restaurants. It sells baked goods, bread, salads, sandwiches, beverages, and tartines.
Confit byaldi is a variation on the traditional French dish ratatouille by the French chef Michel Guérard.
Cuisine minceur is a style of cooking created by French chef Michel Guérard, which recreated lighter versions of traditional nouvelle cuisine dishes. Contemporary critics acknowledged that the minceur versions by Guérard tasted better and were less filling than their nouvelle cuisine originals.
Laurent Gras is a French-born chef currently living and working in the United States.
Alain Chapel was a French chef, credited with being one of the originators of Nouvelle Cuisine. He earned three Michelin stars.
Michel Robert-Guérard, known as Michel Guérard, was a French chef, author, one of the founders of nouvelle cuisine and the inventor of cuisine minceur.
Pascal Rigo is a French Restaurateur who owns a small "empire" of boulangeries, restaurants, and wholesale and retail bakeries in San Francisco and Mill Valley, California, that operate as La Boulangerie de San Francisco, Bay Bread, La Boulange, and (formerly) Cortez, Chez Nous, Gallette, and others.
Troisgros is a French restaurant and hotel with a primary location in Ouches and additional affiliated restaurants in Roanne and Iguerande, in France.
Le Louis XV - Alain Ducasse à l'Hôtel de Paris is a French restaurant in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Run by the chef Alain Ducasse, it holds three Michelin stars. It has appeared in lists of the world's top restaurants.
Jean-Michel Diot is a French chef and restaurateur at Tapenade Restaurant. Chef Diot has received high recognition such as Best Chef in America and America's Finest Restaurant while holding his first French bistro creation in America, Park Bistro, and has received recognition as the Exemplary Achievement in the Culinary Art by Gault Millau.
Erez Komarovsky is an Israeli chef, baker, educator, and author. In the 1990s he founded the Lehem Erez bakery and café chain, and he is considered the initiator of artisanal bread-making in Israel. Since 2007 he has led a cooking school in his home in Mitzpe Mattat in the Upper Galilee. He has authored several cookbooks.
Arnaud Donckele is a French chef. He currently runs two Michelin 3-star restaurants, La Vague d'Or at Cheval Blanc St-Tropez and "Plénitude" at Cheval Blanc Paris. His Saint-Tropez restaurant was awarded 3 Michelin stars in 2013, his Parisian restaurant in 2022.
Gontran Cherrier is a French baker and pastry chef, a cookbook author, a TV presenter and an entrepreneur born on 11 November 1978 in Luc-sur-Mer (Calvados), France.
Peter Goossens, is a Belgian chef, Michelin-starred for his restaurant Hof van Cleve. He is known as the "Godfather of Belgian Gastronomy".