Refettorio Paris, the new taste of solidarity

At Refettorio Paris, a solidarity-based and anti-waste gastronomic restaurant, the cuisine has two heads: Blandine Paris and Marine Beulaigue. Interview with the two chefs who bring this innovative concept.

Refettorio was born in the wake of Food for Soul, the association founded by the three-star Michelin chef Massimo Bottura and his wife Lara Gilmore, to fight against food waste through social inclusion (first Refettorio in Milan in 2015). The Parisian address — housed in the Foyer de la Madeleine — reinvents a five-course menu every evening from products saved from waste. Here, the page is still blank at 3 p.m.: we open the fridges, we improvise, we frame, and at 6:30 p.m., the "guests" sit down. Customers, in a situation of exclusion and precariousness, visit the place for a year and a half: first every week for a semester, then twenty times over the next twelve months.

Two different trajectories for a common outlook

Blandine Paris is embarking on a CAP in cooking to better understand the problems of the chefs with whom she developed recipes when she was working at Elle & Vire. The cooking bug eventually got the better of her: after almost three years with chef Beatriz Gonzalez at her Parisian addresses Coretta and Neva, she joined Adeline Grattard, from the gastronomic restaurant Yam'Tcha*, for a year. In 2022, she joined the Refettorio Paris and took over the management of the kitchen a few months later, after the departure of the current chef.

Marine Beulaigue changed her life in 2020. A graduate of Sciences Po Bordeaux, she enjoyed human resources but took advantage of the lockdown to test herself in the kitchen — which would become her profession. Like Blandine, she discovered the Refettorio as a volunteer and, with the desire to give meaning to her new profession (after experiences at the luxury hotel Molitor and the restaurant Anona* of the former Top Chef candidate  Thibaut Spiwack), she joined the Refettorio. "I never really left," she smiles. From volunteer to second in January 2023, and now co-chef.

Soft management and music in full service

For about 85 covers per evening, a team of three permanent employees in the kitchen (Blandine, Marine and Ibrahima) and two in the dining room (Margaux and Roxane), accompanied by a number of loyal volunteers who return one fixed day a week. The atmosphere? A closed kitchen... so the enclosures were open at the time of the shot. "We even organised a blind test during the service," says Blandine. The golden rule: zero physical and psychological violence, so as not to reproduce practices that are still too common in haute cuisine, 100% focused on education. "In gastro, we hear too often: 'You're not paid to think.' Here, we listen; and if we are in a hurry, we will listen after the service. A volunteer made a mistake? It doesn't matter: I show him again, where we find another solution in case of lack of time. It's never against the volunteer," explains Marine Beulaigue. The meal starts early, it also ends early: end of the feast at 8:30 p.m.; The volunteers leave around 9 p.m., an hour later for the co-chefs, sometimes later when the usable leftovers allow the preparation of a meal shared between the team and the volunteers.

The daily challenge: creating with the unknown

The ingredients arrive in the morning (Food Bank twice a week, donations from partners). At 3 p.m., the two co-chefs and the volunteers in the kitchen discover the situation. "Sometimes 20 kg of tomatoes, a little potatoes, three shallots... no grass," says Blandine. However, you have to take out the appetizer, starter, main course, dessert, sweets. Hence a return to simplicity, "pimped" with clever touches: tomato salad, crumble and omija (Korean syrup) vinaigrette; chocolate mendiants from the day before recycled into shortbread for sweets; custard with grilled seaweed when whole boxes fall...

But one of the dishes that diners like the most is the roast chicken and its beautiful buttery mash — the Refettorio receives a significant amount of poultry. The duo's niche is as follows: surprising starter, comfort food, gourmet dessert. Chefs invited twice a week — including Michelin-starred chefs Eugénie Béziat (Hôtel Ritz Paris), Manon Fleury (Datil*, Paris), Hélène Darroze — also take part in it. Many admit to experiencing "one of the most demanding services", harder than a Top Chef test  according to some former candidates of the show.

Solidarity: the room as much as the plate

The Refettorio welcomes a public in a situation of exclusion or precariousness, accompanied over the long term. In the evening, the female duo always goes to the dining room once the desserts are served. "It gives meaning to what we do, and to the volunteers too," says Marine Beulaigue. The feedback is frank, "super nutritious" according to them, and loyalty creates bonds: we recognize each other, we talk freely about the less appreciated dishes. This frankness also applies to the kitchen, where everyone is on a first-name basis, which is rare in a brigade that follows a very precise structure. The "tu" applies to everyone, even to the legend of French gastronomy Michel Bras.

Half of Blandine and Marine's time is played out of the kitchen, via monthly partnerships with museums and other Parisian theaters. In the afternoon, guests visit a place (Fondation Louis-Vuitton, Musée du Quai-Branly, Bourse de Commerce, etc.) and then in the evening find a menu echoing the exhibition — always with the constraint of knowing the raw materials only at the last moment. There are also evenings mixing chefs and producers, the former cooking the work of the latter. Fruits, vegetables and other farm products are presented raw to guests, who discover, for example, a kohlrabi and its "magnificent stems".

Hundreds of external chefs have passed through the Refettorio: Marine dreams that Alexandre Mazzia (AM*** in Marseille) will be part of it. Blandine would love it if the entire Roellinger family cooked. Invitations are issued.