A conversation with
Alexandre Marchon
For the 5th edition of By Charlot Magazine, we visited the Marchon restaurant. Opened last September by chef Alexandre Marchon, and almost immediately closed due to the pandemic, it's a promising venue with bold design and decor.
Hello Alexandre, can you tell us about yourself and your background?
I have a somewhat atypical career path as a chef because I changed careers eight years ago. I was a project manager in an advertising agency and I dropped everything to become a chef. The call of cooking was stronger than me. I had plenty of options open to me: getting my vocational certificate (CAP), doing internships in restaurants. But I decided to dive right in, to see if I was cut out for it. In the early years, I first launched a home chef service, which did quite well. That's how I trained. I bought lots of cookbooks and taught myself; I'm completely self-taught. I knew that my journey as a private chef was just a stepping stone to move on to more academic cooking in the restaurant industry, so I started by accepting a position as a chef in a restaurant, then other increasingly larger projects emerged, such as Pansoul three years ago, which was my first pop-up restaurant. The following year, I participated in the opening of Polichinelle with Christophe Michalak. And then last year, I opened my first address, called Marchon .
Let me go back a little: who instilled this love of gastronomy in you? Do you have any childhood memories of good food?
It's not a particular person. What made me want to cook was the memory of family meals. When I saw, for example, my aunt bring a leg of lamb to a large table on Sunday at lunchtime, and everyone's eyes lit up, subconsciously I said to myself "Hey, I can make people happy by doing this." So beyond cooking, it's the moments of sharing, the moments at the table that are very dear to me. And then, let's admit it, it's above all my greed that gave me the taste for cooking.
« Beyond cooking, it is the moments of sharing, the moments at the table that are very dear to me. »
You said you were self-taught. How did you gain experience? By working with chefs?
No, I never really worked for other chefs; I never went through the traditional process. I really learned to cook on my own. I didn't go to school; I learned by doing. I learned the flavor combinations by getting my hands dirty, while I learned the technique from books.
For this magnificent restaurant, you surrounded yourself with a team of architects and interior designers?
Yes, I called on Akira Studio, the architectural firm of a very good friend, Roman. He is very talented, I really like what he does, so I really wanted to collaborate with him. We worked hand in hand to design this place, both on the layout of the restaurant and on the interior design. My brief was to make a restaurant that was unlike any other, that was timeless, I didn't want it to be a "modern" place, like the jungle atmospheres we see a lot at the moment. I wanted it to be a place with character, that you would recognize at first glance. The idea was above all to bring material in addition to color, I found that much warmer. So we worked with materials like terrazzo or zellige, and with great French craftsmen, notably Romain Lefort who created this terracotta-colored wall covering that is the restaurant's signature.
What's also beautiful is the light that comes in, the wood, it's super warm, you feel good there. Did you have trouble finding the place?
Thank you! No, not at all. As soon as I visited it, it was obvious to me, I knew it was the place. I was looking in the Belleville district, I wanted a corner restaurant, very bright, with a large surface area, a terrace and a kitchen on the ground floor. Before, it didn't look like that at all, and I really wanted to find a place that I could make my own, in which I could do some work...
You have always been sensitive to decoration, is it important to you?
Yes, interior design and architecture are very important to me. I also have an apartment that was unlike anything else, and for which, again, I worked with Roman to redesign the space, in a completely different spirit.
You opened MARCHON last September, in the midst of a pandemic. But you've managed to bounce back from the challenges by staying creative, with Sunday chicken and takeout sales. How are you staying the course?
It's true that we were only able to open the restaurant doors as we had planned for a month and a half. Then we had the 9 p.m. curfew, the lockdown, the 6 p.m. curfew, and then the lockdown again... So each time we had to adapt. I'm not lucky enough to have been here for years and to have an established clientele, so it's important that I stay open, and that I continue to create connections with the people in the neighborhood, the neighbors. And then for my teams and for me it was important to continue working. So we first reinvented ourselves as a grocery store, we continued the Click & Collect, the Sunday chicken, and for 2021 I simplified the formula a little with 2 starters 2 dishes to take away.
You chose By Charlot plants for the restaurant: La Talentueuse, Le Voyageur, as well as a candle. Was it the pots that appealed to you or the plants themselves? Is it important for you to have plants in a restaurant?
Yes, for me it's essential to have some. In fact, you can see, they're taking the light everywhere. The choice of plants in a restaurant is for me as essential as the choice of materials. I've always had them, here or at home. I think they give character to a place. And as for the By Charlot plants that I chose, it's not so much for their name, what I like is mainly being able to choose the pot and the plant separately, and to find the right combo between the two. As for the plants, I thought they went well with the restaurant's atmosphere, and I took pots with a pretty material like the one from La Talentueuse which reminds me of the terrazzo we chose for the bar.
« The choice of plants in a restaurant is for me as essential as the choice of materials (...) the Talented reminds me of the terrazzo that we chose for the bar. »
If I asked you to prepare a dish for us with the ingredients that match your mood of the day, what would you serve us?
Spring means asparagus! The first ones have just arrived, so I'll cook you some green asparagus with wild garlic... and an egg cooked in rice vinegar! The asparagus will be sautéed in olive oil, deglazed with sake, with an egg yolk, a little Parmesan, and a little wild garlic condiment.
Who are your producers, where do you source your vegetables?
I only choose organic or sustainably farmed French fruits and vegetables. I'm not in favor of ultra-local products; I think focusing on French products is already very good. We have such a variety in France that it's extremely rich, there's plenty to choose from. In Paris, if I only wanted to do ultra-local products, I wouldn't be able to cook seafood, for example... I have several suppliers who deliver to me, depending on the products I'm looking for. I work a lot with seasonal vegetables, with a little bit of meat or fish to balance the plate.
Can you give me three small or big joys in your daily life?
The greatest joy of my daily life outside of Covid is the moments at the table. That's what I cherish the most. Whether it's the moments at the table that I participate in, or those that my customers experience at my home. Here we have a large round table, which is called La Maf in a nod to a friend, and when I see it filled with very good friends, whether I'm in the kitchen or with them at the table, it's the greatest joy that life can offer me. I stick to very professional things because when you work in the restaurant business, that's all you do, but I also really like the half hour just before service. Once the set-up is complete, just before the customers arrive, when I have lunch or dinner with my team. We chat, we take a break that's often too short, but it's a very pleasant moment. Finally, I would add all the time spent with family, especially with my two nieces. My brother has two and a half year old twin girls who I love very much and love spending time with.
