How divine to visit the French Riviera. How wonderful to visit, have a spa treatment, and dine at a stunning hotel, the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. It’s a delightful cherry on top to conduct an interview with the chef! Lucky Irvina Lew, she got to experience all of that. Enjoy this Q & A with a chef on the French Riviera. She came away with tips we can all use and insight into the life of a chef.

The terraces of the Eden Roc hotel on the French Riviera. Photo courtesy Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

Interview with a Chef: Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc

Meet Olivier Gaïatto, Chef du Restaurant Eden-Roc

The fabled Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc is situated on a 22-acre park perched high on Cap d’Antibes, an exclusive peninsula jutting into the Mediterranean Sea, between Nice and Cannes. Even the name, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, conjures visions of a favored paradise among the world’s most privileged. The clientele includes 46% Americans, particularly during the crowd-drawing festivals in Cannes.

The 118-room Napoleon III-style palace hotel has dominated the site since the 1870s. From there, “La Grande Allée,” a walking path, leads guests under pine trees to a waterfront pavilion that includes some seaside accommodations, the extraordinary infinity seawater pool hollowed out of basalt rocks, a series of circus-like trapezes hanging high above the sea, a dock for watercraft to transport guests to their yachts, to water sports or to nearby destinations. A separate drive reaches it and the elegant private entrance—complete with valets and doormen—to two seafront restaurants. Eden-Roc Grill is the sophisticated poolside restaurant, where I lunched on the terrace last May, 2018 with my youngest daughter, Jen, and Eden-Roc, the gastronomic restaurant, where I lunched for the first time this past August after an interview with Olivier Gaïatto, Chef du Restaurant.

The Nice-born cuisinier has spent his entire career in regional Riviera restaurants and has always been dedicated to using local products. In fact, his father had told him when he first announced his decision to be a cook: “Olivier, you have to give priority to product, always.” Gaïatto continued to climb the ladder of success from commis de cuisine (apprentice), to chef de partie, to chef. In 2000, longtime Executive Head Chef, Arnaud Poëtte, invited him to join the team at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, and in 2014, he was named Chef du Restaurant Eden-Roc. In 2019, Michelin noted the restaurant with its new worldwide designation: The Michelin Plate for “Exceptional Standard. Our best addresses.”

Between our conversation in French, which took place in the formal salon outside the restaurant, and lunch, Chef introduced me to his équipe (team), in the kitchen: “Nous sommes famille” (“We’re like a family”), he assured me. He explained that to enhance taste, he uses layers of individual flavors in his dishes; for example, carrots simmer in carrot water…and whiskey. The huge pot of tomato sauce incorporated tomatoes from the on-site and sustainable potager (herb and vegetable garden) and the chef’s version of a bouquet garni. Instead of using cheesecloth, which has no flavor, his staff rolls the small herbs—thyme, bay leaf, peppercorns—within long leek leaves and ties them. Nearby, a young commis strained the jus from an enormous pot of beef bones, which had cooked for hours, for use as a base for the day’s sauces.

Everything in this kitchen is made in house, “je n’achète rien de l’extérieur,” (I buy nothing from the outside) Chef announced in the Pastry Kitchen. That includes all the croissants, pastries, breads; plus all the chocolates, cakes and tartes made under the direction of Chef Patissier Lilian Bonnefoi.

Chef Olivier Gaiatto and writer Irvina Lew. 

What follows is my translation of chef’s answers to my questions.

Q: When did you decide that you wanted to please people by preparing food for them?

A: I knew by the age of ten that I wanted to cook. My grandmother cooked every day, in Nice; I loved the Provençal food that she made and the time sitting around the table eating together.

The restaurant terrace and view from the Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Photo courtesy Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc.

Q: What food item from your childhood experiences do you keep on the menu?

 A: Soupe de pistou, a typical Niçoise dish.

(I asked chef if I could sample some, and he sent me a bowl under a glass cloche. It was a delicate and delicious, minestrone-like broth, filled with teeny chickpeas, beans, carrots celery, garlic with baby basil leaves and vermicelli.)

Q: What chef most inspired you?

A: Alain Ducasse. Before I came to Eden-Roc, I did four stages (two-week work experiences in the kitchens of great chefs) at Ducasse restaurants. His discipline, attention to detail, and his dedication to using perfect ingredients and guarding the purity of each flavor impressed me from the start.

Q: Where do you source the fine ingredients?  

A: Arnaud Poëtte, my mentor, who has been the Executive Chef the hotel for decades, has long- standing relationships with the best sources regionally; then, we purchase langoustine, lobster and Bordier butter from Brittany and import wild salmon from Scotland.

Q: Did you know when the Michelin Guide inspectors were here for their evaluations?

 A: I had no idea and no one else in the house knew. It’s better that way. Two people came one day, and one on the next. After eating, he presented himself from Michelin. If we had known beforehand, everyone would have behaved differently.

Q: When you cook fish on top of garden herbs, which ones do you use?

A: We use freshly-picked: rosemary, lemon thyme and sariette (savory).

Q: You speak of the perfect temperature for grilled or poached fish, what is that? 

A:  I cook fish to 55 degrees Centigrade, (131 degrees Fahrenheit).

Q: When you serve fleurs de courgettes (zucchini flowers), what do you stuff them with?  

A: I stuff them with a caponata “the way we like it in Nice,” cooking juice, taggiasches olives, “cebette” onions on the grill.

Q: What is your motto in the kitchen?

A: “Excellence.”

Langoustines at Eden Roc. Photo by Jen Lew.

Excellent was the best way to describe the lunch that followed. We chose various appetizer items from the extravagant, four-sided, wedding-worthy buffet including Gillardeau oysters and the homemade Pâté en croute; I loved the garden-fresh vegetables: tomato and pepper farci (stuffed tomatoes and peppers), salads, fresh burrata with red, purple, yellow tomato segments and basil.

There was simply too much to try at one meal: house made smoked salmon, Culatta ham, a whole fish of the day. And, the pasta chef was preparing dishes to order! After sampling the buffet selections, tasting the soupe de pistou and stuffed zucchini flowers, plus sharing a platter of langoustines, I postponed my raspberry tarte dessert until after my spa service in the private Bamford cabana at Spa Eden-Roc.

— Story by Irvina Lew

Hungry for more? Read about Irvina’s other travels in France, to Burgundy and the Champagne region.

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