The chef at Pouliche (Paris, France), Amandine Chaignot’s simple, spontaneous, sincere cooking with a special focus on the world of vegetables have made her one of the most interesting contemporary chefs in France. Trained under Alain Ducasse, Jean-Francois Piège, Yannick Alléno or Éric Frechon, who passed on to her the passion and sensibility that you can feel in her recipes, the chef confesses that she prefers small teams.

Amandine Chaignot has run groups of up to 120 people during her career in the hospitality sector, but now, she confesses that she prefers small groups, with which she can create a positive atmosphere. This was the idea she had when she opened Pouliche (Paris, France) where she displays a simple, spontaneous, sincere cooking style with a clear focus on vegetables. “We don’t reject meat and fish, but we only use them as side dishes”, she specified. 

“Pouliche was created with the idea of being an urban inn with a really friendly atmosphere, where the world of vegetables is fundamental. When we studied the impact of food on the environment we realised that we had to be environmentally responsible”, she stressed. This is why concepts like sustainability, seasonality or local production are so important in her philosophy and cooking. 

In her recipes she plays with textures and aims for concentration -not denaturation, that’s why we won’t see any overused ingredients- and a technique that shows absolute respect for the essence of the product.

As an example of this, Amandine prepared two dishes on stage. The first a vol-au-vent stuffed with a cream of onion reduced with roots, Jerusalem artichoke, white beetroot, salsify and celery.  “I’ve prepare this dish because the vol-au-vent is iconic in French cuisine. People usually think that vegetable cuisine is boring and I really felt like cooking food that was really well thought-out. I work with the textures and the flavor of each ingredient”, she pointed out. The second dish consisted of chard with clams. “I’m interested in raw chard because it’s crunchy. It’s an instant recipe with no technical difficulties”. The most elaborate part was a cream that she made with the green leaves of the vegetable. The rest: the whiter part, coriander and spicy pepper was cut up into small slices that she added coconut milk, lime and various dressings of herbs, kiwi and flowers to, a mixture in which the clams were placed.