Chefs au Sommet d'Auron, Aurélien Martin and Yohan Gouverneur at Les 3 Marmottes

Chefs zround resident chef ©YesICannes.com

Chefs au Sommet d’Auron welcomed Chef Aurélien Martin and Pastry Chef Yohan Gouverneur for a high gastronomy dinner at Les 3 Marmottes in Saint Dalmas-le-Selvage.

Chefs au Sommet d’Auron 2023: from 14 to 19 January 2023, the 11th edition of the Mountain Gastronomy Festival offers memorable gastronomic experiences to tourists and inhabitants of the emblematic Mercantour resort. In addition to the after-ski cooking shows, every evening, renowned chefs officiate in the restaurants of the Haute Tinée resort and offer sumptuous gastronomic dinners at a unique and privileged price of 55€ per person. Chef Aurélien Martin from the restaurant Le Panier in Nice and Pastry Chef Yohan Gouverneur from the Pâtisserie Emotions in Castagniers, delighted the taste buds of the gourmets at the restaurant Les 3 Marmottes in Saint Dalmas-le-Selvage.

Yohan Gouverneur & Aurélien Martin ©YesICannes.com

Eleven years of passion for gastronomy!

The Mountain Gastronomy Festival is celebrating its eleventh anniversary. Once again this year, this flagship event brings together twenty of the Côte d’Azur’s top chefs and talented pastry chefs to share an authentic moment of culinary pleasure and conviviality in the heart of the sumptuous Mercantour mountains. Concocted by the chefs in kitchens made ephemeral for the event, the menus composed of an amuse-bouche, a starter, a main course and a dessert thrill the gourmet taste buds of fine gourmets every evening.

Aurélien Martin ©YesICannes.com

Gastronomic dinner at Les 3 Marmottes

On Wednesday 18 January 2023, Chef Aurélien Martin, from Le Panier in Nice, accompanied by sous-cheffe Magali Restelli and Pastry Chef Yohan Gouverneur from Pâtisserie Emotions in Castagniers, assisted by Joëlle Pépé, transposed their delicious culinary experiences into the warm, wooded, mountainous chalet setting of Les 3 Marmottes restaurant in Saint Dalmas-le-Selvage.

Aurélien Martin ©YesICannes.com

Invitation to travel

For his chef’s dinner at Chefs au Sommet d’Auron, Aurélien Martin was inspired by his travels, his varied culinary experiences and his discovery of tastes from elsewhere. Taught into cooking by his restaurant owners parents, he has travelled and worked in Australia, New Zealand, Canada… Both his backpacking road trip with his wife in South-East Asia and his relationships in Australia and New Zealand with immigrant chefs – mainly Japanese – gave this globetrotter of gastronomy the desire to bring Asian notes to his creations. His menu was therefore enhanced with Japanese and South American touches – for the main course -, all with “homemade” condiments. Back to the terroir for the “forgotten vegetables” as an accompaniment.

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From the village of Ristolas to the “étoilés”

Aurélien Martin trained on-and-off-the-job with his mother in the family establishment in the village of Ristolas in the Queyras, Hautes-Alpes, and at the CFA in Gap, before starting out, still in Gap, at Le Pasturier, with chef Pascal Dorche, who taught him rigour in the preparation of dishes to reveal their authenticity. He then joined the kitchens of Le Chat Botté, restaurant at Le Beau Rivage luxury hotel in Geneva, under the guidance of the starred chef Dominique Gauthier. For four years, the young chef learned to refine his dishes.

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Fine Dining and Stars of Geneva

Aurélien then left for Australia where he discovered Asian cuisine in Fine Dining (restaurants with a first-class menu and atmosphere). He then returned to Geneva to work at the Lion d’Or, a starred restaurant where two outstanding chefs used to share the kitchen: Chef Dupont, the Frenchman (the first two-star chef in Geneva) and Byrne, the Irishman. Despite the intensity of the work, Aurélien took great pleasure in perfecting his talents with these two chefs who have also travelled extensively and opened restaurants all over the world.

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Back to Le Panier in Nice

The chef then flew to New Zealand where he worked at Gantley’s in Queenstown, a fine dining restaurant offering exclusively tasting menus. Aurélien then left for Montreal and joined chef Daniel Vézina‘s team at the gastronomic restaurant Laurie Raphaël for two years. Aurélien Martin then settled in Old Nice where he bought Le Panier, his brother-in-law’s restaurant, a stone’s throw from the colourful Cours Saleya, where he brings his inspiration from his travels to a seasonal Mediterranean cuisine.

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Cheese and dessert go together!

For the Chefs au Sommet d’Auron, Yohan Gouverneur wanted to create a dessert that “tells people something”, based on local products, goat’s cheese from Clans, a village in the hinterland, next to Castagniers, where the chef has opened his shop-tea room, and where the honey used in his creation comes from. Yohan wanted to create a dessert that was out of the ordinary and to tickle the curiosity of gastronomes as to how the marriage between cheese and sweetness was created, when the choice is usually between the two, one coming before the other. Yohan likes to showcase local products as well as incite questions about the ingredients, the history of his desserts, the search for ideas…

Yohan Gouverneur ©YesICannes.com

Yohan Gouverneur, rigour and passion

Yohan Gouverneur studied at the Lycée Paul Augier in Nice before specialising in pastry-making at the CFA Le Beausset, near Toulon. The chef then worked on the Côte d’Azur, mainly in catering, starting at Pavillon Hédiard (now Pavillon Traiteur) with the pastry chef Michael Durieux. He then joined the team of Lilian Bonnefoi, pastry chef at the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc before working at Fauchon in Nice.

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Gourmet emotions in Castagniers

Yohan then took his first job as a pastry chef at the Relais et Châteaux Le Mas de Pierre in St Paul de Vence, where he stayed for two years before moving on to air catering for the very demanding private jet clientele. Finally, Yohan seized the opportunity three years ago to create his own shop, the Pâtisserie Emotions in Castagniers, a perched village overlooking the Var valley. In addition to the delicacies of the shop-tea room, Yohan supplies the beaches in the summer and signs the desserts of many restaurants, such as Le Plongeoir or Le Palais de la Méditerranée in Nice, while continuing the air catering with Private Catering.

Yohan Gouverneur ©YesICannes.com

Menu tasted at Les 3 Marmottes (photos YesICannes.com)

Amuse-bouche: Nori Leeks, Sheep’s milk chopped Herbs, green Oil, Onion Pickles

Starter: Scallop “Cevichaud”, Mushroom Condiment with Miso, Sunflower Seeds and Combava

Main Course : Duckling, Roasted Tuber, Clementine Ketchup, Chimichuri Sauce

Dessert: Honey Goat, Almond Moelleux, Crémeux Castagniers Honey, Clans Goat Mousse

Mignardises: Macarons from Mic Mac Macarons by Bruno Laffargue

Les 3 Marmottes, cuisine gourmande and warm welcome

Chef Laurent Le Quéméner, child of a restaurant family, fell into the pot of restaurant business at a very young age. At the age of 16, he started an apprenticeship in pastry-making in a boutique-lab. At 18, he joined the navy, where he stayed for ten years. At the end of this experience, he left for La Reunion Island to work as a cook in Japanese, Italian and traditional restaurants and in a bakery.

Authentic bistronomic cuisine

After two years in the tropics, he returned to France and became a caterer. It was then that he met his wife, Estelle Regnier, who ran a pizzeria. After six years, they took over the stoves of the restaurant Les 3 Marmottes in Saint Dalmas Le Selvage. For the past 4 years, this passionate couple has been offering authentic bistronomic cuisine, with good seasonal produce and a hearty welcome.

Les Chefs au Sommet d’Auron
From 14 to 19 January 2023
Restaurants in Auron, St Étienne de Tinée and St Dalmas-le-Selvage
Information: Auron Tourist Office
Tel: +33 (0)4 93 23 02 66