TESTIMONY. Death of Maïté: “I learned to cook eel with her”, remembers restaurateur Lionel Ozanne

Memories resurface for Lionel Ozanne. Restaurateur in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, like everyone else, he learned of the death of a familiar face of gastronomy, Maïté. With the difference that he was able to rub shoulders with her and see her at work, in the kitchens of the restaurant in Rion-des-Landes. We are in the middle of the 1980s. Young Lionel is 16 years old, he enters the Capbreton hotel high school. In his first year class, he becomes friends with the nephew of the famous restaurateur. “It was his brother’s son, who had died. It was Maïté who raised him,” remembers the boss of L’Oustal in Villeneuve.

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His parents' village is neighboring that of Rion. He is then invited, on the weekend, to meet the woman who officiates in the show “La cuisine des Mousquetaires”. “I took my moped and went to his restaurant. She had just started television, I was assisting with the set-up. » A whole era, where he sees all the products that have made the Landaise's reputation parade. “I learned to cook eel with her,” smiles Lionel Ozanne.

“A lady with a big heart”

“It was rich, country cuisine,” continues the Villeneuvois. “There was butter, fat. And things that we no longer serve now, like ortolan or woodcock.” The first time he met Maïté, young Lionel was not having a great time. “She was cut twice like me, it wasn't easy. But I wasn’t there for the money, I was there to learn.” She always worked in this family spirit.

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Quickly, complicity sets in. “You were learning and laughing!” She was truly a lady with a big heart and a generous heart. When you had a question, she always answered. It’s a chance.” Maïté had not attended cooking school, but she passed on the love of the product. “Everything was healthy, and came from the area. The first duck I cooked had just been killed. It was another era. It was based on: you put it in and you taste it. She never had a star, but she is a real culinary personality. »

He also saw the generosity of the Landes restaurateur. Despite her impressive cheekiness – “when she shouted, she didn't flinch in her face” – she showed rare hospitality. “Some couldn’t pay, she served them anyway. » The Rion-des-Landes restaurant was like Maïté, generous in every sense of the word. Values, a love of good products that he always kept in the back of his mind and in his way of doing things.