Published on 21/01/2025 22:50
Reading time: 1min – video: 8min
Gastronomy: a starred chef returns to the Haute Marne countryside after 40 years of absence to take up a crazy challenge
How can we bring residents back to abandoned villages? How to rekindle the flame? In the 20H magazine, we take you to meet those who wake up sleeping communities. This is particularly the case of chef Laurent Petit. He managed a three-star restaurant in Haute-Savoie. He left everything to settle in his native village in Haute-Marne.
(France 2)
How can we bring residents back to abandoned villages? How to rekindle the flame? In the 20H magazine, we take you to meet those who wake up sleeping communities. This is particularly the case of chef Laurent Petit. He managed a three-star restaurant in Haute-Savoie. He left everything to settle in his native village in Haute-Marne.
-In Haute-Marne, in a part of the country called the “diagonal of the void”, there are few inhabitants. This is not, a priori, the best place to open a famous and popular restaurant. However, the conductor of this establishment is Laurent Petit. Chef Petit had three stars in the Michelin guide in Annecy in Haute-Savoie. He left everything and sold his restaurant to come to the depths of Haute-Marne. Here, he opened a bistro for 39 euros per menu.
Thanks to gastronomy, he wants to place his new town on the map so that Langres becomes an essential place. There is still a way to go. Six employees followed Chef Petit from Annecy and we had to convince them.
At 61 years old, Laurent Petit's bet seemed more than risky. So why did you abandon everything to come to Langres? “It's all the roads of my childhood, and it hits me in the gut,” says Laurent Petit. The chief was therefore born and raised on these lands. 40 years ago, he left the region to sail towards a better life, like so many others before him.
Watch the full report in the video above.
