The Olympic Village’s huge restaurant will feed 15,000 athletes during the next Olympic and Paralympic Games. A first glimpse of the dishes that will be served to the future champions.
The “largest restaurant in the world” will soon open its doors north of Paris. The nave of the Cité du cinéma, around which the Olympic village was built, will be transformed into a huge canteen to feed the 15,000 athletes during the next Olympic and Paralympic Games.
On the menu, it’s a real headache: we must be able to ensure considerable volumes, while respecting the nutritional requirements of high-level sport, without disrupting the (very) diverse culinary habits of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes, who will come from the four corners of the world.
“A hammer thrower does not eat like a gymnast,” underlined Franck Chanevas, general manager for France of Sodexo Live, Sodexo’s events subsidiary.
So, what will we find on the champions’ plates? At the helm, we find the French collective catering giant, Sodexo. The group gave this Tuesday, during a press conference in Paris, a first glimpse of the dishes that will be served in the Olympic village, the result of two years of work between the company, the organizers and nutritionists – menus systematically approved by the IOC. More than 500 different recipes will be served in the main restaurant. With its 3,500 seats, it will provide service 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
This gigantic canteen will be divided into different districts. Each district will be assigned to a geographical theme – France, Africa-Caribbean, Asia, World Cuisines – to allow athletes to easily find their culinary landmarks when they arrive in Paris, whether they are Italian, Chinese or Peruvian. Two districts, for example, will be dedicated to the Asian theme. Each district will be organized in the same way: salad bar, grill stand, daily specials and pastas, soup stand, cheese stand, dairy stand, dessert bar, bakery stand and fruit stall.
40 dishes every day
Athletes will be able to choose between 40 main dishes each day, distributed between the different districts, out of a total of 120 recipes which will take turns over the weeks (a third of the dishes, moreover, will be vegetarian). Under the France theme, you can eat a vegetarian bourguignon or a cod brandade. For Asia, it will be minced pork with Thai basil or cauliflower with turmeric. On the Africa-Caribbean side, we will find shakchouka or sautéed shrimp. Finally, on the world cuisine side, it will be lamb with mint or vegetable moussaka.
The offer is intended to be as flexible as possible to adapt to everyone, whatever the sporting discipline. Beyond cultural considerations, it is above all a sporting question. An athlete will not eat the same way during training before the competition, on the day of the competition, or during the recovery period after the competition. Likewise, a football team that plays a single match during the day will not have the same nutritional needs as a solitary athlete who performs several successive performances during the same day.
“We will make small meals and the athlete will come and take what he especially needs,” explains chef Stéphane Chicheri, who participated in the development of the menus.
Next to each dish, before serving, athletes will have access to the nutritional values (calories, fats, proteins, carbohydrates, fiber, etc.) and allergens (gluten, sulphites, milk, peanuts, etc.) of the dish, as well as other necessary information (vegetarian, gluten-free). What to compose your meal.
“Signature” recipes
Outside the large restaurant, another food court type dining area will be dedicated to “pleasure” dishes. Opening onto a large terrace, it will offer a “signature” recipe every day composed by one of Sodexo Live’s five partner chefs, limited to 600 seats per day.
This time, it is a tasting format, without any particular sporting nutritional constraints, responsible instead for promoting French gastronomic know-how – the chef of the day will host the service. To stay in the tricolor theme, there will also be a pétanque court and a bakery workshop.
Among the dishes that will be found during the Games: chicken tandir (by chef Akrame Benallal), croissant with poached egg in artichoke cream, with truffle and shavings of sheep’s cheese (by chef Amandine Chaignot), hake “from our sides” smoked and burnt in salt with tapioca bound in a vegetable broth (by chef Alexandra Mazzia), bread salad “like almado” (by chef Stéphane Chicheri) or even sweet potato zaatar and hummus chimichurri (by chef Charles Guilloy).
Jeremy Bruno Journalist BFMTV
