With his friendly face and good manners as an ideal son-in-law, Ricardo is very far from what we call a controversial personality. However, Quebec’s best-known chef has proven on a few occasions that he is also capable of rants, whether about junk food or the obsolescence of the education system. This rougher aspect of his personality, the host promises to put it a little more forward this winter at the helm. Two men in gold and Rosalie.
Published at 5:00 a.m.
“Get out of your comfort zone. » The expression is overused, but it remains the one that best sums up what pushed Ricardo Larrivee to say yes when the team of Two men in gold and Rosalie offered to replace Patrick Lagacé for the next season, which begins January 10 on Télé-Québec.
“I made it clear to them that I was not Patrick. I’m not the guy who’s going to pry to ask a question. It’s not in my temperament. On the other hand, if I ask you a question and you avoid answering, I may ask you again by raising my voice a little. I am not afraid of debate and confrontation,” warns the one who will team up with Jean-Philippe Wauthier and Rosalie Bonenfant.
A golden (business)man
If he accepted this new challenge, it was also because the offer came at just the right time. Since the giant Sobeys, owner of IGA among others, partly bought the company that bears its name, Ricardo has more free time. That said, he and his wife Brigitte remain minority shareholders in the small empire that they spent more than 20 years building. But quietly, they are preparing to hand over the reins, perhaps to their daughter Béatrice, who is already involved in the company, or at the very least to “a new generation”.
“I don’t want to be the old boss stuck in the 1980s who clings to his business, as we see too often,” emphasizes the man who received us in his offices in Saint-Lambert.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Ricardo Larrivee
I think that at a certain point, it’s healthy to give way to younger people. And it is important to prepare for succession in advance. In Quebec, we are not very good at that.
Ricardo Larrivee
A little less than 200 people work today for the different components of Ricardo Media, almost as many as before the pandemic. The health crisis had dealt a serious blow to the company’s activities, with around half of the workforce having to be laid off.
“I bawled a shot during that time. I drank some gin and tonic and took them, my psychologist pills. I really found it hard. Since we started business, we had only experienced progression. Yes, we had disappointments, projects that didn’t work as well. But we didn’t have any big failures. During the pandemic, I really hit my wall,” recalls the entrepreneur, hinting at an emotion that contrasts with the cold image that we can have of the business world.
No to politics
At 57 years old, Ricardo still has the sacred fire. If he is preparing to hand over the reins of his company, at least in terms of the management of day-to-day affairs, he has not yet attached a timetable to his possible withdrawal.
What will he do when the day comes? Some would see in politics the one who led the Lab-École project with Pierre Lavoie and Pierre Thibault. “We can’t say never, but honestly, it’s not in my game plan,” the main person immediately specifies.
Ricardo admits: he would have “loved” to be Minister of Agriculture or Education. But every time he was approached about taking the plunge, he always came to the same conclusion: “I wanted to create a brand that brings people together around good food. It was the fight of my life. This is the legacy I want to leave. »
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Ricardo Larrivee
If I went into politics, even if I were the best politician in the world, at least half the people would hate me. That would definitely undermine everything I’ve tried to build so far.
Ricardo Larrivee
It is difficult to know where Ricardo would stand in politics. He calls himself a “social democrat”. Equality of opportunity drives him, the class defector who grew up in a dysfunctional family before becoming the symbol of success in Quebec. “But I also have a Mario Dumont side,” he adds with a smirk, before launching into a long tirade against a State that has become obese and incapable of carrying out its fundamental missions.
“Bureaucracy is destroying democracy. Not only in Quebec, but everywhere in the West. For entrepreneurs, there is so much paperwork. Everything is complicated. This is true in health, in education, everywhere! When it becomes clear that there are so many ineffective structures that we decide to create a new one to better manage them, there is something wrong,” he protests. -he.
Ricardo is then revealed to us with a great feeling of exasperation. No doubt it will not take long for him to resurface when he has to interview the various players in the news this winter in Two men in gold and Rosalie.
Two men in gold and Rosalie will be on the air from January 10, on Télé-Québec
