How Chef Mauro Colagreco is reinventing French cuisine

Jun 16 , 2018

Mauro Colagreco always picks the freshest ingredients for his dishes. He has 35 kinds of tomatoes.

Argentinian-born chef’s restaurant in France named the best in the whole country

Perched on a jagged cliff that rises above the palm-fringed Mediterranean Sea in Menton, France, Mirazur is a restaurant that the academy of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants considers the “best restaurant in France”. It does not serve French cuisine per se and neither is its chef-owner a native of France. But as the ancient Roman poet Virgil so aptly put it, love conquers all.

Chef Mauro Colagreco's grows his own herbs in his garden.

“I love France and I consider it my second home,” says Mauro Colagreco, chef-owner of Mirazur, whose restaurant empire expanded to include Azur by MC (Beijing) in 2016 and Grill 58° (Macau) this year. His restaurant in the picturesque French Riviera is ranked No. 4 on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list (2017) and is the list’s highest rated restaurant in France.

“This country enabled me to find my path to what I love most and to open up my own place 12 years ago,” says the native of Argentina, who first arrived in the port of La Rochelle to attend culinary school in 2001.

“My mentor from culinary school told me that if I want to learn from the best, I must consider going to France.”

Colagreco dropped out from the school of economics sciences during his sophomore year at La Plata University to pursue his love for cooking.

Perhaps the rigorous training in his youth as a rugby player for La Plata club helped hone his drive and determination. The chef, with dark set eyes and close-cropped wispy black hair, went on to cut his teeth in some of the finest fine-dining institutions in France including Bernard Loiseau, where his internship blossomed into a full-time position. This was followed by stints in l’Arpege and Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée.

The rest, as they say, is history.

France lost no time in reciprocating the affection of this Argentinian-born chef. A year after its debut in 2006, Mirazur was awarded its first Michelin star and the restaurant gained its second star in 2012, which it has maintained till now.

In 2009, Colagreco became the first non-French chef to be awarded “Chef of the Year” by Gault Millau, which praised the chef for his unique “new natural” style of cooking.