The widow of Bernard Loiseau, Dominique (c), and her two daughters Blanche (g) and Bérangère, in the kitchens of the Relais in Saulieu, in the Côte d’Or, on February 9, 2023 (AFP / Olivier CHASSIGNOLE)
“I was given six months”: the suicide of her husband, the starred chef Bernard Loiseau, was to sound the death knell for the family group. Twenty years later, Dominique has on the contrary spread her wings, helped by the solidarity of her daughters.
“It was very difficult at the beginning”, murmurs Dominique Loiseau modestly, seated, upright and dignified, at the edge of a roaring fireplace in the elegant library of the Relais Bernard Loiseau, 4-star hotel in Saulieu (Côte d’Or ) and flagship of the family group.
On February 24, 2003, the chief committed suicide at the age of 52 with his shotgun.
A death due to “a depression”, explained his widow in order to cut short the rumors according to which the star of the stoves would not have supported the so-called coming loss of his third Michelin star.
The foodie guide later explained that it had never been his intention.
For Dominique, who was then 50 years old, a world was collapsing. But “I had no choice. It had become a mission to perpetuate Bernard’s work,” she told AFP. “I said to myself: I will try because, otherwise, I would blame myself all my life”.
“And it worked”. The Loiseau group has tripled its profits four years after Bernard’s death, multiplying all-out developments.
In 2007, a restaurant was opened in Beaune, then another, in 2013 in Dijon. A third is planned for this spring in Besançon.
These three tables are added to “La Côte d’Or”, the group’s flagship restaurant that Bernard Loiseau took over in 1975 at the same time as the Hôtel de Saulieu which houses it.
Very recently, the group also bought the hotel La Tour d’Auxois, a 29-room establishment located just opposite the Relais Loiseau.
The widow of Bernard Loiseau, Dominique (g), and her two daughters Blanche (c) and Bérangère (d), show family photos, in the kitchens of the Relais in Saulieu, in the Côte d’Or, on February 9, 2023 ( AFP/Olivier CHASSIGNOLE)
However, there were many Cassandres who announced the fall of the group. “I was given six months,” recalls Dominique.
“But we’re still here”, welcomes the boss, aware that she could not have held “the house” alone, as she calls it, without her daughters, in a kind of esprit de corps at the “Funny Ladies”.
“It’s a miracle that my two daughters joined the group. I didn’t even ask them, I didn’t dare. It was like natural.”
– “Up there, he is happy” –
“It was done during confinement,” explains Bérangère, the eldest of the Loiseaus who was 13 when her father left. “We saw this almost abandoned house and we said to ourselves: it’s not possible”.
The 30-year-old then became vice-president of the group, after a Master’s degree from a major business school.
French chef Bernard Loiseau on October 14, 1991 in Saulieu, Côte d’Or (AFP/Archives/GERARD FOUET)
“I did not imagine myself being here today. It does something, it stirs a little bit there, yes”, she says in the masterful room classified as a historic monument of the Relais Bernard Loiseau, where the Dali, Picasso dined. and Chaplin.
“The house has endured. It’s beautiful to see it”, is also moved by Blanche, the youngest of the Loiseaus who was only six years old when her father died.
After a master’s degree at the Paul Bocuse Institute, she did internships in England, Spain and Japan, before returning to Saulieu.
“I fell into the pot in the kitchen,” she says.
“When Blanche was little, she wandered around but she went more to the pastry shop to see the chocolate”, confirms with complicit laughter Patrick Bertron, who succeeded Bernard Loiseau at the head of the kitchens of La Côte d’Or.
At 26 today, Blanche prepares with chef Bertron the dishes she will present in the group’s new restaurant in Besançon, “my first job as a chef”, she admits feverishly.
Blanche Loiseau, daughter of chef Bernard Loiseau, in the kitchens of the restaurant “La Côte d’Or – Le Relais Bernard Loiseau” in Saulieu, Côte d’Or, on February 9, 2023 (AFP / Olivier CHASSIGNOLE)
“She has the family fiber, it’s the spitting image of Monsieur Loiseau”, says respectfully chef Bertron, who, at 61, is preparing for his retirement.
“My ultimate goal is to come back here, in place of dad,” confesses Blanche. “But here, he’s a starred chef. I still have a long way to go.”
“I think the succession is assured,” says his mother Dominique.
To the delight of Bérangère: “I’m sure that, up there, he’s happy, dad”.
© 2023 AFP
Did you like this article ? Share it with your friends with the buttons below.
