“I still drink so much, but I became a vegetarian”

As a child, I had no interest in food at all. We ate very badly at home – usually frozen foods. Sometimes, my mother had creative desires that she had no control at all: she would then prepare improbable dishes for us, like a vegetarian pâté with apricots, it was weird and not terrible. We ate mainly to feed ourselves and sometimes, on Saturdays, we had a pierrade.

Until the day when, when I was 16-17 years old, my parents took me to dinner in a gourmet restaurant, a starred inn in the west of France. I discovered what it means to “eat very well”, and it made my head spin. Especially for dessert: I ordered caramel profiteroles that the waiter put on the table. They were magnificent. And there comes a guy with a small saucepan and a sauce that he comes to pour over it. It was the saucier. My brain twisted. I said to myself : “There is a guy, his job is to make sauces”. And I, who come from a geek and video game background, where we are in the perfection of the smallest nothing, I found it crazy.

Teaching geeks to eat

I discovered that gastronomy is also a geek thing. So I wanted to go to hotel school. I was already called “Octopus” since college, because I have always done a lot of things – comics, video, song, theater – and, at the same time, I always seem very soft. Hence octopus (the “Mister” came later). In the end, I didn’t go into the hotel and restaurant business, I became a freelance graphic designer, but I always had this desire to do something with food. I started a show on Nolife, a cable channel dedicated to geeks who play video games, love manga culture and eat microwave pizza. It was called “Eat my geek”, to teach geeks to eat.

A few years later, I met Antoine de Caunes, I arrived on Canal and I did “Les Recettes tipsy”, based on a Quebec show, where we cooked while drinking shots of vodka. After two seasons, the CSA put the kibosh, inevitably. But what did we laugh and what did we drink! I still drink so much, but I became a vegetarian and created a new show on the Twitch network (another geek thing) called “Végésale”. To show that we can make vegan cuisine on the fly, a little trashy and too good. That’s my thing.

It’s like the Sazerac, my favorite cocktail – a drink that defines me. I like it with whiskey, while I don’t like whiskey. But the fact of “pimping” it, adding a few details to it, makes it hyper-elegant. It’s something that Antoine de Caunes taught me: you have to cultivate your background by giving it the best shape possible. My background is that I’ve always done things that are a little dirty, absurd, burlesque, but by putting them in a beautiful setting, a chic container, it becomes stronger. My show may seem bizarre and cracked, but, between beautiful curtains, with beautiful light, in a beautiful theater, it can become funny, deep, tasty. No ?