Dior’s New Chef Has Aspirations

PARIS — Discuss a brand new look.

The Christian Dior headquarters and boutique at 30 Avenue Montaigne have undergone a complete makeover, increasing to incorporate inside gardens, artworks, a gallery that would be the everlasting residence of the Dior retrospective that has been touring the world, a pastry store and a restaurant, known as Monsieur Dior. There, visitors can dine on Dior high quality china and sip from Dior crystal.

Dior employed Jean Imbert, the favored veteran of the French model of “Prime Chef,” who runs two different eating places on Avenue Montaigne. Final yr, Mr. Imbert, 40, took over the kitchens of the 2 eating places on the Hôtel Plaza Athénée, throughout the road from Dior, from the Michelin-starred restaurateur Alain Ducasse. Mr. Imbert’s reboots of these eating rooms have drawn numerous consideration.

“I’ve by no means wished to run a vogue restaurant,” Mr. Imbert stated of the Dior restaurant, designed, like your complete advanced, by the New York architect Peter Marino. It’s a venture Mr. Imbert has been quietly engaged on since 2019, even finding out the Dior archives to know the sensibility of the model’s founder.

“Monsieur Dior favored actual French cooking,” Mr. Imbert stated. “Dishes like roast hen filled with herbs and fromage blanc, endive salad and poached eggs with artichoke hearts. So the menu is impressed by his favorites.”

Mr. Dior himself additionally noticed a strong convergence between vogue and gastronomy. “The elements used within the kitchen are as noble as these we use in high fashion,” he reportedly as soon as informed a pal, the chef Raymond Thuillier. “What I like in my work is that you need to unite your thoughts and your palms. Nothing could be perfected if the creativity of your creativeness isn’t expressed by your palms.”

Many within the Paris meals world had been astonished when it was introduced final Could that he would step into Mr. Ducasse’s sneakers. There had been rumors that François Delahaye, the final supervisor of the Plaza Athénée, was contemplating varied cooks as successors to Mr. Ducasse, however Mr. Imbert’s appointment was a shock.

“It was time for a change,” Mr. Delahaye stated. “So I made a decision to go for a extremely large change.”

Mr. Imbert, who gained Season 3 of “Prime Chef France” opened L’Acajou, his first restaurant, in Paris when he was solely 21. The showbiz clientele it attracted later went to ToShare, the Saint-Tropez ode to avenue meals he runs with Pharrell Williams.

Extra not too long ago, his restaurant Mamie (“granny” in English, now closed) showcased the cooking of Nicole Imbert, his late grandmother, whom he adored. He additionally runs the restaurant at Le Cheval Blanc lodge in Saint Barthélemy, which, like Dior, is owned by LVMH.

Some within the French meals world had been skeptical of the media-savvy chef, together with the meals author and tv host François-Régis Gaudry, who wrote in L’Specific: “He doesn’t have the résumé or the expertise needed for such a job. I’m not saying he’s not gifted, however there are 100 different cooks who’re extra skilled and tougher working.”

And whereas others had been extra optimistic, Mr. Imbert replied to his critics on Instagram: “One may perhaps wait to see my venture and provides me an opportunity, no?”

Mr. Imbert has beloved cooking since he was a boy rising up within the Paris suburb of L’Haÿ-les-Roses, the place his dad and mom personal a printing and binding firm. After highschool, he was among the many youngest college students ever to enroll on the prestigious Institut Paul Bocuse in Lyon, on the age of 17. He then did apprenticeships with a sequence of well-known French cooks, together with Marc Meneau and Michel Rostang, earlier than opening his first restaurant in 2004.

The consolation meals Mr. Imbert launched at Le Relais Plaza on the Hôtel Plaza Athénée gained well mannered reward, however his haute delicacies at Jean Imbert au Plaza Athénee has gained raves, together with a superlative-filled assessment from Emmanuel Rubin in Le Figaro. There, he showcases conventional French dishes like lobster Bellevue and veal Orloff within the grand model of celebrated cooks like François Vatel and Auguste Escoffier.

He additionally pays shut consideration to different particulars. “I beloved engaged on the desk settings at my new eating places,” he stated, including, “I like engaged on all the components of a restaurant.”

The brand new Dior restaurant is correct throughout the road from L’Avenue, the brasserie that has lengthy been the canteen of the worldwide vogue crowd. The LVMH government suite offered a gentle stream of diners, too, however their lunch (and dinner) plans appear sure to alter.