Dine at Chef Thierry Marx’s Culinary Training School

Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s) is not your typical cooking school. Founder Thierry Marx — the Michelin-starred chef, culinary innovator, and social activist — is keenly aware of a need for more properly trained cooking professionals in the French restaurant industry. At the same time, he understands that culinary training courses are largely unaffordable to many who might wish to enter this world. 

In 2012, Marx was able to secure the public and private funding necessary to launch Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s) and thereby offer free training as chefs, bakers, caterers, and/or sommeliers to disadvantaged individuals from local communities such as those lacking educational qualifications, the unemployed, immigrants, refugees, even ex-prisoners. At the present time, there are nine schools in France. The Paris branch is located in the Saint Blaise district of the 20th arrondissement and includes a restaurant, La Salamandre. Several times a month trainees enrolled in the current session get to step away from the stoves and cooktops and preside over full lunches and dinners for diners from outside.  

Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s) is not just characterized by its commitment to social responsibility. Over the years, it has become more environmentally responsible as well, using locally sourced and seasonal ingredients, cutting down on waste, recycling, and so forth. Now, it is going into overdrive. 

Welcome to the Paris 2024 “Food Vision” 

Last year, Chef Marx assumed the role of Sustainable Catering Expert on the Ecological Transformation Committee for the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. In his own words, “The Games are enabling us to bring together the entire food ecosystem around a vision for catering that is sustainable from an environmental and social point of view. It is a unique opportunity to support the preparation of food in a positive way, by proving that what is good for our health and the planet is also good to eat!” 

That’s quite a mission statement and it was only logical that Marx should look close to home to put those very ambitious, ecologically-responsible objectives into action. To test the model’s viability, he came up with a new course — l’Éthique À Table (EAT) — and the kitchens at Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s) proved to be the perfect incubator. 

Last month I got the chance to observe the new program in action. The 20th arrondissement might sound a bit remote, but there’s good choice of itineraries via bus and/or metro that will drop you minutes from the door of the school. 

In the new EAT model, trainees are divided into two groups: cooks and bakers. Midway through the training it’s time to “switcher”, which means everyone gets a shot at working in both kitchens. In this specific session, the participants worked on creating a menu featuring eco-friendly takes on dishes from five continents — Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, in case you were wondering. At the same time, they were required to learn to prepare a range of traditional dishes and obtain proficiency in the 80 technical gestes (gestures) that comprise the base of classical French cuisine.  

Inside the kitchens, I was struck by how focused and engaged but at the same time pretty relaxed everyone was in the midst of all the activity. I was already aware of the basic mandate to follow principles of sustainability throughout the food preparation process, and it was fascinating to learn more about how creatively they are being addressed here. 

Take zero waste: salvaging cut-off scraps of puff pastry, chopping up leftover edible bits of cooked meat, brining vegetables for longer conservation or using their peels for chips, crystallizing fruit rinds or converting them to fruit leather demonstrate how what might normally be considered waste can, in fact, be consumed. Electricity can be saved by baking meringues overnight in the heat of an extinguished oven; cooking water can be reused; white vinegar is substituted for harsher chemical solutions wherever possible for cleaning. The list goes on and on. 

Meanwhile, seemingly unfazed by these unconventional food-prep challenges, the novice cooks plowed gamely ahead.

Dinner is Served 

The session culminated, as always, with a showcase dinner at la Salamandre that was open to the public as well as friends and family of the young chefs. The menu was titled:

VOYAGE GOURMAND AU TRAVERS DES 5 CONTINENTS : 

UN BUFFET ECORESPONSABLE POUR LES JEUX OLYMPIQUES 

Epicurean Journey Across Five Continents: 

An Ecologically-responsible Buffet for the Olympic Games 

For this Olympics’ training session there were 25 trainees representing 16 nationalities. Each cook had been given the chance to suggest and prepare an eco-friendly version of a dish representing his or her national culinary heritage. The majority of these were baked, with a focus on “le snacking”, i.e., bite-size morsels. 

Dinner guests were invited to graze from the savory and sweet buffet tables and then visit the small demo kitchen adjacent to the main dining room to sample a few more dishes being prepared in front of them. In every case there was a chance to chat with the chefs, about themselves and their personal creations. 

Every item on the menu qualified in some manner as “sustainable.” The faux smoked salmon, perhaps my favorite bite of the evening, turned out to be finely sliced carrot strips (rather than farm-raised fish), flavored with nori and smoked over beechwood. It looked and tasted like the real thing. There was a pain-quiche, with a crust made from day-old breadcrumbs in lieu of flour. The brioche perdue à la confiture was caramelized French toast from leftover brioche with a choice of apple and pear compotes and hibiscus jam made from dried blossoms — all organic, bien sur. 

So, yes, culinarily the dinner was a success across the board, and I shall certainly return in future for one of the more traditional French lunches or dinners. (As a further inducement, these meals are a bargain at €20, though the Olympics gala was €28 and included a cocktail.) However, although I very much enjoyed the meal and the congenial surroundings, what really touched me were the chefs themselves — as individuals, as companions, as a team of partners, not competitors, and with so much dedication and heart. It felt positively Olympian! 

Epilogue: It’s reassuring to know that many of the trainees will have a chance to put their new professional skills to use at the Olympic Games but, if not, Cuisine Mode d’Emploi(s) will help find them other jobs or internships and continue to be an employment resource from them in the future.  

As for EAT, the program was unquestionably a success and, with the proper funding, will be able to carry on innovating long after the Olympics.