Margot Lecarpentier, the Alain Ducasse Group's new mixologist
Margot Lecarpentier, head of the Combat bar in the Belleville district of Paris, is now the head mixologist for the Alain Ducasse Group. Here's what she's up to.
A year after her first collaboration at Les Ombres restaurant, on the roof of the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, Margot Lecarpentier officially joins the Alain Ducasse group. The woman who launched her bar Combat in 2017 is now the head mixologist for the 5-toque chef's restaurants and signs the cocktail menus of his various establishments around the world. The young woman tells us more.
A first launch in New York
The first restaurant in which Margot Lecarpentier expresses her creativity is Benoît, in New York. "We just launched a pop-up for two months where I created cocktail pairings with the chef's menu," the mixologist tells us. "We're making progress as we go along, but the idea is to develop this offer in all the Group's addresses, with each time a customization based on the cuisine," she adds.
While Alain Ducasse of course gives his approval before putting a cocktail on the menu, Margot Lecarpentier has carte blanche to let her creativity speak for itself. "That's what I love about this collaboration. Obviously, if the chef chose me, it's because we have common affinities in terms of taste. We consult each other a lot, but I also exchange ideas with the chefs of each establishment to make creative, made-to-measure cocktails." While in New York, the mixologist has imagined a pairing with small plates to share, the offer will be completely different at Le Meurice. "Starting this April, we're launching an offer every Thursday in the Dali restaurant with the Margot Combat Cocktail Club. From 1ᵉʳ May, we're also relaunching the Bar des Ombres on the Quai Branly rooftop, until the end of October," enthuses the young woman, who trained at the Experimental Cocktail Club in Sentier, but also in New York.
It's revenge for Margot Lecarpentier, who had to hold out to open Combat. The name of her bar is a reference not only to this struggle, but also to the former nom de guerre of the Belleville district, and to struggles for feminism, good consumption and ecology.
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