Thomas Vételé, chef at Hôtel du Couvent & Avit Ghibaudo, market gardener at Ferme Notre-Dame

From the heights of the city, the Hôtel du Couvent looks down on the hustle and bustle of Old Nice, the choreography of the airplanes and the Bay of Angels from a peaceful vantage point. The courtyard of this brand-new hotel, one of the most eagerly awaited of the year, exudes an Olympian calm.

Among other things, it's this very energy that prompted Thomas Vételé to become the chef of this establishment, which includes a restaurant, a bistro and a guinguette. A veteran of grand hotels (ex-chef of the Shangri-La Paris and the Hôtel Royal Savoy in Lausanne), Thomas had grown weary of luxury establishments.tablishments, and was about to change direction when he was approached by Hôtel du Couvent. Manager Valéry Grégo introduced him to the hotel's holistic approach, and its commitment to preserving the vegetable and citrus gardens already present when the Clarisse sisters were born.j déjà présent lorsque les sœurs Clarisses résidèrent ici au XVIIᵉ siècle, et le défi de travailler au maximum avec les produits d'un seul maraîcher. Thomas Vételé was won over.

The market gardener's name is Avit Ghibaudo, and he works alone on his Notre-Dame farm in Touët-sur-Var (Alpes-Maritimes), some fifty kilometers from the hotel. A farm baptized Notre-Dame to supply a hotel housed in a convent - an auspicious meeting.

What does the Notre-Dame farm look like?

Avit Ghibaudo: The farm is located in the small village of Touët-sur-Var at an altitude of 550m, in the Haut-Pays niçois region. I have 3,000 m² of organically farmed land. It's a beautiful alluvial soil that hasn't been cultivated for a hundred years. It's rich and full of energy. So my job is not only to get the best out of it, but also not to exhaust it and to provide it with the organic matter it needs. I'm in my third year as a market gardener, and I'm still learning from it. I also have a 4000 m² laying hen farm that supplies all the hotel's eggs.

Thomas Vételé: We feel very much at home on Avit's farm. I love being up there, the region is magnificent. It was this project and this opportunity to connect with nature that convinced me to stay in the hotel business. Without it, I would have changed my life. My only regret is not being able to go there more often at the moment.

What are the major challenges of your collaboration?

T.V. : Today, I don't really decide what I put on the plate. I can't just call and say "I want this tomorrow". You have to accept what the earth gives you and nothing else. This means deconstructing the way we learn to think about cooking in school. We started talking about planting with Avit, even though we hadn't yet drawn up a map for the hotel. For the moment, we're still in the early stages of our collaboration. I don't get all my vegetables from Avit. We need time to understand what the hotel needs and what the land can give us. It's frustrating, and that's part of the relationship with the land - it can be ungrateful! I was dreaming of peas for the opening (June 2024) and we were only able to get a few. I have a card that lasted eight days, and then we had to rethink everything.

A.G.: I thought I knew a bit about the chef's job, but a hotel chef is still very different. Because of the number of restaurants, and the quantity and variety of products expected from breakfast to dinner. I'm discovering these challenges. Next year, I'll be doing more Menton pink onions and less tomatoes! But it was a lot easier for me than for them. I'd been around a bit before, but for Thomas and his team it's all new, so they've had to adapt!

And what are the most pleasing aspects of this sharing between chef and market gardener?

A.G.: They receive daily deliveries of produce picked the very same day. I'm sure that customers enjoy my vegetables in the best possible way, as fresh as possible. And working with Thomas makes me think differently about my work. I try out a lot more varieties than if I were selling at the market. I learn from him.

T.V.: As well as fresh vegetables, we receive an average of 200 eggs a week, which adds undeniable quality to all our preparations. That's a real blessing.

Which dish best epitomizes your encounter?

T.V.: Ratatouille. I make it as simple as possible, with Avit's vegetables and nothing else.

A.G.: There's also pissaladière, when I delivered all the pink onions from Menton. And the strawberry sorbet from Carros, which was the first time I'd ever made strawberries!

T.V.: And it was my first sorbet at the hotel !

Thomas, how do you make the most of the farm's produce ?

T.V.: All my work is guided by common sense. We're not inventing anything, we're going back to a working methodology that existed at the origins of cooking, things that were already being done when this convent was home to the Clarisse sisters: salting, preserving, fermenting. Nothing should be wasted. We had a lot of tomatoes, so we made tomato paste and ketchup. We make beet pickles, salad coulis, strawberry jam...

A.G.: It's all the more important to think about conversation as I have a farm at altitude, so my summer season is shorter than elsewhere in the south of France.

The Hôtel du Couvent is also home to a magnificent terraced garden with citrus trees and a vegetable patch. Can we find their produce in your dishes?

T.V.: Of course! Eventually, I'd like all the herbs we use to come from this kitchen garden. For the moment, we've made the most of the incredible variety of citrus fruits: oranges, lemons, grapefruits, citrons... We make frosted oranges and lemons, for example .

What do you dream of seeing growing on your farm one day?

A.G.: Can I answer that for him? Thomas dreams of an artichoke field. It's his favorite vegetable. The problem with artichokes is that they take up a lot of space and occupy the land for five years.

Morgane Mizzon - Giulio Gerardi

What's your favorite thing about arriving in the morning in the vegetable garden or kitchen?

A.G.: Observing the growth of what's been planted, one leaf, then two and so on. I'm moved every day. Sometimes nothing grows for two weeks, and then it all comes out at once. There's a bit of magic underneath all the work.

T.V.: I'd love to start my day up there, and go there more often. We're planning to organize dinners directly at the farm, where the journey from earth to plate will be reduced to zero. Customers will be able to pick what we cook the same day - it's going to be fantastic! But at this stage, I already feel very lucky.

• Hôtel du Couvent - 1, rue Honoré Ugo, 06300 Nice
• Tel: 04 12 05 55 60
• https://www.hotelducouvent.com/