Arnaud Lahaut and Gil Elad opened Mampuku in December 2015, followed by Massa in the spring of 2018, while keeping the Miles until September 2020.
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“It’s the end of a story”, concedes Gil Elad who hastens to add that “even if there is a little sadness, it’s also nice to each go on new adventures”. Because contrary to what some might believe, the trio of chefs does not pay for the effects of the Covid. “Everything was even going very well”, assures Gil, and the trio even considered “developing Massa”, without renouncing either “the opening of a larger restaurant”, in the line of Miles, recalls for his part Arnaud Lahaut.
traditional dishes
But work, even if it was a source of immense joy and breathtaking recognition, could not make us forget the personal questions that sometimes reshuffle the cards. Thus, Arnaud plans to open “a Franco-Vietnamese bar in Brisbane, Australia”, when Gil dreams of a table in Japan, “within two years, because it’s still too complicated”.
In the meantime, it is Ayako Ota that he will give a hand. Because the Japanese, a trained pastry chef, will open her Japanese bistro next September. On the Quai des Queyries, a stone’s throw from Place Stalingrad, Maison Musubi will offer traditional Japanese cuisine, “dishes cooked as they are made at home”, accompanied by a few pastries. So don’t look for the sushi and other “japanese” usually served in so-called Rising Sun establishments.
For this new adventure, the young woman joined forces with Marie-Pierre Munoz, whom she met when she arrived in Bordeaux. It was then to learn the language of Escoffier that the Frenchwoman, a foreign language teacher, had taught for fifteen years in Japan, from where she had returned with a sommelier diploma in sake. Since then, a strong complicity unites the two women. Hence the name of the restaurant, musubi meaning “link” in Japanese.
As for Gil, between now and a possible installation in the far east of Asia, he could well set up a new restaurant in Bordeaux, “with a former cook from Mampuku, at the end of the year”. “We are only beginning to look for a room,” he minimizes the impatience shown. Arnaud admits for his part that he “will return to Bordeaux one day”. The story may not be over.
