Bruno de Lorgues passes away

In fact, it was the first gourmet restaurant I went to with my grandfather and mother during a summer lunch. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was young, and I look back on that culinary and gourmet journey with nostalgia, thinking of the man who passed on to me the love of this beautiful profession, the restaurant business, and who is watching me from up there in the sky. Many years later, I returned to Chez Bruno in Lorgues to interview the owner for the newspaper Le Temps, alongside his two young sons Samuel and Benjamin. The former was in the dining room and the latter behind the stoves… they’re still there. After reading the article, Clément Bruno took the trouble to phone me to thank me. Few people do, and I was touched by his gesture.

His life could have been a novel that would surely have left its mark. War, famine, poverty, but nothing is as hard as the abandonment of a father. This self-taught cook forged his character and learned domestic cooking from his grandmother. He knew how to entertain and started with four tables, but the beginnings were difficult. It took him 10 years before the magic happened around the black diamond. Today, his sons have taken up the torch, and the house continues to shine on the French gastronomic scene. Always with his characteristic humility, I had lunch at the restaurant after interviewing him, and he said to me: “I’ll leave you, Sir, we’re going to eat yesterday’s leftovers, and I’m counting on you to eat today’s freshness”. A great man has gone…