“All the work is done in the kitchen with the flavours and the combinations — my years of experience haven’t gone to waste, they will still be used,” says Ani. “I take all my background and knowledge and understanding, but I keep it simple on the plate.”
Surprisingly for someone that worked unpaid learning the molecular craft, Ani is now somewhat disparaging of this style of cooking.
“It was nice to see what the fuss was all about and break inside it and find out whether it was worth it or not and it wasn’t worth it. It was a good experience because then you say ‘that’s not what food is all about’. I had to see it for myself to really understand it.
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“When people do molecular gastronomy they never look at the sense of the taste, they look at the sense of the wow, of the dramatic effect. They look at the impact it has on the table, not the impact it has on the mouth. For me that’s the most important thing. I managed to bring the two together because I love to eat good food, it doesn’t matter how good it looks. That’s one thing that never changes about my food, the flavour. I learned that at Auberge de L’Ill — that’s classic cooking.”
This is one thing that appealed to Ani about La Petite Maison, which offers Niçoise fare similar to the traditional cuisine offered at the original La Petite Maison in Nice, which Zuma owner Arjun Waney used to frequent regularly before buying the rights to expand the restaurant.
“I used to work in the south of France, I understand the flavours of the south of France — it’s delicate, subtle. My wife is French, people think I am French because I love the culture,” says Ani.
“Sometimes we put too much emphasis on a concept instead of the food,” he observes. “The culture of Mediterranean cooking and eating is lightness, and the produce is of the utmost importance.”
It’s a philosophy that sits well with Toussaint, himself a chef who studied hospitality and began his career as a chef in hotel restaurants in his native France.
Like Ani, he has a varied past, including the position of executive chef to the French ambassador in Colombia, managing restaurants at a 500-room Sofitel hotel in France and working as assistant manager for Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing at The Savoy Grill in London.
“It’s all about experience; Izi [as chef Ani is known] went to different restaurants to learn cooking, I went to different restaurants to learn management,” comments Toussaint, who talks modestly of his subsequent experiences managing the fifth floor restaurant at Harvey Nichols in London and the city’s Conran-owned Skylon Restaurant and Le Pont de la Tour, now part of D&D Restaurant Group.
When approached by the team at La Petite Maison — which was looking for a French national to open the overseas restaurants — Toussaint had a difficult choice.
Accustomed to running restaurant, bistro and bar combinations with a 500-person capacity, he was initially unsure of taking on a smaller 150-person establishment in Dubai. He also had to overcome a move from Michelin style service — where everything is “very square” — to something which is “less precise”.
As with Ani though, what clinched the deal was La Petite Maison’s loyalty to its Niçoise roots and the commitment to fresh, quality food.
“I had eaten there [La Petite Maison London] about 10 times, I loved it, it reminded me of when I was young,” says Toussaint. “It’s back to basics,” he says.
“My previous company was much more focused on finance, La Petite Maison is focused on product.”
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