‘Everyone is generous’: top French chef Yannick Alléno on the colleagues donating their time for sold-out charity dinner honouring his late son Antoine
- This week several top French chefs will cook an eight-course dinner in Hong Kong to raise funds for a charity set up in memory of a fellow chef’s late son
- Three-Michelin-star chef Yannick Alléno, whose son Antoine, himself a chef, was killed last year in a hit-and-run accident in Paris, will be among those cooking
For a special dinner in Hong Kong on March 23, chef Maxime Gilbert of two-Michelin-star Écriture will present a one-of-a-kind menu for a good cause – a foundation set up in memory of the son of a fellow chef and mentor, Yannick Alléno.
The menu includes egg “badaboom”, a poached egg with a stuffing of caviar; wild turbot from Brittany, France, cooked in white wine; roast langoustine with black truffle and foie gras; and a millefeuille constructed with Japanese wagyu.
These chefs are also cooking for the event – with the exception of Tongourian, flying in specially to do so; the dinner will be complemented with top wines and will also feature a live auction for lots including Michelin-star dining experiences in France, hotel stays, bottles of fine wine, even a Cartier diamond watch.
The event was sold out in three days, with diners paying from HK$17,888 (US$2,280) for a table for two to HK$53,888 for a table of six.
All proceeds will go to the Association Antoine Alléno, started by Yannick Alléno, who will also cook in Hong Kong that evening.
The last time the three-Michelin-star chef was in Hong Kong was in 2018.
“I was there with my son, and we were cooking at the [Hong Kong] Jockey Club,” Alléno says of Antoine, who had always been described by his peers as a promising young chef.
The younger Alléno’s life was cut short in Paris on May 8, 2022 at the age of 24, when he was killed on his way home from work – struck down by a man driving a stolen vehicle.
The Alléno family – including his mother, Isabelle, and younger brother Thomas – and Antoine’s girlfriend, Anja Milenkovic, were plunged into grief.
Speaking to the Post from Paris by phone, Alléno recalled the shock not of only receiving the news of his son’s death, but of what followed – from being handed a phone number on a piece of paper for counselling, to viewing his son’s body behind a glass window three days later.
“I saw a world I had never seen before in Europe and especially in France,” he says with emotion in his voice of the experience of suddenly confronting the death of his child. “No one takes care of the mother, sister, father, no one asks them if they need anything.”
He adds: “Young people, when they are 17 to 25 years old, it’s a constructive time for them. They are working towards their future.”
His son’s death was covered widely in French media, which led to the families of some other accident victims reaching out to Alléno.
“I met some mothers who told me they had no psychological help, no one asked them if they were OK. It’s not just them, but also the children who lose a brother or sister. We have to help children recover psychologically,” he says.
Alléno’s experience led him and his family to establish Association Antoine Alléno, which will not only establish a network of psychologists and lawyers, but also give out funds to pay for funerals, transport if families need to travel, as well as accommodation and meals.
“If they don’t have money to pay for the funeral, they probably don’t have money for food,” Alléno points out.
“I want to put my celebrity as a three-Michelin-star chef on this mission. I will spend all my energy and connections on this so that we can change things,” he says, adding that his foundation has a lot of work ahead.
Maxime called me and said we will do something. He warmed my heart, of course. All the chefs want to do something.
Since his son’s death, Alléno has been buoyed by support from the hospitality industry, including many top chefs – such as Hélène Darroze, who organised a charity lunch at her eponymous restaurant at The Connaught in London.
Gilbert at Écriture promises a fun night for the 60 or so diners who will indulge in the eight-course dinner, and the chefs themselves will have a reunion with their mentor Alléno.
When he contacted chef friends from his time working at Alléno’s Pavilion Ledoyen about the charity event, they all agreed to come.
Alléno is pleased to be able to cook together for a good cause. “Maxime called me and said we will do something. He warmed my heart, of course. All the chefs want to do something. I have never seen any other collaboration like this. Everyone is generous and human.”
When Antoine died, Alléno wanted to close Père et Fils Burger par Alléno, the gourmet burger restaurant he had opened in Paris in 2021 with his son. In the end, he decided against it. “The best way to remember him is to keep it open, so I have,” Alléno says.
His restaurant Pavyllon London at the Four Seasons on Park Lane in the British capital will open in mid-June and the owner has already decided the bar will be named after Alléno’s son.
What Alléno wants people to remember most about his son is simple: “He was always smiling.”
