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Louis Villeneuve : Monsieur Louis. Souverain majordome. Editions Noir sur Blanc, 6 juin 2024

128 pages • 25 Euros • 30 CHF

À L’Hôtel de Ville de Crissier, près de Lausanne, l’excellence gastronomique attire le beau et le grand monde – têtes couronnées, vedettes de cinéma, artistes, politiciens –, et Monsieur Louis, tout sourire, vigilant comme Argus, n’a pas eu son pareil pour enchanter le service.

Dans ces pages, Louis Villeneuve se remémore l’étonnante trajectoire qui, de la ferme de ses parents, en Bretagne, où il est né en 1948, l’a conduit jusqu’aux sommets de la gastronomie mondiale. Ce jeune Breton a connu, dans l’après-guerre, une enfance et une adolescence qui nous rappellent les livres de Raymond Depardon : les premiers tracteurs, le lycée agricole, le service militaire dans la Marine, et une jeunesse qui a soif de changement. Louis tournera le dos à la ferme pour se lancer dans la restauration. Des Suisses de passage en Bretagne, une invitation acceptée… et la grande aventure commençait.

Né à Cesson-Sévigné en 1948, dans une famille d’agriculteurs bretons, Louis Villeneuve a accompli en Suisse une carrière exceptionnelle dans la haute gastronomie, jusqu’à se voir désigné comme « le meilleur directeur de salle du monde » en 2017. Désormais à la retraite, après plus de quarante ans à L’Hôtel de Ville de Crissier, il vit dans la région de Lausanne.

About the author

Nadia Sikorsky

Nadia Sikorsky was born and raised in Moscow. She graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University and went on to complete her postgraduate studies there, earning a PhD in History. She spent 13 years at UNESCO, first in Paris and then in Geneva. After serving as Director of Communications at Green Cross International, founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, she launched NashaGazeta.ch in 2007, Switzerland’s first Russian-language online daily newspaper.

In 2022, Nadia Sikorsky was named to Le Temps’ Forum des 100, which brings together individuals who, in the newspaper’s view, have “significantly contributed to the success of French-speaking Switzerland”, from across public life, business, politics, science and culture.

After 18 years at the helm of NashaGazeta.ch, Nadia Sikorsky decided to devote herself to what had always held a special place in her work as a journalist: culture in all its diversity. This led to the creation of Russian Accent, a trilingual cultural blog in Russian, French and English, born in the heart of Europe, in Switzerland, which has become her second home and whose multiculturalism and multilingualism have helped shape the character of this new project.

At the heart of the project is the perspective of a European of Russian origin, drawing on more than 35 years of professional experience and a deep knowledge of both cultural traditions. Nadia Sikorsky sees her role as that of a cultural mediator between the two. The title of the blog, Russian Accent, reflects this idea: the accent is neither a linguistic barrier nor a political position, but a distinctive cultural imprint within a European context.

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