Meet Fabien Martinez

Résumé

‘I started my training with Michel Pipet, at the Antiquaires, one of the finest tables in Orléans (France) in my home region.’ Then Jacques Le Divellec (Paris, France) gave Fabien his first chance in the world of fine restaurants. ‘I learned so much from him, especially to love simple, refined and classic work with fish, which we made in this two-star restaurant. Plus, Monsieur Le Divellec is an extraordinary man, with a fine character and almost unlimited knowledge.’ Fabien then worked at Hôtel de France (Auch) with André Daguin, before returning to Paris to work at Jules Verne, the restaurant on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, under the supervision of Alain Reix. Cooking is often a story of people and meetings, and he was fortunate enough to meet Michel Roux (Le Gavroche, London, UK), who was a consultant for Celebrity Cruise at the time. ‘I left France for this great chef. I thought I’d be gone just a year or two—that was in 1995—but I still haven’t returned’.

Local and international cuisine

Today, Fabien is responsible for the kitchens at the Sheraton Algarve Hotel in Portugal, a member of the Starwood Hotels and Resorts group. He manages the 13 restaurants and three bars of this vast complex that spreads over 74 hectares and employs, for the restaurant alone, 70 people in the winter, and over 150 in the summer. ‘Offers, services, culinary quality, menu choices, menu changes, quality of service, health and safety are my daily bread, I don’t have time to get bored’. Here, the most popular dishes are local specialties, like ‘Cataplana’, a soup made using local fish, or ‘Piri Piri’ grilled chicken with pimentos, but classics like pepper steak, grilled sea bass in a salt crust or thermidor lobster, are also very popular. When it comes to desserts, ‘Pastel de nata’, a local pastry made with egg and flaky pastry, is a hit. But in this type of hotel, we need to propose international desserts that guests love, so we always include a lot of French pastries in the menu. Chocolate mousse, crème brûlée, crème caramel, baba, éclairs and millefeuilles are extremely popular. Of course, our guests love these desserts, but my employers do too because they represent significant additional income’.

Products

When it comes to products, Fabien Martinez has long worked with Elle & Vire. ‘First of all, it’s a very innovative brand. It was the first to market the ‘Excellence Cooking Cream’, truly a flagship products, as well as the ‘Dessert Base Crème Brûlée with Madagascar Vanilla’. Two high-quality, solid products’.

A passion and values

The chef expresses his passion for cooking and the values its expresses: ‘sharing, friendship, helping and sharing knowledge’. He also mentions the ‘Cooking through the generations’ operation which consists in preparing dishes using ancient techniques, then modernising them; ‘this year we invited Philippe Brun from Hôtel du Haut Allier (Alleyras, Haute Loire, France) who will share the recipes of his grandmother Rosalie with us’.

http://www.luxurycollection.com/algarve
http://www.hotel-lehautallier.com/