HOW TO MAKE YOUR a flourishing TEAM ACCORDING TO CHEF LIONEL RODRIGUEZ? FROM TOULOUSE AND A FAN OF CREATIVITY, CHEF LIONEL RODRIGUEZ STUDIED IN THE SOUTH-WEST. THESE STUDIES ENABLED HIM TO FREQUENT GREAT ESTABLISHMENTS SUCH AS THE MONTREUX PALACE IN SWITZERLAND, LAURENT, ALAIN DUCASSE OR GUANAHANI. HE WAS ALSO ABLE TO PRACTICE HIS PASSION ALONGSIDE THE CHEF EDGARD BOVIER AND HIS MANAGER JEAN-JACQUES GAUER AT THE LAUSANNE PALACE. THIS ADVENTURE LASTED 8 YEARS, AND ONLY CONFIRMED HIS LOVE FOR TASTY AND ALPINE CUISINE.

In 2012, Lionel Rodriguez became the Executive Chef of the Hotel des Trois Couronnes in Vevey. Until 2020, he never ceases to imbue his signature and obtains a star, achieving a constant progression in the Gault-Millau with 16 points.

He then took over the reins of the Deck in March 2021, where his cuisine rhymes with sun, pleasure and freshness!

A GREAT MANAGER’S ADVICE FOR A flourishing TEAM

But behind every Chef is a great team, Chef Lionel Rodriguez shares with you his managerial vision in a few points:

• Generosity and sharing to start with! Indeed, this is what will characterise his team and the kitchen. Sharing recipes, tastes, tastings, their sharing with him, their emotions… Because the hotel and restaurant business is above all a service business: giving without expecting anything in return, except the satisfaction of having brought something positive to the customer. You have to know how to be generous to be able to give your desire, to share your passion through a dish when you are lucky enough to have guests who come to the restaurant.
• The desire and values of the team around him are essential points for the chef, as well as proximity and complicity with customers, which are an integral part of their identity.
• Dialogue is also essential, the emotions and desires of the moment sound like an everyday conversation, where the cooks ask “what did you do this weekend?”, “what did you eat?”, “who were you with?”, “why was it good? The Chef attaches great importance to the well-being of his customers but also his flourishing team. This also allows them to get to know each other and to share their personal and culinary experiences. The complicity that emerges from this will then inevitably be felt on the plate.

A RELATIONSHIP OF TRUST WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES TO MAKE YOUR flourishing team

• Then there is feedback! In order to ensure a follow-up and a relationship of trust with your team, it is important to know how the quality of your work is evaluated, whether by the guests or the chef himself. Because cooking is never static, it evolves according to the desires and tastes of the customers but also of the cooks, so it is necessary to evolve on the same wavelength. Whether it is through the products of their craftsmen, suppliers and partners, the circle is completed thanks to the cook who has been able to illuminate each ingredient to form a whole.
• And in order to continue to satisfy the customer by constantly renewing the menu, you have to be creative and inspired! Because behind the rigour of the job, you have to reinvent yourself twice a day.
• The fact of having a menu with dishes that are unavoidable, from the region, from the land, the tempo is given by the craftsmen, by the desires of the colleagues, but also the ephemeral signature menu. Indeed, in Lionel Rodriguez’s restaurant, the signature menu lasts 15 days, just that! Then it has to be renewed. Learning is an inexhaustible source of daily inspiration.
• Finally, for the Chef, making his team grow and evolve rhymes with challenges. Like Nathalie Nicoulin for the past 5 years, who has been able to adapt and transmit with the Sous-Chef Oriol Vauquer the messages that Lionel wants to pass on to his guests. Understanding his philosophy and putting it into practice. All this makes sense after so much hard work. But the happy team does not only stop in the kitchen, the front of house staff are also constantly trained and contribute to a warm and tasty kitchen! In this way, he makes his flourishing team.

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