Earlier this month, Paris launched what’s being called the ‘biggest restaurant in the world’: the Olympic Village dining hall. Built inside a 46,000 square foot building, the dining complex seats 3,500 people across a narrow hallway, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Seine. Sodexo Live! is in charge of catering for the entire event, assembling a team of 200 cooks to prepare over 40,000 meals every day both in the Olympic Village as well as the 14 competition sites throughout France.
The chefs behind the ‘biggest restaurant in the world’
Feeding 15,000 elite athletes from 206 different nations requires curating a diverse menu that is still seamless enough to fit into their regular diets. In charge of doing so are Sodexo Live’s head chefs Charles Guilloy and Stephane Chicheri, who will be partnered by three Michelin star Parisian chefs, Akrame Benallal, Amandine Chaignot and Alexandre Mazzia in preparing signature dishes on top of the everyday meals.
Chef Amandine Chaignot’s focus is to keep the food at the Olympics simple and clean, similar to her restaurant, Pouliche’s, menu. Chef Alexandre Mazzia on the other hand, brings personal experience and knowledge to this job given he was a professional basketball player before he became a professional chef and earning three Michelin stars at his restaurant AM in Marseille.
What’s cooking at the Olympic Village?
The Olympic Village dining hall will have six different stations: two French, two Asian, one Afro-Caribbean and a World Cuisine station along with separate ‘grab and go’ points for athletes’ convenience. Athletes and officials will have a variety of options within each station as well, ranging from a salad bar, grill station, hot buffet, pasta dishes, soup and dairy stations, cheese and fruit displays, bakery stands, dessert bars.
There is an entire boulangerie section dedicated to French bread and pastries near the entrance of the Olympic Village. Chef Chicheri determined it essential for them to make the baguettes fresh each day, in house. The boulangerie will run workshops that serve as recreational cooking classes to the athletes in their downtime, teaching them to shape and score the baguettes as well as how to correctly bake them in the oven.
Nearly 60% of the food will be vegetarian?
More than 500 items will be available and have been designed to cater for special diets, eating habits and religious beliefs. Halal, vegetarian and vegan options make up a large part of the daily 120 specials on offer. In fact, nearly 60% of the food will be vegatarian in order to reduce the carbon footprint of the Olympics. Vegetarian bourguignon and cod purée are popular at the French station, while Asian dishes will include minced pork with Thai basil basmati rice and roasted cauliflower and potatoes with turmeric (aloo gobi). Shakshouka and sauteed chermoula shrimp are up for grabs as African and Caribbean specialties while the World cuisine fare entails lamb with reduced mint-infused sauce and vegetable moussaka.
What team India is eating at the Paris 2024 Olympics