Olivier Padovan, station chef at Lenôtre, in Plaisir, Yvelines, on July 31, 2024. TERENCE BIKOUMOU FOR LE MONDE
Olivier Padovan won’t get to see much of the Olympic Games. Nor will he be meeting any athletes. Yet it’s for these very participants in the Paris 2024 events that, Padovan will start every day at 5 am, working hard in the huge Lenôtre kitchens in Plaisir, west of Paris. This prestigious subsidiary of Sodexo has made its army of cooks available to prepare some 40,000 meals a day for the Cité du Cinéma cafeteria, at the heart of the Olympic Village in Saint-Denis, north of Paris. Not only that, but Lenôtre is also providing catering for all VIP events and concession areas in sporting stadiums.
As soon as Padovan arrives in the kitchen at the crack of dawn, he puts on his station chef uniform – white jacket, black pants – and reviews the orders received the night before with his team. His specialty is vegetables and noodles. It is a crucial position, with Sodexo’s promise to offer 60% vegetarian catering to help reduce the Games’ carbon footprint. He starts by checking the volume and size of the carrots, potatoes and cabbages. On Friday, July 26, the cook had transformed 50 kilos of eggplants into caviar before vacuum-packing them. The rest of his work involved presentation, roasting, and making vegetarian canapés.
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