At Club L'Indochine in the Villa Belrose, the top chef is bringing together a fusion of French haute cuisine and the flavours of Indochina.
The Berlin chef known as The Duc Ngo is making headlines with his new project: opening Club L'Indochine in the five-star hotel Resort Villa Belrose in St. Tropez on May 4.
There, The Duc Ngo combines "the best of two great worlds – haute cuisine from France and the fresh, expressive cuisine of Indochina", according to a press release. It continues, "At Club L'Indochine, European culinary art meets the intense herbs and spices of Vietnamese cuisine."
The Duc Ngo's pop-up concept will be implemented by star chef Jimmy Coutel, who worked as a sous chef at Villa Belrose from 2009 to 2014.
"The opportunity to present great cuisine from my homeland paired with top French cuisine to such an international clientele is simply exciting and fills me with great anticipation. The gastronomically accomplished Althoff Collection offers the ideal terrain for this," the Vietnamese-born chef said.
The Duc Ngo is credited with redefining sushi culture with his successful restaurant Kuchi, which opened in 1999, and he now runs fifteen restaurants in Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Baden-Baden and Braunschweig, including Cocolo Ramen, Madame Ngo and 893 Ryotei.
Frank Marrenbach, CEO of Althoff Hotels, adds: "I am looking forward to new culinary horizons and the cooperation with The Duc Ngo, whose trend sense I have appreciated for many years."
The Duc Ngo was born in Hanoi in 1974 and came to Berlin in 1979. As a schoolboy, he worked in the catering industry and became interested in Japanese cuisine at an early age. After a brief intermezzo as a sushi chef in Moscow, the self-taught chef – inspired by his travels to New York, Los Angeles and Miami – opened his first restaurant at the age of 24. Next to Kuchi and Kuchi Mitte quickly followed. In 2005, The Duc Ngo launched the fine-dining restaurant shiro i shiro, which was voted one of the world's 50 best new openings the following year.
The Duc Ngo has built up a large fan base over the years, not least through appearances on TV series such as Kitchen Impossible, Knife Fight Club and Ready to Beef.
