La Bastide takes its name from the French word for “Provençal country house.” What memory do you hope guests make when they visit?
Other than experiencing great food, which is our main purpose, it’s also a feeling of being welcomed into someone’s house and being part of the family. It’s really the warm hospitality that I hope people remember every time they visit. We have a garden, we have a place where people can have lunch and hang out to spend the whole afternoon, and realize they are hungry again, and then want to have dinner with us. That’s the kind of thing we want to offer: just being a space where people spend time and feel good.
Located above Cenadou Bistrot, La Bastide is an intimate restaurant limited to just six tables. Why is six the perfect number?
There are six tables with two seatings per night. We do a maximum of 14 to 16 covers at a time, so that really allows us to focus on details. And when I talk about details, it can be the temperature of a sauce, it can be a fish cooked until the very last second. There are a lot of details that we are able to achieve in our cuisine that we wouldn’t be able to do if we were making more covers. Six tables allows the perfect amount of correct orders we can do to provide a very, very catered experience to customers. It is really a balance of having enough people to create a warm ambiance in the restaurant, and be sustainable. … Being able to control everything, not rush anything, and give all the attention and time we can to guests to make them feel special.
La Bastide is located in North Salem, New York, about an hour north of Manhattan. What most attracted you to this location to open a fine-dining restaurant?
To be honest, we didn’t know anything about North Salem or Westchester in general. We were focused on our life in the city, which was very intense. We used to get away from the city to the Catskills, but we didn’t have any knowledge of this area. The attraction was more about us wanting to make changes in the way we manage a restaurant, and it was an opportunity to be able to take over this space. When we were approached, we came up here and fell in love with the region and space. It was matching what we had in mind. At the time, we had even been thinking about going back to France or doing something else. We loved our experience in the city, but we were ready to take the next step and be closer to nature, closer to suppliers and farms, and a different life.
From your perspective, in what ways are upstate New York and the south of France similar?
Obviously, they are very different because of the landscape, the climate, and the people. But, at the same time, we can find these wants in people. The way that they are eating and drinking, and the importance of sourcing the best produce, as well. We are lucky enough to have a clientele that understands what it is we want to offer, and we are also lucky enough to have amazing producers around, and I think that is similar to what you can experience in France. In general, the Hudson Valley offers an amazing range of products, and in New York, we are super lucky to have amazing seafood as well. I guess the mix of both is something we can also find in the South of France.
After opening in early 2024, La Bastide quickly earned its first MICHELIN Star. How does it feel to receive this recognition?
As someone who trained in MICHELIN-Starred restaurants since the age of 16, it feels amazing, to be honest. MICHELIN is one of the reasons why you first want to work in these types of restaurants as a kid. As a chef and owner today, it’s obviously really special. It’s the result of a lot of choices we made, and also risks that we took in order to open this type of restaurant in Westchester. And, being out of the city, it’s amazing being recognized by the MICHELIN Guide. People who may never have heard of us before the star discovered us, and are interested in the experience. It also felt amazing for the super-hard work that the team did in the first year of opening—it’s been a bit serene running the business after that.
Calling a workplace a family can be a cliché, but in your case, it’s true. You work alongside your wife, Elena Oliver, who serves as the General Manager. What is your favorite part of being a husband-and-wife team?
We opened our first restaurant, Papilles, together when we were like 23 years old, so we’ve basically been working together since the beginning. I’m proud to say that we’ve been successful so far. There are lots of ups and downs in this industry, but we are very happy with what we’ve achieved today, and I don’t think that we would be able to do the same thing without each other.
