Twenty-six year old and already an impressive experience: Téophile knows what he wants to do and actually does it. Just before completing his examens, he dares to write to Michel Guérard asking for a job. Audacity pays off: in September 2016, he goes to Eugénie-les-Bains, first at Guérard’s second restaurant, La Ferme aux grives, then to his three-Michelin starred restaurant, Les Prés d’Eugénie, where he becomes demi-chef de partie. By the way, another well-known chef also initiated his career in the same manner, at this same restaurant: Alain Ducasse!

In 2019, after a season in another high-cuisine restaurant, the Domaine Les Crayères, in Champagne region, he feels that its times to pack his bags and travel the world. Here he is in São Paulo. He hears of a very trendy restaurant, the Capivara Bar, located in a garage, in the district of Barra Funda, North-West of the city, a district then in the midst of profound change. The chef, Rodrigo Felicio, hires him as sous-chef. “I loved the cuisine we made here, very spontaneous. We were going to the market every morning and the menu was changing every day.” In 2020, again, a new destination. This time, Danmark and the famous Redzepi’s Noma where Téophile spends a few months.

He now feels ready to go back to France and even to work in a Parisian restaurant. It will be ADMO, Alain Ducasses ephemeral restaurant at the Musée du Quai Branly, open from November 2021 to March 2022. He is chef de partie of Romain Meder those who created the Cuisine de la Naturalité with Alain Ducasse. This encounter played an important role in Téophile’s career since he then followed Romain as sous-chef at Le Domaine de Primard where he spent two years.

In December, he will be executive chef at AlUla. A logical move for this talented young chef who, from the beginning, knew very well what he wants to do: “A restaurant in a farm is for me ideal. At AlUla, its exactly what Im going to have: a restaurant in a wonderful oasis.”

As a child, Michel often accompanied his father, a baker, on his bread delivery tours around Obernai, his home town. One of his clients was the Hôtel du Parc. The idea of working in this sector stemed in his mind. During his studies, a first internship introduced him to the trade of service and thus determine the rest of his career.

He soon realised that he needed to perfect his practice of foreign languages and so began a European tour. London first, in 1984, at Albert and Michel Roux's Gavroche, then Germany in 1986, at the Hotel Erbprinz in the Black Forest. And finally Italy, in 1987, at Gualtiero Marchesi in Milan.

He returned to France for a season at the Relais de Mougins before beginning a Parisian chapter as maître d'hôtel at Lasserre in 1988 and at Taillevent in 1989.

He then moved to the south of France for the opening of the Palmyre in Cannes in 1989 as 1st Maitre d'hôtel, then in 1991 as Maitre d'hôtel at the Château de la Messardière in Saint-Tropez, where he met Alain Ducasse. Between these two positions, he spent a season at the Chabichou in Courchevel.

He joined the Louis XV-Alain Ducasse in Monaco at the end of 1992 as assistant maître d'hôtel, before becoming dining room director in 2004 and then director of Alain Ducasse's restaurants at the Hôtel de Paris from 2019. In 2021, he comes to Paris to take charge of the dining room at ADMO - Adrià Ducasse Meder aux Ombres, a pop up restaurant at the Quai Branly Museum.

He will become dining room director of Ducasse in AlUla restaurant in December 2024.