“I wasn’t prepared for that”: Cyril Lignac talks about his first steps in television!

Cyril Lignac is on all fronts this year. If he made a surprise return in August for the show Tous en Cuisine, we can currently find him alongside Mercotte for the Best Pastry Chef competition with an edition full of changes. It must be said that over time, the Aveyron chef has established himself as an emblematic figure in the television culinary universe.

However, if today the chef is perfectly comfortable facing this exercise, It has not always been the case. He thus spoke of his debut on television during the podcast “A stove”, a format hosted by Julie Gerbet which exposes the chefs. So between shyness and external views: how did Cyril Lignac experience his first appearances on TV? Here is the answer.

It was at the age of 22 that this young Aveyron native arrived in Paris to cook. Arpèges, Maison Blanche, La Grande Cascade: Cyril Lignac has a string of professional experiences. Subsequently, in 2005, he began his career on television with the show Oui Chef. The challenge: opening your own restaurant. A major challenge: “In the 2000s, it was a new way of presenting a cooking show on TV. It wasn’t really a recipe show, it was more about opening the doors of a restaurant and seeing behind the scenes”. This show is going to kick off the gastronomic anthill. The opportunity for the public to discover cuisine from a new angle. An originality which may have disturbed the cook’s peers.

Nevertheless Cyril Lignac only keeps the positive : “It was something new and in France we don’t really like change. It’s a show that has shaken up the codes of gastronomy. Initially, many people had questions. When we leave the course and find ourselves in front of the stage, I also needed to show that I had my place with all these chefs and that it was not just a TV show . But finally today it has changed things for the better: chefs are more in the media, we have a strong interest in our profession and that creates vocations among young people”.

In addition to the judgments, Cyril Lignac also had to surpass himself, being comfortable in front of a camera was not innate for him : “I wasn’t prepared for this. I didn’t feel comfortable at all. At the beginning, it was very complicated for me. Today, I took care of myself but I am a really shy boy, really reserved, which is quite paradoxical”.

And years later, despite the experience acquired, the chef confides that his shyness is still present : “In France now it’s okay, but when I’m abroad for example or when I’m in a world where people don’t know me, I fade away a lot”. But who doesn’t know him?!