David Toutain was born in Normandy, in Flers, in 1981. When still a child, his grandparents, who were farmers, passed him a love for the earth and its fruits. He did the first internship in a restaurant at 15 and at 19 he was lucky enough to be able to move to Paris and work with a truly great master such as Alain Passard, at L'Arpege.
Toutain became his sous chef after only one year, staying there for two more years. In that period, Passard had just began to focus his attention on vegetables, giving the possibility to his young assistant to deepen his knowledge of these raw materials for which he was already passionate. After this first master came another, equally charismatic and famous: Marc Veyrat – of whom David Toutain was also the sous chef – who still considers him a sort of spiritual son, and with him the young chef learnt the pleasure of cooking with herbs, flowers, earth.
Toutain however didn’t want to stop. He left France to increase his knowledge, first with an internship that lasted a few months, in Spain, at Mugaritz, then in New York, at Corton. In 2010 his son was born: this convinced him to return to France, to Paris, where with Agapé Substance he had the first chance to work as executive chef of a small restaurant, around 30 square metres, with a single table d'hôte that was a sort of extension of the kitchen, where he served dishes based on the moment’s inspiration, without any menu.
Despite the success of this place, after 18 months David Toutain decided to stop for a whole year. He decided to travel all around the world. And to think about the future. The result of this is a restaurant in Paris that is simply named after him, where he can finally stop and build a long term project, offering a cuisine that is the summing up of the varied experience he has acquired, based on his research on the pure taste of raw materials, in which vegetables especially continue to have an essential role.
See also
David Toutain, the traveller
All about Toutain