CHEF PASCAL GEFFROY
Cooking since he was 14, Chef-Owner Pascal Geffroy spent years managing kitchens in Lyons and Rhone before moving to Toronto six years ago after falling in love with the city during a visit here with a friend.
“It’s a big city but every neighbourhood is like a little village where people know each other,” he says.
When he arrived he was sous chef to Didier Leory at his restaurant, Didier, and after that spent three years cooking with Jean-Jacques Texier, the original owner of Batifole, before becoming the head chef at Papillon on Front. When Texier decided to sell his baby, Geffroy took the opportunity and has been running the restaurant since October 2013.
“My kitchen is more Provençal and Jean-Jacques was more Brittany where they have more classic Parisian cuisine. Provencal is more oil, more vegetables, more fish, less butter, less cream. It’s lighter,” he says.
For now, most of Texier’s dishes remain on the menu like the cassoulet with duck confit and pork belly, as well as the escargot as Geffroy slowly eases in his dishes.
“I want to keep the idea of Batifole,” he says. “People like it and I don’t want to change it, but now it’s me. The spirit of the house will live on, very casual, not pretentious, and good food. This is my priority”.
[Adapted from the GridTO article by Karon Liu]
