Plantxa: new chef, same pleasure

Plantxa is the new Boulogne restaurant renown for its fanciful chef Juan Arbelaez and his cuisine that goes to all directions. Now running the Nubé kitchen, it’s naturally that his right-hand-man Maximilien Kuznar steps in. A young and uncommon cook with a singular career.

Plantxa story (re)starts in 2013 when Colombian chef Juan Arbelaez decides to take over the Boulogne-Billancourt restaurant to make of it a place that looks like him: colorful, crazy, impertinent. The one who came in France in 2008 to work with Pierre Gagnaire and Eric Frechon before being the chef for Jean Imbert’s Acajou, managed in 3 years to make a spot in the Boulogne microcosm surrounded by advertisement agencies and TV studios that have their canteens.

New mural décor by artist Edward Gomes

The success hasn’t been a bed of roses when we look at the location of the restaurant, almost alone in a very quiet street. Today, the restaurant is most of all crowded. Its success can be explained by Juan Arbelaez’s talent and cooking style that some may qualify “messy”, but we would rather go or “light and impertinent”. Lost of humor, noise, music, tags on the walls, colorful plates, this is what made Plantxa’s reputation.

This past March, when Juan is offered to take over Hotel Marignan Champs-Elysées ***** restaurant Nubé, his new successor at Plantxa was no surprise, his right-hand-man, Maximilien Kuznar. The story of the latter isn’t common since, four years ago, his future wasn’t written in hotplates but behind a desk, with a management bachelor’s degree in his pocket. Well, the cooking bug has always been there, and he decides to change his whole career and start a food career.

“To me, cooking isn’t something you learn at school, it’s something you have in your heart first”.

After a few experiences, especially at Jerome Banctel’s Gabriel**, he will join Juan Arbelaez’s team at Acajou. The latter will become his mentor and friend. Their common adventure continues at Plantxa where he quickly becomes the second in command and improves his technique.

Today, he tells us he loves it. “I get up every morning and I’m happy to do what I do”. From Juan Arbelaez’s cooking, he kept the classics, such as the Ceviche, but the menu – changing weekly – is now sober in the titles and yet still as fanciful in the plate: vitello tonato (an Italian recipe based on cold veal and tuna sauce), egg parfait with mashed parsnip, roast poultry, chorizo dices and a splash or arugula purée, the super tender chuck steak cooked overnight at low temperature, mashed celery and reduced beef jus of a rare intensity. And moving on to dessert, you can choose between the very sweet choco peanuts, the refreshing passion fruit sorbet and tapioca. Successful mission, chef! What a wonderful experience than a lunch at Plantxa by Maximilien Kuznar.