The Roland-Garros tennis tournament started on May 26 and is in full swing until Monday June 9. During this period, the restaurants on the Porte d’Auteuil site in Paris were teeming like an anthill, both in the dining rooms and in the kitchens.
When the appetite is good, everything is good! The adage also applies to tennis players during the Roland-Garros tournament. With more than 2,000 seats served on the biggest days of the fortnight, the Sodexo Live! don’t be idle. The French restaurant chain makes three restaurants available to players on the Porte d’Auteuil site.
The one at the Philippe-Chatrier court (up to 800 seats per day the first week) is the most beautiful, with the widest range. Often frequented by the big names of the circuit, it has been completely renovated for the 2024 edition. The one on the Suzanne-Lenglen court is the largest restaurant (up to 1,200 seats/day) since it must be able to accommodate in particular players in the doubles, juniors and even wheelchair tennis tables. A third restaurant, more intimate (around a hundred seats/day), is located in the Jean-Bouin club, near the site.
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Except for this last restaurant, where dishes are served at the table, all operate on a self-service model. The Lenglen restaurant is the one that opens the earliest, at breakfast time, and the Chatrier restaurant is generally the one that closes last. “We happened to finish very late, after midnight,” confides Vincent Colin, who is playing his fifth tournament as operations director for Sodexo Live!. The player must be able to eat at any time of the day, up to 1 hour after the end of the last match, while he finishes his shower and his press conference. »
“We are not going to serve truffles”
Serving fresh food on players’ plates with such wide opening hours is a major challenge. “It has to be fresh, good and nutritionally qualitative,” says Vincent Colin. There’s nothing extraordinary, we’re not going to serve truffles. In any case, this is not what athletes ask for during a tournament. »
So what do we find on the meal trays of the champions of the little yellow ball? The proposed catering corresponds to three stages: that of physical preparation, the match and recovery. Unsurprisingly, starchy foods are the most popular foods for tennis players. They are present on their plates during these three stages of the tournament. “Our pasta bars are very popular,” emphasizes the operating manager. These are fresh pasta, gluten-free or with gluten. We will find sauces to enhance, vegetables, in order to construct a plate which will be cooked on time to maintain the nutritional quality of the product. »
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The grill stands are also very popular, with “snacked fish without frying or grilled poultry, beef…” All without too much seasoning to let the players add salt or pepper to their liking. That’s it for the main course. But the starter-main course-dessert menu is not prohibited, on the contrary. “80% of the platters are made up of at least one element from our salad bars or our fruit bars,” continues Vincent Colin. Overall, the players create either a large cold plate or a hot dish with a small starter made from the salad bar and a fruit salad, with or without fromage blanc. We have different ranges of plant or animal milks. » This year, the Chatrier restaurant will also offer a new offering of Asian cuisine, with steamed appetizers, to enhance an already popular sushi offering.
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Nutritionists who “keep an eye on things”
And if burger and pizza stands are also present in the restaurants of Roland-Garros, it is not simply to attract attention to the participants. You have to have something to console yourself when you are eliminated from the competition… “We have a cheese platter, which is intended more for the players’ entourage,” smiles Vincent Colin. A small pastry counter also offers one pastry per day. Here, we are really looking forward to end-of-tournament treats. »
Speaking of indulgence, Rafael Nadal traditionally receives his birthday cake every June 3, in the middle of the tournament. The mission can then be entrusted to the luxury caterer Lenôtre (which belongs to Sodexo), to the pastry chef Yann Couvreur (who makes the pastries for Sodexo Live!) or even Marc Rivière, another renowned pastry chef who works for Potel and Chabot during Roland Garros. “It’s mostly symbolic,” he laughs. It’s beautiful for TV and the official photo, but between you and me, sometimes he doesn’t even eat it (laughs). His nutritionist is keeping a close watch! »
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If the best players on the circuit benefit from the advice of a particular nutritionist, everyone must be on an equal footing in the restaurants at Roland-Garros. With one priority: product quality. “We are in direct contact with nutritionists from the French Tennis Federation to build our offers,” explains Vincent Colin. An executive chef, Thibaut Rouillard, builds each recipe, sources the products, quality audits are carried out… We only work with French products, even for our Asian offerings, which is not necessarily always simple. »
“Novak Djokovic has some allergy concerns”
The Roland-Garros catering offer must also be able to meet today’s challenges. Whether they are vegetarians, vegans or vegans, players and members of their staff must be able to find their happiness while remaining faithful to their diet.
Gluten intolerant, Novak Djokovic practices a plant-based diet. Same thing for the Pole Hubert Hurkacz, world No. 8. “It’s not easy to gain the energy needed for a five-set match, for example, but I usually eat rice with vegetables a few hours before the match. And then it is very important for me to have bananas during the match,” he told ATP in 2021.
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“I can’t detail everyone’s diets, but we actually receive a list of what Novak Djokovic doesn’t want for example, even if he eats more and more on his own because he has some problems allergies, reveals Vincent Colin. We don’t have a space dedicated to “Djoko”. He can find at the three restaurants what he needs according to his personal diet, and this is the case for everyone. »
The restaurant at Court Philippe-Chatrier has been completely renovated for the 2024 edition of Roland-Garros and the Paris Olympic Games. (Photo: Johan Sonnet / FFT)
To avoid losing players’ stomachs, the catering offer at Roland-Garros follows the model of what we find throughout the year on the ATP and WTA circuits, but also on the three other Grand Slams. Anna Magnifico, the chef of Chatrier, is also the personal chef of certain French players. “She follows them on a daily basis all year round and does all the Grand Slams,” says Vincent Colin. It helps us a lot to know what is being done elsewhere. The downside of Roland-Garros is that the venues are small compared to the US Open or Wimbledon, where players may feel like they have more choice because the restaurants are huge. But the offer is more or less the same. »
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Nearly 2,000 mouths to feed
If the players are pampered, they still have to put their hands in their pockets sometimes. They can pay for their meal tray directly using their accreditation badge, recharged daily to a certain amount by the French Tennis Federation, organizer of the tournament. Once this credit is reached, “sometimes they go out of their own money to invite their loved ones,” specifies the operating manager of Sodexo Live!.
Throughout the year, the latter has 20 people to prepare Roland-Garros. This staff increases to 45 as the tournament approaches, before completely changing in size during the three weeks of competition. “I have staff who come back often, like our chefs, our seconds, our zone managers,” says Vincent Colin. On the other hand, every year, we have to recruit cooks, dishwashers, crew members, cashiers, etc. In total, all of this represents a team of 1,600 employees. »
Feeding nearly 2,000 mouths every day is at this price. The Potel et Chabot house, which takes care of restaurants dedicated to the public, is not to be outdone, since it serves an average of 6,000 dishes per day during Roland-Garros.
2024-05-30 17:51:21
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