Las Brisas

With 1 Michelin star and an innovative culinary style, Chef Marcel Ravin runs the superb Blue Bay Restaurant in Monaco with tremendous skill.
The contemporary and resolutely trendy decor of the Blue Bay – the signature restaurant at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort – is the setting for a truly unique cuisine with diverse influences that invites diners on a sensory journey orchestrated by the expert hand of Marcel Ravin. In the open kitchen layout, the chef can oversee the restaurant whilst adding the finishing touches to dishes that are a feast for the eyes and the palate.

 
Marcel Ravin‘s career has been on an upward trajectory since he left his native Martinique for continental France at 17 with his CFA apprenticeship diploma in hand from Rivière-Salée. He began his career in Alsace at a Michelin-star Relais & Châteaux hotel, and continued to gain experience in various establishments in Eastern France. When he was 25, he returned to his native French West Indies and became chef at a 4-star, 40-room hotel, where he was awarded the Gault-Millau Golden Key for the island’s best gourmet restaurant.

 
He returned to France when he was 30 and became sous-chef at the Bistroquet (1 Michelin star) in Nancy. These experiences led him to Lyon, where he revived a gourmet restaurant, L’Arc en Ciel, at the Méridien Part-Dieu as executive sous-chef.
Finally, having acquired experience in both high-end restaurants and hotel banquet management, Marcel Ravin became Executive Chef at the Méridien Brussels and notably at the L’Epicerie Restaurant, where his talent was recognised time and time again.

 
In 2005, he became Executive Chef at the Monte-Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort, directly overlooking the Mediterranean and offering several seaside restaurants such as L’Orange Verte, the summer restaurant Las Brisas and many banquet halls in the 4-star resort. Marcel Ravin accepted the job offer from Sergio Mangini, Director General of the Monte-Carlo Bay, and set out to blend culinary influences from his native French West Indies with the treasures proffered by the land and sea of his newly adopted Mediterranean home.

 
A Monegasque by choice, just like Alain Ducasse, trained at Alain Chapel in Mionnay (Ain department) and having lived in the Landes department, Marcel Ravin brought with him cuisine, spices, products and original recipes from his native Caribbean home. The chef of the Monte Carlo Bay calls this his “mental palate” in his wonderful and moving autobiography, D’un Rocher à l’autre : itinéraire d’un chef (Éditions La Martinière).

 
In seven years, the humanistic Ravin has created a new composite identity for himself that blends his past – his very own madeleines à la Proust – with the countless resources of the French Riviera. In this way, his culinary repertoire, rich with his signature dishes, has won the hearts and palates of gourmet connoisseurs at the Blue Bay, winning his first Michelin star in 2015.

Marcel Ravin has reinterpreted his native French West Indian cuisine in his own way, creating a skilful blend of diverse influences that give his cuisine deep soul and rich flavour. The roasted pike perch wet with periwinkle and lime vinaigrette; sea bream paupiette with vegetables and Nantua bacon sauce; roasted turbot with artichokes, almond, fig and hibiscus condiment; organic hen’s egg, black truffle, cassava and maracudja (a variety of passion fruit) juice, his star dish at the moment; roasted free-range pigeon with spicy cocoa, risotto-style bulgur and boletus mushrooms: all these dishes have transformed the culinary repertoire of fine Mediterranean hotels and propelled the Monte-Carlo Bay to the top of the best gourmet restaurants in Monaco.
Passionate about cooking, the ever lively Marcel Ravin is always ready to take risks, change and innovate. His polished technique drives him forward to push even further the limits of his talent and diverse, inspired cuisine – so rare in Europe – that awaits you in Monaco.