Sylvain Grosjean

« Cities should be built in the countryside, air is so purer »Alphonse Allais was joking.

The writer, so fine and so funny from the 19th century, would be stunned to see that the countryside invites, sometimes, also in the middle of the city. In Montreuil, municipality of Seine-Saint-Denis, department more often called the « nine-three » For 93, hides a brick-coloured villa surrounded by a park.

One enters through a long treed driveway, crossing in this stroll full of gourmet promises, a chicken coop, a garden of aromatic herbs or even a charming citrus greenhouse, before discovering table-tops, spaced and set on a vast terrace in the middle of the vegetation. We don't come back, the metro station is a few hundred meters away.
Villa9Trois has had several lives and several chefs. Since the summer of 2024, Sylvain Grosjean has been in charge of the kitchens, succeeding Camille Saint M

He had conquered a Michelin star, which Sylvain Grosjean perpetuated. Julia Claisi, her companion, leads with smile and efficiency the direction of the room service. The young couple already have a bottle in this division of tasks, accords and supports, both with the will to do well and with an obvious happiness that swarms on all this wonderful place.

Respect and goodwill

A little before noon, Julia gathers her team for a rigorous room brief, but in a joyful mood: distribution and description of the tables, the 4 is a business meal, the 9th birthday party of the lady, the 23 enjoys a good gift... In the kitchen, the brigade of an eight-something people deals and responds to Sylvain Grosjean's requests with haste. All instructions of the chief are punctuated with a « Please. ».
It's not that common. « That's the least I can do. Benevolence and respect are valuable and far more effective than the splinters of voices. It was in L-Ambroisie, with Bernard Pacaud, that I understood that. A humble leader, who never cried, and always in the accompaniment. An attitude I have maintained with my teams », justifies Sylvain. Julia rose, noting that Bernard Pacaud received the Michelin prize from Chef Mentor 2025. The first customers arrive and settle under the white parasols, amazed. The best is to come.

Explosive notes

Villa9Trois offers three menus: Lunch (in 3 times, 55 €), Flavors (in 4 times, 89 €) and Tasting (in 6 times, only in the evening, 129 €).
Barely the time to enjoy the enchanting setting, the amuse-buttons pop up, hummus piettes, artichokes and lemon confit soberly arranged on a tomette of terracotta.

to enjoy the enchanting setting, the amuse-buttons pop up, piettes of humous, artichokes and lemon confit soberly placed on a tomette of terracotta. The taste buds are capped and ready to go.

A pre-entry, all green, in harmony with the environment: Paimpol beans, very al dente, peas and broccoli simmered in a tonic sauce ravigote with pistou. « I like to have explosive notes. », Confirm the chief. It didn't escape us. Explosive, but perfectly mastered as with this trio of apricots, girolls and almonds boosted with a cream infused with fig leaves and beautifully erect. Originally from southern France, Sylvain Grosjean likes to work on seafood: Mediterranean sériole, cucumber velvet with myrtle and caviar quenelle or candied fennel stone, fennel flower, roasted green anise, favoyle condiment, hulls and bourrid emulsion. Fragrances and tastes mix and intertwine with address, harmony and this fiery touch that awakens flavors without masking them.

Grilled sardines and morilla chicken

Sylvain's dual family culinary heritage is interesting. Born on 19 February 1991 in Toulon, this verse grows in Marseille between two gourmet educations. Jean-Luc, his father, are grilled sardines, méchouis, couscous... : « My grandparents, black feet, enjoyed mediterranean cuisine, very fragrant and very, very good! »Remember the chief. On Nathalie's side, her mother, and her grandparents in Aix, it is chicken with morels or lobsters in the Armo Rican style that charm the young boy: « A bourgeois cuisine of great classics. I liked to peel peas, put my hand in the dough, to help, but also out of envy », confides the cook, who, with little taste of the school discipline, is heading towards an alternate kitchen CAP in La Colombe, Hyères-les-Palmiers. « A small restaurant with the chef and his wife.

I was young, a little crazy, and this boss managed to frame me while being patient. He showed me, explained me. » CAP in pocket, Sylvain Grosjean has tasted this job and aspires to « see what excellence is, but walk after walk ». In 2011, he joined Villa Madie in Cassis, where Dimitri Droisneau was official. A Michelin star at the time. The apprentice, in a pro bac, discovers for two years the magnificent products and gestures, always repeated to do, he says « As much as possible, I care about it. ». He remembers this turtle, coral ice and herb pastoral and the numerous references of Dimitri Droisneau to Bernard Pacaud, the iconic chief of L-Ambroisie who had trained him.

Five years in L-Ambroisie

It doesn't fall into the ear of a deaf man. Sylvain travels to Paris and submits his CV to L-Ambroisie. He joined Star Sorting as a clerk in 2013. What can be intimidated, stressed, right? The head of Villa9 Three smiles: « I didn't have any great chef notions yet and the whole thing. I wanted to learn, I was happy... and calm ».

For five years, Sylvain immerged himself in this jewel of French gastronomy: « I was a sponge! » Again, he likes to repeat, to perfection, every gesture within a brigade of eight for forty people, « We spend a lot of time there and we have to be happy about what we do. » Everything is square, very rigorous starting with the sorting of products every morning: « Every vegetable, fish... is examined and must be impeccable. » He's talking about a « mega memory, a very good team and a leader in accompaniment and benevolent. » As a party leader, he will leave L « We spent nine kilos of caviar a week! The caviar bar, the moscovite eggs... We put them everywhere! »

Apicius and The Murtoli Estate

In 2018, Mathieu Pacaud, who was met with L-Ambroisie, offered him the position of first deputy chief in Apicius, whose son Bernard Pacaud had just taken over. This 18th-century Parisian mansion with a garden can serve up to 100 people: « I'm learning how to manage a big brigade, how to organize for a good kitchen on large volumes », explains Sylvain, who also introduced, thanks to the executive chef, an ex-Alain Passard, to vegetable cooking. He's enthusiastic about « this side is more vegetal, finer, more contemporary and less fat ». The cook also makes a decisive meeting, and of charm. It's at Apicius that a young barmaid, Julia Claisi, works. It's a match. In 2022, Mathieu Pacaud, who signed the map of La table de la Ferme, the gourmet star restaurant of the Domaine de Murtoli, in Corsica, proposes to the young couple to invest room and kitchen for a small year. The many attractions – sun and luxury of this gigantic estate that produces most of its products, vegetables, cheeses, eggs, honey, lamb, olive oil...
– decide Julia and Sylvain. The young chef works his dishes upstream, validated by Mathieu Pacaud. Like this calf fillet rolled with herbs from the maquis picked the same morning! « I love everything that is grassy, floral », confirms Sylvain. « It was a small team, a room of 15-20 covered, with a special welcome, attentive. Like the philosophy of Murtoli estate owners, the Canarelli family is always very close to its customers. », says Julia.

Immortelle, badian, nuts...

One of these customers will be Dimitri Droisneau: the Cassidian chef, meanwhile with three Michelin stars, will discuss with his former apprentice and offers to join him at the end of the season. In March 2023, Sylvain Grosjean reinvested the kitchens of Villa Madie as his first deputy. It is a great adventure to return to the places of his learning! « The organization has changed and there is more pressure », explains Sylvain. Remembering a dish? He quotes these semi-cooked sardines with smoky potatoes spuma, dashi jelly and dried bonite. « A laser kitchen, nothing exceeds, but with a lot of emotions », adds Julia. But the sun of Cassis and the sublime cuisine of Villa Madie will not retain the couple who accept the challenge of Villa9Trois. They settle in the Seine-Saint-Denis and have been managing this little paradise of the nine-three since a year. « The owners gave us the keys to the house. Like Marielle and Dimitri Droisneau or Danièle and Bernard Pacaud, model couples for us, we have this real desire to receive people as we would receive them at home. », confide in Julia. The chef flourishes in a precise and joyful cuisine that smells immortal, with the smell of curry, worked in infusion, a beautiful piece of roasted meat; a sauce with badiane, pepper and cardamom to coat a fish.

In the fall, Sylvain Grosjean appreciates the nuts on ceps and saint-jacques escorted from a siphon of nut mashed or the cucurbita with this brunoise of squash, squash seeds, fennel flower in small condiments like a squash virgin, on a stone saint and its tapenade. The flowers and herbs of the garden of Villa9Three nourish his kitchen which he completes with those of Jean-Luc Raillon, market at the foot of the Vercors. As a Norman hole, a mandarin sorbet on a bed of pesto herbs mounted in honey and sprayed with absinthe refreshes and explodes in the mouth. « It's not enough to have talent. We still need to know how to use it. », wrote Alphonse Allais again. This is undoubtedly the case with Sylvain Grosjean.

As for the upcoming winter, the Villa9Three is repatriating to an ultra cosy dining room where a fireplace fire crackles. Another atmosphere, same happiness.

Valérie Bouvart
Article to be found in the Revue Culinaire n°957

Villa9 Three
71 Hoche Street – 93100 Montreuil
Tel. : 01 48 58 17 37