Featured in · Taste Toronto
Lucie — a love letter to French fine dining in the Financial District
Designed to pay homage to France's grandest culinary traditions, Lucie is also, quite simply, a place inspired by home.
Taste Toronto’s profile of Restaurant Lucie centres on the grandmother the room was named for — the kitchen Yannick spent his childhood in, in the South of France — and how that memory shapes a Financial District room trying to feel like home and Paris at the same time.
The piece covers the architecture (a CHIL Interior Design build), the kitchen (chef Arnaud Bloquel, hired directly out of France), and a menu engineered to read as playful and elegant in the same breath.
Growing up in the south of France, my parents were also in the restaurant business so they were never at home. Most of the time I was at my grandmother's. I was there every lunch, every dinner.
— Yannick Bigourdan, in Taste Toronto
I wanted a modern French cuisine. The cuisine of the top restaurants in Paris today. For that, I decided to go and hire in France.
— Yannick Bigourdan, in Taste Toronto
We try to be playful yet elegant. We want people to relax and just enjoy the experience.
— Yannick Bigourdan, in Taste Toronto