Benjamin Bret

Benjamin Bret (born 1994, France) is a chef. Originally from Paris, he grew up in Lyon, where, from childhood onward, he developed a passion for ingredients, seasonality, and the art of hospitality alongside his family. Trained in the culinary arts at the Institut Paul Bocuse, he moved to Montreal at the age of 23. At the restaurant Toqué! and later working alongside Chef Vincent Baronnat, he honed his culinary style and developed a particular focus on traceability, seasonal ingredients, and relationships with producers. Upon returning to Europe in 2022, he became a nomadic chef, sharing his culinary vision across France and Belgium. His cuisine is a space for expression and sharing, where the five senses become the fabric of the experience.

During his residency at the Villa Medici, Benjamin Bret will continue his research on the meal as a space for creation, storytelling, and collective experience. He will seek to reveal what precedes and accompanies the act of eating: a place, a season, an ingredient, gestures, skills, and human relationships. The research will take the form of a dinner-performance, conceived as a composition in motion where cuisine, music, imagery, ceramics, scenography, and the art of the table interact. Each element will contribute to a sensory interpretation of the meal, bringing forth new ways of seeing, hearing, and tasting the ingredients.