The new Michelin starred restaurants in Moselle tell their stories

Two restaurants in the Moselle border region in France, one with a Luxembourg-trained chef at the helm and the other a stone’s throw from the Grand Duchy, have been awarded a prestigious Michelin star.

The Alexis Baudin restaurant, located in Petite-Hettange, around 10km from the Luxembourg border, and Timilìa, in Metz, were honoured at the Michelin Guide France ceremony in Monaco on 16 March.

Oliver Parise, the co-founder of the Timilìa restaurant with his partner Giorgia Tartaglione, was able to hone his skills in several renowned restaurants in Luxembourg before opening his establishment in early 2024.

Made in Luxembourg

A pastry chef by training, the Lorraine native cut his teeth in the restaurant industry in the Grand Duchy, more precisely at the Château de Bourglinster, under the tutelage of top chef René Mathieu.

It was there that Parise truly began to develop a taste for cooking. “When I saw the sous-chef working, it really made me want to cook. We worked incredibly well together,” he recalled.

After Bourglinster, the young chef moved to Chiggeri, where he had the opportunity to work alongside chef Bruno Méril, a winner of the Meilleur Ouvrier de France award, for the country’s top crafts awards. “He was truly passionate,” said Parise. “I learned so much on the job; it was a real stepping stone to move from pastry to savory cooking, and above all, it teaches you to be more rigorous,” the chef said.

After gaining experience in Michelin-starred restaurants in Burgundy and Alsace, spending a season in Saint-Barthélemy, returning to Chiggeri, and then embarking on a career change that took him away from the culinary world, Parise decided to return to his first love.

“I applied somewhat by chance to Mosconi [an Italian restaurant in Luxembourg that was successively awarded two Michelin stars, later dropping to one] and was able to start working there. The team was 90% Italian, and I really enjoyed it. Then my goal was to open a restaurant in Metz,” he said, making the move after his two years working at Mosconi ended in 2023.

With his partner, he opened Timilìa – named after a durum wheat flour from Sicily – in the Metz city centre. “The first year, we really experimented. Then in the second year, we decided to go for it more boldly, to try more things,” he said.

After being mentioned in the 2025 Michelin Guide, the couple received a call a week before this year’s ceremony. “There was a lot of excitement and a little bit of fear. We were told there was very good news coming, and we strongly believed in the star, but we were afraid it might be for a different distinction,” said Parise, but their restaurant’s name was ultimately added to the exclusive list of Michelin-starred establishments.

Michelin star within two years

The path of Alexis Baudin, founder of the restaurant of the same name a stone’s throw from the Luxembourg border, is not quite the same. From his adolescence, he wanted to pursue a career in the culinary world. “I desperately wanted to go to hotel school. I had to repeat two years in middle school, but I finally made it,” he explained.

After training and gaining initial experience, Baudin arrived in the Moselle region in 1997, working at Yves Maire’s restaurant in Metz. He opened his first restaurant, Le Pampre, in the same city, at the foot of the cathedral. “I opened late; I was 45 when I took over the restaurant. I felt I finally had the maturity to launch my own business,” he recalled of his time at Le Pampre, which he ran until 2022.

However, he wanted to run a business bearing his name, and obtained a property in Petite-Hettange, where he opened his eponymous restaurant in April 2024.

His objective was clear: “I told everyone who came to work for me that the goal was a Michelin star,” said Baudin. Two years later, he achieved this goal, but not on his own. “My teams worked hard to reach this goal,” he said.

The restaurant has benefitted from good feedback from Luxembourg customers, according to Baudin. “The Luxembourg customer is very demanding. They don’t come here by chance and are looking for quality,” he said, but adding: “We have never had the slightest problem with a customer from Luxembourg.”

At 55, Baudin is thriving in his venture. “I’ve found my cuisine,” he said, adding that for him, the Michelin star isn’t an end in itself. “It’s not going to stop us from doing what we’re doing; we’ll do even more,” explained the chef. “We need to strengthen the front-of-house and kitchen teams.”

What motivates the restaurateur even more is the investment he’s put into this project. “My wife and I have truly given it our all. If it hadn’t worked out, we would have had nothing left, we would have been destitute. Today, I’m proud of that and of that investment,” said Baudin.

(This article was originally published by Virgule. Machine translated using AI, with editing and adaptation by John Monaghan)