A two-star Michelin chef who shops at Picard and owns it? That’s bound to challenge some common perceptions about frozen foods… Thierry Marx, chef of several renowned restaurants, became in 2024 the brand’s official ambassador, and he doesn’t hold back. Here are his essentials (which you’ll also want to buy).
Thierry Marx and Picard: a 30-year history
The relationship between the Michelin-starred chef and the French company specializing in frozen foods didn’t start yesterday. Picard came into his life at the same moment as his children, more than 30 years ago. The brand helped him discover a true diversity of well-sourced products to create varied, balanced meals that are especially quick to prepare when he had barely twenty minutes before rushing back to his stoves.
Because yes: even a chef who spends his days in starred kitchens also needs quick and healthy solutions to feed his children. Everyone is in the same boat on this point!
Frozen foods: a help, not a plan B
What Thierry Marx defends is above all a vision and a practical side. For him, freezing is a preservation technique that allows preserving the quality of foods so that they are readily available at all times, such as vegetables, proteins, and starches. All of this without the constraints of peeling or waste.
He goes further in his approach by designing exclusive recipes to demonstrate that a “well-stocked freezer can be enough to serve a restaurant-worthy plate.” For these recipes, he used raw ingredients (mostly of French origin) that are, of course, available on Picard’s shelves.
The products Thierry Marx keeps in his freezer
The chef obviously has his classics at Picard! For his “freezer foundation,” he favors basics like green beans, carrots, vegetable mixes, and Paris mushrooms grown in France. On the seafood side, he recommends salmon fillets or sardines caught in French waters.
Moreover, on this point, Thierry Marx is uncompromising: when he cooks fish, he checks that it comes from French fishing. He also notes that cooking a frozen fish is “recreating the conditions of fresh.” It is therefore perfectly possible to serve it half-cooked, without losing flavor or texture.
The Mix & Miam range: his go-to evening shortcut
For simple and quick weeknight dinners, Thierry Marx relies particularly on the Mix & Miam range at Picard, a concept made up of 12 single-serve sachets divided into three families: vegetables, proteins and starches. You assemble three sachets of your choice to create a complete plate of about 340 g with up to 64 possible combinations! It’s a way to have fun and vary the pleasures, at a starting cost of around €3.99 per meal.
The chef even shares his favorite pairings: lemon chicken strips with fusilli and the trio of green vegetables for a bistro-style dish, beef meatballs in tomato with mashed potatoes for a comforting dinner, or ratatouille with sweet potato gnocchi for a vegetarian lunch.
What we take away from the chef’s advice
Thierry Marx isn’t here to push a product; he simply shares a method: keeping bags of vegetables, fish, or starches in the freezer allows you to compose healthy meals in a few moves, without hours in the kitchen and without any hassle, while preserving quality products and keeping a budget under control. In other words: there’s no need to feel guilty about shopping at Picard— even a Michelin-starred chef does the same!
