PROFILES

In the Seydoux family, ask for Tigrane. This young Monegasque entrepreneur, co-founder of the Big Mamma restaurant group, is the son of Jacques Seydoux Fornier de Clausonne, cousin to the emperors of French cinema and former director of the Société des Bains de Mer. The future serial restaurateur followed the classic educational path of the French elite. The deaths of his mother and then his brother during his last year of school influenced his trajectory. Aged 22, he took a gap year and crossed Latin America with his best friend. “This experience sharpened my desire to work in what I love, hospitality.” But in 2008, it was the financial crisis. “Impossible to find a job in the sector”. He then started to work for Stephan Courbit's online gambling start-up in London. The television production giant, who began his ascent by producing Loft Story, had just diversified his activities into the hotel trade and restaurants (Les Airelles and Le Chalet de Pierres in Courchevel). “I'm not a geek, and I had never played video games…”, this man with blond hair and light-coloured eyes says laughingly. By pure chance, he then found himself working in a company 50% owned by the Société des Bains de Mer. When he returned to Paris, Tigrane joined the LOV Group financial department and quickly became Courbit's right-hand man for the next three years.

Master crêpier
Just as he wanted to start his own business, he met Victor Lugger, director of My Major Company, the first French crowd-funding platform for artists. “This was the start of the Big Mamma adventure. The rapport was immediate. We teamed up before we even came up with the idea for our restaurant concept.” Both men left their jobs and went to Brittany to become master crêpiers before settling on Italian cuisine. “There was enormous potential in Paris. It lacked a good inexpensive, and convivial Italian restaurant. We set about meeting with the best producers - tomatoes, San Daniele ham, olive oil, truffles, charcuterie… It took two and a half years to open the group's first restaurant in Paris, named East Mamma, in Bastille”. It was an immediate success. The day after it opened, a queue of 200 people stood waiting in front of the door… The Big Mamma Group now has 12 restaurants in France, including 8 in Paris, serving between 5,000 and 8,000 customers per day, and has expanded to London, Madrid, Munich, and Monaco.

8 metres from the water
“We start with a blank sheet of paper each time. Each restaurant is different and has its own design. The DNA they share is the exceptional value for money.” Giacomo – a nod to his father Jacques – has just opened its doors at Larvotto in Monaco. “It's a unique location in the sunshine, with the sea 8 metres from the tables.” As well as seafood, you can enjoy the Big Mamma signature dishes: pasta with truffle, beef or Sgroppino carpaccio, a 100% house sorbet drizzled with Prosecco. “I open every new restaurant as if it were the first. The day I can't do it anymore, I'll stop everything,” predicts Tigrane.

Par Milena Radoman