Baguettes but no wine: Olympians to eat gourmet in Paris

PARIS: Some 15,000 athletes will get to feast on fresh baguettes, gourmet dishes and environment-friendly French cuisine — but no wine — when Paris hosts the Summer Olympics next year.

The company tasked with serving 40,000 meals a day at the Olympic Village unveiled Tuesday some of the items on the menu of a sit-down restaurant that plans to serve food created by some of France’s most-renowned chefs.

Bringing a “fun, gourmet and healthy” touch to the plates is key to the job, said Alexandre Mazzia, whose AM restaurant in Marseille earned three Michelin guide stars. He presented a recipe made of crushed chickpeas with herbs and a smoked fish sauce.

Other chefs unveiled dishes that included an elaborate quinoa risotto and a chocolate mousse with raspberries.

“It’s a pride and an honor to be able to show French tradition and skills,” Mazzia said.

French food services company Sodexo was selected to oversee the catering at the athletes’ village and other sites of the Paris Games. The company was assigned the challenge of making the 2024 Olympics an occasion-appropriate opportunity to explore France’s legendary gastronomy.

“France will invite the world to its table,” said Philipp Würz, who is the catering manager for the Olympics organizing committee. Athletes “know they will eat well here. Our goal is to provide them with high quality food.”

The eatery at the Olympic Village, which is meant to be the “biggest restaurant in the world,” is expected to seat 3,500 people.

In addition, athletes will have access to “grab and go” food points, including one dedicated exclusively to French cuisine cooked up by chefs, Sodexo said.

“What I cooked here is poultry, guinea fowl slowly roasted with a nice crayfish jus, very