Maxime Pujol

The Honours

The MICHELIN Guide awarded the restaurant a Bib Gourmand in 2024, a recognition tied to places where the guide finds good cooking at good value. For a chef working in a Modern French bistronomic register, it is a pointed kind of accolade: not abstract praise, but a judgment connected to the way a table delivers pleasure, clarity, and price-conscious generosity. Two years earlier, the restaurant received the Prix du Public at TheFork Awards in 2022. That public prize adds a different kind of weight, because it reflects the response of diners rather than inspectors alone. Together, the 2022 and 2024 recognitions frame a kitchen that has earned attention from both guests and a major guide. Pujol’s own introduction places the restaurant’s beginning in the same year as his leadership there: "Hello, I am Maxime Pujol, from the Bergamote restaurant in Lyon. I am the chef. We opened this restaurant in 2021 with my partner Colleen."

The Craft

The cooking is described as Modern French bistronomic: a form that depends on recognisable French foundations while allowing a more contemporary sense of movement, proportion, and informality. At this table, the central commitments are products, seasons, and detail. Those words matter because they describe the daily discipline of a kitchen rather than a decorative idea about style. Local sourcing is part of the work. So is a broad wine focus, which gives the cooking a wider frame than the plate alone. In that context, a dish is not treated as an isolated composition; it belongs to a meal shaped by produce, timing, and what is poured alongside it. The stated character of the craft is creative and demanding, with an explicit love of the profession. That combination gives the restaurant its tension: creativity without looseness, demand without coldness, and affection for the job without turning it into sentiment.

The Career

Pujol took over the kitchen in 2021 as Chef de cuisine, the role that defines his public work. The opening of the restaurant that year with his partner Colleen gives the position a founding dimension as well as a culinary one, even though the title remains chef. From that point, the career arc is measured through the restaurant’s recognitions. The 2022 TheFork Awards Prix du Public came first, connecting the place to diner approval early in its life. The 2024 MICHELIN Guide Bib Gourmand followed, giving the kitchen a national and international reference point through the guide’s selection. What carries through the timeline is consistency: Modern French bistronomic cooking in Lyon, shaped by local sourcing, a wide view of wine, and attention to seasonal products and detail. The achievement is plain enough without embroidery: a chef-led restaurant opened in 2021, publicly awarded in 2022, and recognised by MICHELIN in 2024.

In Their Words “Hello, I am Maxime Pujol, from the Bergamote restaurant in Lyon. I am the chef. We opened this restaurant in 2021 with my partner Colleen.”