i. Biography
"In fact, I wasn't a fan of school and, above all, my grandfather was a taxi driver and my grandmother had a roadside restaurant. That's how, day after day, I learned to love cooking with my granny." Since 2013, Renaud Augier has been Executive Chef at Tour d'Argent Tokyo, Japan, carrying French gastronomic culture into a Japanese dining room through a memory that begins not with school, but with family, work, and a roadside restaurant.
The Idea
The first idea in Augier's cooking is affection learned by repetition. His own account starts with a grandmother's restaurant and the daily nearness of a kitchen, a place where cooking was not abstract training but an activity watched, absorbed, and eventually loved. That origin matters in the way his career reads: not as a straight line of titles alone, but as a sequence of rooms where French cuisine was studied through service, hierarchy, and exacting practice. The specialty attached to his work today is French gastronomic culture in Japan, and the phrase is precise: it names both a culinary inheritance and the place where he now applies it.
The Execution
In 1999, Augier was chef at Georges Blanc in Vonnas, France. The role places him inside one of the named French addresses in his path before his later move to Tokyo. At Le Louis XV in Monaco, he advanced from third commis to chef de partie. He describes that period through a mentor and a cuisine: "From third commis to chef de partie, my mentor Alain Ducasse showed me all the finesse of Mediterranean cuisine." The sentence is compact, but it gives the shape of the lesson: rank by rank, station by station, learning refinement through work. He was also chef at Domaine Les Crayeres. The title adds another French chapter to the sequence before his long-running post in Japan. The Tokyo chapter began in 2013, when he became Executive Chef at Tour d'Argent Tokyo. In that role, he is also identified as head chef at Tour d'Argent in Tokyo, Japan. The work joins his French training, his Monaco apprenticeship, and his stated specialty: French gastronomic culture in Japan. In 2019, Augier received the title Meilleurs Ouvriers de France. The honor is a permanent credential in his career, and it sits alongside the long duration of his Tokyo role: a chef formed in French kitchens, working in Japan, with a recognized place in the craft.
On the Record
The most revealing details Augier gives about himself are modest and tactile. He does not begin with ambition; he begins with school not fitting, a taxi-driver grandfather, and a grandmother whose roadside restaurant became his education. His account of Le Louis XV is just as direct. Alain Ducasse is named as mentor, and the lesson is Mediterranean finesse rather than a slogan. Between those two statements, a portrait emerges: cooking learned first by proximity, then by discipline, and now practiced at Tour d'Argent Tokyo through the language of French gastronomy in Japan.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Renaud
Where does Renaud Augier work?
Since 2013, Renaud Augier has been Executive Chef at Tour d'Argent Tokyo, Japan.
What is Renaud Augier's philosophy?
His philosophy begins with learning to love cooking day after day with his grandmother in her roadside restaurant.
How does Renaud Augier describe their work?
He describes a key stage of his work through Le Louis XV, where Alain Ducasse showed him "all the finesse of Mediterranean cuisine."
