Le Jardin - restaurant italien

Seasonal pasta at the pass

At the pass, Zakaria Mahfoud works as Executive Chef of Le Jardin - restaurant italien in Crozet, turning seasonal Italian cooking into the resort’s clearest culinary line. His path to this station has moved through kitchens where pace and control matter: sous chef at Groupe Mauro Colagreco from 2021 to 2022, Chef de partie with Ducasse Paris from 2022 to 2023, then sous chef roles at The Maybourne Riviera in 2023 and Auberge du Jeu de Paume from 2023 to 2024. He later held the Head Chef role at JIVA HILL RESORT from 2024 to 2025, before Le Jardin gathered that experience into an Italian room inside the same resort landscape.

Mahfoud’s role here is not framed by a long public origin story or a named predecessor. The house gives him a narrower, more useful brief: seasonal Italian cooking, carried through pasta, regional references, and a service rhythm suited to a calm dining room rather than a theatrical pass. His apprenticeship has been practical rather than decorative, built in sections, stations, and changes of rank. That matters in a restaurant where the food needs polish without losing the directness of Italian repertoire.

Pasta, regional references, and a wine-led table

The kitchen’s stated ground is modern Italian cooking, with seasonal pasta dishes and modern takes on regional Italian specialties at the center of the table. The format allows both à la carte ordering and a set menu, so Mahfoud can work in two registers: dishes that stand alone, and a longer sequence where the kitchen controls tempo more closely.

That combination asks for restraint. Pasta gives a chef little room to hide, because texture arrives at the table as evidence. Sauces must cling rather than weigh down; regional references need enough fidelity to be legible, but not so much reverence that the plate freezes into quotation. The wine program is curated, which suits the room’s Italian center without turning the meal into a cellar exercise. In this setting, the glass supports the plate. It does not become the performance.

Natural light over the room

The room sits inside Jiva Hill Resort, a five-star house in Crozet, with natural light across contemporary décor and views toward the surrounding parkland and the Monts-Jura. It is built for conversation, not for hush. The atmosphere is refined without leaning on stiffness, which gives the pass a particular responsibility: the food has to carry the sense of occasion while the room stays warm.

That balance is where Mahfoud’s movement through demanding kitchens becomes visible. A resort restaurant can blur if it tries to please every possible guest; Le Jardin is more legible when it holds to its Italian discipline. The counterpoint is outside the glass: mountain, parkland, and a dining room bright enough for the work to be seen without being announced.

A station defined by control

Mahfoud also holds a Head Chef role at Porcelain_Co since 2026, but Le Jardin gives his Italian cooking a different kind of pressure: continuity inside a resort dining room, service after service, with pasta and regional specialties asked to do the quiet work. The plate comes first, not the title. At Le Jardin, the measure is the seasonal pasta arriving from Zakaria Mahfoud’s pass in Crozet.