2023-08-30 08:01:00
the essential Cadurcien Mehdi Lamrini has become the private chef of Rudy Gobert, an international basketball player in the NBA who is currently playing in the World Cup. In his kitchen in Minnesota, he concocts good little dishes for him every day… with carbohydrates and lipids.
He prefers to be honest: basketball, he didn’t know much regarding it. His thing, in Cahors, was the rugby team where he was first winger then second line. Today, Mehdi Lamrini is the private chef of Rudy Gobert, one of the big names in NBA basketball who is also a French international. The Cahors-born chef cut his teeth at the starred restaurant Les Trois Soleils in Saint-Céré. For a start, it’s promising. He remembers it like it was yesterday: “I was trained by Frédérik Bizat, he gave me a taste for products, the importance of rigor. In fact, he put me in the big bath of the stars”. Mehdi Lamrini was then only 22 years old. After the Ferrandi cooking school in Paris, he joined Fernand, one of the most famous bistros in the capital. Here, he is a demi-chef de partie, that is to say a confirmed kitchen clerk. It then goes through the kitchens of the famous Ritz in Paris.
In 2021, his career takes a new turn: that of the basketball courts. “I started working as a private chef, and thanks to an acquaintance, for Evan Fournier (Editor’s note who plays for the New York Knicks). It was a fairly new job for me, I mightn’t offer any product while respecting very precise amounts of carbohydrates, lipids and proteins, a list drawn up by the player’s nutritionist”, explains the Lotois. Exit creativity. The leader now has a roadmap that looks like a game sheet. Millimeter lactose and super recommended super foods, in other words nothing to do with the Ritz menu. He then works for Jérémy Medjena, one of the greatest agents in French basketball. It is this man who gives him a chance with Rudy Gobert, great friend of Evan Fournier. So, the one who left the Lot a long time ago, moved to Salt Lake City where the French basketball player then played in the NBA with the Utah Jazz.
He loves semi-cooked salmon
“He’s a player but also, like many top athletes, a businessman. He has to be on time for all his meals,” he remarks. Mehdi Lamrini cuts, cooks, seasons and doses: carbohydrates especially following training and proteins rarely, they damage the tendons too much. With his eyes glued to the scales, he prepares breakfast, lunch, a snack and dinner every day in the international player’s kitchen. Semi-cooked salmon with a Thai vinaigrette which Rudy loves, vegetables with Kimchi, buckwheat pancakes with spinach and a sunny-side-up egg for breakfast and, sometimes, good meat.
The Lotois also runs to farms in the United States, in search of the best fruits and vegetables: “I work with fresh and pesticide-free products, in the United States, it’s a hell of an organization because what comes from the conventional farming in France is considered organic there”. Timed logistics. “I cook for him from town to town during the play-offs, it’s the most intense period for him but also for me, there are a lot of matches a week and the team must win four wins in a row” , says the cook who also prepares food for assistants, managers, agents, financiers and the family of Rudy Gobert, now in Minnesota for the Timberwolves.
Foie gras… But only for Christmas
So inevitably, on a daily basis, it creates links. “I’m one of the people he sees most often. We have forged a friendly relationship, he’s my age, we share the same work values and we’re a lot alike. But he’s still my boss and in this job -there, you should never go too far, I have limits”, slips Mehdi Lamrini.
The Lotois always applauds, at the end of the match: “I feel attached to his exploits, I have the impression of bringing my stone to the building, it is an honor that he excels”. Next goal for Rudy and Medhi: the NBA ring and the Paris Olympics in 2024. Until then, the basketball player is deprived of foie gras, which is too rich. Except for Christmas: “I make him taste the one I make at home and I also make him discover the duck cooked at low temperature as I learned at the Ritz, he loves it”.
Mehdi Lamrini has bought a house on the heights of Cahors where he comes to relax during the summer. He has not reconciled with rugby but continues to prepare Lotois products with love. In gastronomy, it is worth three points. Like an award-winning basket.
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