Antonin ColasPortland Private Chef · Loire-Born, Michelin-Trained

How The French Table got here.

Antonin grew up at a table that was always set. The Loire Valley raises its children that way, Sunday lunches that last until evening, the bottle that's still on the table when the next one opens, the bread that's never not on the board.

He left to train. A Michelin kitchen in France first, then a stretch of restaurants where the technique got sharper and the love of the long table didn't go anywhere.

Between France and Portland there was a stretch worth naming: a season on an oyster farm, a few years cooking in Los Angeles, kitchens that ran fast and loud. Nearly two decades, all told. The throughline never changed, cook close to the season, lean on the ingredient, keep it uncomplicated. He calls it farm-to-table because that's what it is, not because the phrase needed reviving.

By the time he landed in Portland in 2018, he'd decided he'd rather cook for twelve people at someone's home than fifty at a service.

The French Table started small, friends, then friends of friends. The dinners that worked were the ones where he didn't try to translate the Loire into something Portland-shaped. He just brought the Loire. The wines came later, when guests kept asking what to drink with what he'd cooked, and his answer kept being "what my brothers would pour."

The Loire–Willamette pairing program grew out of those conversations. Same grapes, two regions, side by side on the table. The pairing isn't decoration. It's an argument, with evidence on the table.

He still cooks alone. He still shops the morning of. He still cleans up before he leaves. The business has grown, but the way it works has not.