Migusto - food, food, food

La fête des Citrons (the Lemon parades) is the biggest event held every year in Menton. It is held in February and rivals with Nice’s carnival. Thousands and thousands of lemons are used every year to create amazing sculptures on flots. The flots are dotted around the city and tour around parts of Menton on special nights along with shows. People from all over the world come to see these original displays.

I was commissioned by the Swiss magazine, Migusto to shoot an article on what to do and especially where to eat during the Fête des Citrons in Menton. So I set out with Migusto’s journalist for a foodie photographic adventure.

Mitron bakery

I met up with the journalist early in the morning for our first appointment of the day. We were meeting the manager of Mitron in Menton’s old town. Mitron is a bakery created by Mauro Colagreco. One of Mauro’s restaurants, the Mirazur, was elected best restaurant in the world in 2019 and since then he has been working on several different locations and styles of food but always with exceptional quality. Mitron bakery was no exception to this. As a photographer, I love to take pictures of food and Mitron’s pastries, tarts and focaccias were a delight for my lens! But as a food enthusiast… Mitron’s lemon tart was the best I have ever tasted!

Ceto

Later that day I got to photograph Mauro’s Colagreco’s Ceto restaurant for the second time. Set in the Maybourne Riviera hotel in Roquebrune-cap-Martin, this Michelin star restaurant is breath-taking. The hôtel is built on a cliff overlooking Monaco on one side and Menton and Italy on the other. I started taking shots of the view and the restaurant with my canon 14-35 mm lens and moved on to pictures of the staff in the kitchen. Andrea Moscardino is the head chef at Ceto and on top of being an artist chef he is extremely kind, so is all of the staff in his kitchen. They all played along so well so that I could take the right photographs, environmental portraits of them peeping the food which such ingredients as snow crabs, whole tunas, octopus, amazing vegetables that I had only heard of…

Then we got to experience the tasting menu, every dish as delicious and delicate as the previous… the journalist was taking it all in for her article and I was doing my photographer’s job, setting up the dishes in the right angles and light before we got to eat the amazing food.

I would highly recommend going to Ceto for a special occasion.

Enoia 

The next morning we set out for the port of Menton right before the Italian border to photograph a quaint and trendy brunch restaurant, Enoia. After a few portraits of the sweet owners, the food came out and it was delicious!

Le 31

It was with heavy stomachs that this photographer took pictures of le 31 on the other side of the port of Menton. The 31 is a really nice restaurant on the edge of Menton’s old town, overlooking the sea and Italy. The food was great to take pictures of and really good as well. But my tummy was starting to suffer!

We needed a break from all the food and thankfully it was time to tour around Menton to take pictures of the city. menton is a delight for any photographer, such a photogenic town full of colors and Italian vibes.

We stopped to take pictures of a little bar specialized in aperitivos called Lavagna.

Le Gallion

Our last stop took me to take pictures of le Gallion, a very well established restaurant that has been there for generations. They let me into the kitchen to take pictures of the chefs in action and it was a great way to finish this amazing shoot!