In Reims, Benjamin Andreux pursues a very practical freedom: allowing ingredients to determine the menu. At Le Millénaire, his Provençal roots meet his adopted Champagne home in cooking shaped by ripeness, sauces and balance. The finer rhythms within each season set the pace; a young team brings a warmth that carries from the kitchen into the dining room.
Benjamin Andreux, from Provence to Reims
Born in Nancy, Benjamin Andreux grew up in Les Baux-de-Provence. His apprenticeship began at L’Oustau de Baumanière with Sylvestre Wahid, before a career that included working with Jean-Pierre Vigato, Yannick Alléno and Stéphanie Le Quellec. La Briqueterie subsequently brought him to Champagne. In 2023, he took over the kitchen at Le Millénaire as chef and partner. A first Michelin star in 2025, retained in 2026, recognised this new chapter.
That background has not led to cooking built from borrowed signatures. Provence remains a sensibility: herbs, olive oil and an affinity for vegetables. Champagne is a place of work and relationships, with its growers, fruit producers and winemakers. Andreux brings these connections together without turning them into a simple opposition between north and south.
The seasons within seasons
Andreux’s expression, used in his interview with L’Hôtellerie Restauration, offers a key to his approach. A season is not a three-month block in which every ingredient remains equally good. It unfolds in stages: fruit ripens, one harvest ends and another begins. For a kitchen, that means being able to change a pairing, replace an ingredient or let a dish go when its moment has passed.
A surprise menu gives him that flexibility. Guests choose a journey, then leave its course to the kitchen. L’Ancestral, Le Millénaire and L’Atemporel offer five, seven and nine sequences respectively; La Flore follows a vegetarian path in five stages. These formats organise the meal without fixing its contents. Surprise is therefore more than an effect reserved for the diner: it follows naturally from cooking that remains open to change.
That attention becomes tangible in the restaurant’s relationships with Gauthier Rouchaussé in Mardeuil and Louise-Anaïs Viard in Voipreux. In late summer, the kitchen has been pairing the former’s tomatoes with Green Zebra and raspberry. The calendar becomes more than a line on a menu: it is a way of deciding what deserves to be cooked now.
Flavour also takes shape in the sauce
Andreux gives sauces a structural role, tracing their importance in part to his time with Yannick Alléno. They do more than finish a plate: they connect its components and shape its balance. This understanding of flavour also looks beyond the prestige of an ingredient. A vegetable has as much reason to occupy the centre of a menu as a shellfish.
Lobster is among the dishes served during our dinner. It belongs to a broader interest in seafood, without defining the restaurant’s ambitions on its own. What matters here is the relationship between the main ingredient, its accompaniments and the sauce, rather than a succession of luxurious products.
Technique has a purpose within that relationship. Concentrating a sauce, developing a texture or introducing freshness should serve a flavour. Le Millénaire’s surprise menu becomes meaningful when it allows that freedom of composition, rather than requiring a familiar recipe to remain unchanged.
A young team and a convivial table
Rigour does not translate into a distant atmosphere. Young and dynamic, the team brings a conviviality that guests can feel. Precise service leaves room for conversation; dinner retains the simple, essential pleasure of a moment shared.
Adrien Pilliu now looks after the sommellerie. Our meal opens with R. Faivre champagne, Les Reflets du Clocher — Meunier d’Ouverture. Within a menu revealed one course at a time, wine provides another thread of conversation: a grower, a grape variety, a pairing and the choices that connect them to the kitchen.
Quentin Weibel, from olive oil to coffee
Pastry chef Quentin Weibel takes charge of the sweet courses. His work continues the dialogue with Andreux rather than beginning an unrelated chapter. The olive-oil dessert expresses that connection particularly well: an ingredient associated with the chef’s Provençal roots finds its place at the end of the meal without losing its identity.
The restaurant presents a pre-dessert conceived by both chefs around Solliès figs, pistachio and matured-olive oil from Domaine Jolibois. The combination reflects a fluid boundary between cooking and pastry: fruit and oil are considered together, extending a conversation that crosses between sweet and savoury.
Weibel’s coffee dessert explores another kind of balance. His creation combines a Costa Rican coffee infusion, Hukambi chocolate crémeux and hazelnut praline with fleur de sel. Coffee is not merely a flavour added to chocolate: it supplies the aromatic focus against the roundness of the praline. The final pastry course favours contrast over accumulation.
Cooking that stays in motion
Andreux’s identity at Le Millénaire rests on the relationship between a demanding training and a refusal to let his cooking stand still. His Provençal roots, his Champagne home and the work of his team serve a shared idea: to cook an ingredient when its moment arrives. The seasons within seasons are more than a phrase. They give the restaurant its freedom, and returning guests a reason to discover something new.
