That’s enough to wake up Usain Bolt in a cold sweat: chicken nuggets will be off the menu at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with Michelin-starred cuisine and plant-based meat alternatives on offer in the athletes’ village instead.
The Jamaican sprinter famously claimed to have eaten 1,000 nuggets over 10 days when he won gold in the 100m and 200m at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but in Paris four Michelin-starred chefs will be preparing the meals and encouraging the 11,000 athletes to make healthier choices.
Dishes on offer include croissants, poached eggs, artichoke cream and sheep’s cheese shavings topped with truffles, and two-star Michelin chef Amandine Chaigneau recommends eating with your hands.
Of the 40,000 meals to be served per day, around 1,200 will be Michelin-starred, according to Paris 2024 food chief Philippe Wurtz, who also confirmed that around 30% of the Games’ menu will also be plant-based, with soy nuggets also being offered as an alternative.
Wurz acknowledged that French organisers were keen to raise standards after reading that 20 percent of athletes’ meals during the London Olympics were consumed at McDonald’s. “The menu is much healthier now. No McDonald’s, no chicken nuggets, more healthy food,” Wurz said.
“The star chefs’ menus have also been developed in collaboration with sports nutritionists and are of a very high level, respecting what athletes actually need,” he added.
A 3,500-seat restaurant was built from the ground up to serve cuisines from around the world, as well as six “take-out” areas where athletes can enjoy snacks, bakery items and signature dishes prepared by Michelin-star chefs.
However, due to a no-alcohol policy in the village, the players cannot enjoy a nice bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape with their meal.
“Athletes come to the largest restaurant in the world,” Wurtz says, “and they’re amazed not only by the architectural setup of the main dining hall, but also by the quality of the recipes and the food.”
“We tried to come up with a very specific plan to take advantage of the French know-how, the French culinary savoir-faire, for which we are renowned all over the world.”
However, each country was allowed to make specific requests, with the British team asking for porridge to be added to the menu, and the South Korean team requesting kimchi.
Wurtz added that athletes’ appetites and preferences vary greatly depending on the sport: Beach volleyball and taekwondo teams request cold meats, sandwiches and salads, while rowing teams ask for a “hot buffet.” The badminton team, which is mostly Asian, “doesn’t like bread very much,” but sports with a large European contingent “have a basic British, French or German catering program,” Wurtz added.
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“Chicken skewers and chicken fillets are very popular, as is salmon,” Wurz added, “so athletes are getting a fair amount of protein in these days. But as always, the best seller is the margarita pizza.”
The bakery plans to bake 800 baguettes a day for a total of six kilos during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Würtz says around 80 percent of the produce used in the village will come from France.
“Of course, the meat will be 100 percent French,” he added, “and the cheeses will be fine, well-known French cheeses such as Comté and Brie de Meaux. The same goes for the pastries, with the players being offered a wide variety of French pastries.”
“Compared to past tournaments, this is definitely something the athletes are not used to so we have already received a lot of positive feedback and there is a huge variety of very special made-in-France items that we are offering.”
Athletes will find cheese and dairy stands, desserts, soups, grilled dishes, pizza, daily specials, pasta and a hot buffet, as well as a salad bar and fruit concessions, though Wurtz acknowledged that some athletes may want to consume unhealthy foods, especially after competing.
“There’s definitely less junk food,” he says. “We’ve really tried to increase the quality there. But we still have to offer things like hot dogs and burgers, but we don’t offer those in the main dining hall, we only offer them in our dedicated Grab and Go outlets.”
