Cycling and Creativity: Izu Ani

Ride & Create: Izu Ani

Izu Ani has a habit of appearing at the Café du Cycliste in the port of Nice like magic. When he enters the place, he completely inhabits it with his energy and charisma, changing the atmosphere in an instant. There are those people who radiate from this dose of power, a cheerful remedy to those who meet him. He brings much more than he takes. In shorts and jersey, a helmet screwed on the head, colourful glasses balanced on the nose, the cycling outfit makes us all equal. In this outfit, Izu's life is beyond suspicion. He thrives.

Izu Ani is a well-known chef on the Côte d'Azur, he worked for several years at the Bastide Saint Antoine, a two Michelin star restaurant in the Grasse region. He then exported the Petite Maison to Dubai and Gaïa, the Monegasque restaurant of which he is owner. Despite this international reputation, for many, Chef Izu remains a great local success.

We visited him in Dubai to experience the phenomenon and understand that his culinary creativity is conquering the world. In the Emirates, Izu is a celebrity, several of the most beautiful restaurants in the city belong to him, he has multiplied numerous high-end meal delivery franchises, 1500 people work for him. He is on his way to building an empire. The theme of his success remains: he never compromises on the quality of what he creates.

His personality is not foreign to his success, nor his creativity either. Between two mega-laughs, Izu becomes very serious again to explain to us how he wanted to revisit the notorious hamburger, the symbol of fast food, to make it a genuinely quality dish. He recounts his extremism when it comes to making healthy bread, his exacting choice of meats and vegetables, his obsession with obtaining powerful and fruity olive oil. For that he went so far as to buy his own olive groves and a mill in Greece.

Chef Izu is constantly innovating for each of his restaurants. His menus are universes of flavour, visiting all the cuisines of the world: Italian, Oriental, Japanese, Mediterranean, Greek, Korean, and of course a French influence... Hyperactive, always in search of a new idea, a new concept, his driver takes him from one restaurant to another to taste the dishes of a new menu; choose a packaging design, visiting the construction site of his new restaurant in which one enters directly by car… ‘I am the first to do this and here it will meet with phenomenal success.’

Dressed in jeans and black t-shirt, sneakers on his feet, beret on his head, he tumbles into the kitchens, always greeting each of his collaborators with the same attention. He hugs some, nags others, but he is always sunny, tireless, sporting always the same smile, always conveying the same mind-blowing energy.

Amongst all this Izu dedicates a real importance to the moments he spends on his bike. This is the very particular way he has of balancing his life. In Dubai you can ride at any time of the day or night, a way to avoid the heat, a way to start a day well.

‘Pedalling is traveling, I always need that. I ride four to five times a week and alone 90% of the time. It is my time to pause and meditate, I let myself go. I love these moments. I come face to face with myself, I refocus, it's totally essential to my life. Most often I ride alone for one to two hours, the time needed to get out of the rush.’

Everything in Izu's life seems to be punctuated to the millisecond, but the sacrosanct moment of the ride is a time of total disconnection. So, when asked about the process of creating and unleashing creative thought on a bike, he has no hesitation:

‘This is where it all happens. The first key is disconnection and letting go. I say cycling is a journey because it makes you change dimensions and almost leave your body. Surprisingly, this moment allows you to synthesize many things and to access a form of lucidity, a resource that you seem to ignore when you are not living in the moment. I mentally associate tastes and flavours on my bike, the most original ideas come to me at that time. I am often convinced that the association can work, so I become totally impatient to arrive and experiment.

Getting off the bike I grab my phone and call my restaurant to ask a team to prepare a base and find the ingredient. I don't want to let the idea slip away. I arrive on site and concretise the recipe, it works like that most of the time, it's great.’

And then Izu throws out a huge laugh and an enormous smile, and you realise that there are beings in this world who shake up life and change its shape.

Ride & Create: Rémi Clermont

Rémi Clermont is creative director of Café du Cycliste. Here he speaks about creativity, and the vital role his own cycling plays in the process.

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Ride & Create: Sandra Winn

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Exploring how cycling can unlock creative thinking. With Stanford University's & University Côte d’Azur's research, pedal power has a whole new meaning.