Myriam Moretto: The Art of Listening

By the time she was twenty, her mentor left and let her lead the wine program. Sales doubled, but numbers alone fail to capture what had shifted. What she created was not simply efficiency, but atmosphere a dining room where wine no longer followed the dish, but moved alongside it, enhancing, revealing, completing.

“I was given a chance very early,” she says, almost in passing. “So now, I always want to give that chance to someone else.” It is a simple sentence, but it carries through everything she does.

In Da Nang, where she now lives and works, that philosophy finds its most complete expression at Le Comptoir, the French restaurant she co-founded with her life’s partner, Chef Olivier Corti. If the kitchen defines the structure of the experience, Myriam shapes its atmosphere,  something less visible, but no less essential.

There is a particular rhythm to Le Comptoir. It is not loud, not performative. Instead, it unfolds with a quiet confidence  a sense that everything is in its place, without needing to announce itself. Guests often cannot pinpoint exactly why they feel at ease, only that they do.

This is where Myriam’s presence is most felt.

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Here she’s not only a chef sommelier. Her role extends beyond selection and pairing into something more intuitive. She listens to the dish, certainly, but also to the intention behind it, and to the guest receiving it. A sauce, a texture, a fleeting note of acidity becomes part of a larger dialogue, one that moves fluidly between kitchen and dining room.

Her collaboration with Olivier is built on time, familiarity and a hint of romance. There is little need for explanation. A dish can be described in a few words; a wine follows, almost instinctively. It is not efficiency, but alignment a shared language developed over years of working side by side and sharing other aspects of life.

“Wine is not here to impress,” she says. “It’s here to complete something.”

That sense of completion extends beyond the glass.

Perfection, for Myriam, is never loud. It resides in details so subtle they often go unnoticed and yet, without them, the experience would feel incomplete. When Le Comptoir was taking shape, she spent three months sourcing the right tablecloths. The process was meticulous, almost obsessive. Texture, weight, color each element had to align with the feeling she wanted to create. Olivier, she recalls with a smile, did not immediately understand why it mattered so much. But she did. Because for her, the experience begins long before the first course is served.

Fresh flowers appear regularly, chosen with the same quiet attention. Not extravagant, not excessive — just enough to bring life into the room, to soften the space, to suggest care without demanding attention. It is an instinctive form of composition, one that draws as much from emotion as from design. “I want people to feel something before they even taste anything,” she says. It is perhaps this very feminine sensitivity that defines her most clearly an ability to anticipate not just what guests need, but how they want to feel.

It is no surprise, then, that she has recently turned her attention to interior design. For Myriam, the transition feels natural, almost inevitable. Wine, space, service:  these are not separate disciplines, but interconnected expressions of the same intention: to create environments where people feel seen, comfortable, and gently transported.

At Le Comptoir, this philosophy extends beyond her own role into the team itself. Young staff members are not simply trained, but encouraged to ask questions, to develop their own sensibility, to move beyond repetition into understanding. There is structure, certainly, but there is also space for each unique personality to grow and shine.

In a city like Da Nang, where the culinary scene continues to evolve, this approach feels particularly resonant. Le Comptoir is not only a destination, but a place of transmission where knowledge, standards, and a certain way of approaching hospitality are passed from one generation to the next.

Guests arrive for many reasons: the reputation, the cuisine, the promise of refinement. But what lingers is often less tangible, a sense of being cared for without excess, guided without pressure, welcomed without performance. It is a delicate balance, and one that Myriam maintains with remarkable precision.

There is no overt ambition in the way she speaks about her work. No need for grand declarations. Instead, there is focus on refinement, on attention, on doing things well, again and again, until they feel effortless. Perhaps that is where her strength lies. Not in spectacle, but in clarity. Not in control, but in awareness.

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