French restaurants work to be more sustainable
This new type of cuisine values immediacy and intensity of flavor, but it’s also about sustainability. To that end, Relais & Chateaux, the restaurant hotel and restaurant association, is encouraging its members, some of which are listed here, to take a more mindful approach to dining.
The Chèvre d’Or (the golden goat) is one such restaurant, and opened in the 1950s and has expanded over the years into a striking hotel. At this two-starred Michelin restaurant, chef Arnaud Faye has a light touch. The focus is on local produce: in the spring, that means vivid, little artichokes, small but no less intense tomatoes, white asparagus, and various micro-greens.
But this is not unadorned cooking, it’s highly refined—think an artichoke heart resting in a lime broth, dressed up with Ossetra caviar, or local chickpeas paired with raw king prawns from the nearby sea.
Just down the hill from Èze lies Monaco, the home of Monte-Carlo Beach Hotel. The restaurant, Elsa, is run by the Italian-born chef Paolo Sari who also runs the first Michelin-starred restaurant that’s entirely bio or organic.
He partners with several local farmers to provide the ingredients for his summer lunch menu, which includes dishes like cappelletti with smoked ricotta and a remarkable selection of raw vegetables from the garden.
Sari also presses his own olive oils, and hopes his keep-it-local ethos will help his guests rethink their own environmental impact when they cook at home. “We want to change the way people relate to their food. That happens when they come here,” says Sari. “We want people to think about it when they go shopping themselves.”
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