HASlain Ducasse, emblematic chef of French cuisine, at the head of 34 restaurants, 20 Michelin stars, 34 boutiques and 6 cooking schools, recently published his autobiography, A life of tastes and passions (JC Lattes, 2022).
“In 1986, I was 30 years old, I was chef at the Hotel Juana in Juan-les-Pins when Prince Rainier of Monaco contacted me. He suggested that I open a restaurant in the Principality. At a time when high gastronomy rhymes more with foie gras or prime rib, I arrive at the rendezvous with a 17-page dossier focused on vegetables. The prince, who had thought of me because I had worked with reference chefs such as Alain Chapel, Michel Guérard and Roger Vergé, asks me: ” Are you sure ? » Then decides to trust me. I believe that the roughness of my proposal seduced him.
To tell the truth, it was rather opportunistic on my part. In the 1980s, I had worked on the Côte d’Azur and knew that this arid Mediterranean land gave vegetables, fruits and drinks of incomparable flavor. And at this stage of my career, I who am a pure product of learning French haute cuisine, I needed to find myself an identity, a style. A story to tell.
Little consensual
As soon as the Louis XV opened on May 27, 1987, an entirely vegetarian menu, “Les jardins de Provence”, was put on the menu. And also an emblematic dish of this state of mind, the “vegetables from the gardens of Provence”. The idea is to cook the vegetables found the same day at the market, following the rhythm of the seasons. The tastes were quite sweet, we added truffles on top. It was already so little consensual to make a vegetarian dish at a time when vegetables were only considered as a garnish! In the first few years, I think we had to sell, at best, ten a week. But as René Char said, “Looking at you, they will get used to it”. Some customers didn’t return, but most took a liking to it.
Thirty-five years later, the dish is still on the menu, but has become much more radical. We stopped the truffle out of season, we removed the butter, the dish is now vegan. We barely peel the vegetables and we don’t throw anything away. The turnips, radishes, carrots, fennel are sautéed, the artichoke confit in olive oil; their peelings are used to make a juice. We work a spicy grape condiment, with dehydrated grapes then rehydrated in grape vinegar, we add a pesto of vine leaves and vegetable tops. Finally, we make an “olive leather”, where we recover the pulp of the pressed olives to make oil, which forms a rather acidic coulis.
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