Through the a few years that I lived in France, I had the pleasure of assembly dozens of very passionate and proficient cooks, whom I’ll always remember. And, in fact, there are some cooks who will all the time have a spot in my pantheon of Gallic gastronomic glory, together with Paul Bocuse, Alain Chappell, Bernard Loiseau, Michel Girard, Alain Ducasse and Olivier Rollinger.

I’ll always remember the lengthy dialog I had with Mr. Rollinger on a wet night time in Cancale after a nice meal on the now defunct Maison de Bricourt. Rollinger, a proud Breton, gave me an extended and interesting lesson on the historical past of Saint-Malo, the French spice commerce, and Breton cooking, which instantly made the fantastic meal I had at his restaurant all of the extra resonant. His capacity to fuse social and political historical past, geology and geography with gastronomy – he was an Aboriginal – was astonishing. What I discovered that night time turned the bedrock of my understanding of Breton cooking, from the area’s Celtic traditions to the methods of meals and the distinctive relationship with spices from India and Southeast Asia launched to the native food plan by La Compagnie des Indes Orientales (the French West India Firm).

As we speak, Mr. Rollinger is now not within the kitchen—it is his son, Hugo, who’s working the present now—however that hasn’t made me much less excited to hitch buddies for dinner at Le Bistrot de Cancale, the household’s new restaurant in a rugged outdated home overlooking Plage Mer and Sailboat Bay. which opened final June.

As all the time in Roellinger household institutions, the hospitality right here was impeccable and nearly touchingly honest. Better of all, the merchandise used to organize our meal have been amazingly recent and ready with a culinary humility that elevates their pure flavors and textures. To wit, nothing might be higher than our starters: a plate of grilled langoustines freshly pulled from the chilly waters of Brittany; fleshy, iodized Cancale oysters dusted with a mysterious but wonderful spice mix created by Épices Roellinger (the spice firm based by Olivier Roellinger); and slices of bream with roasted buckwheat and kelp.

Subsequent, a dish that was a triumph of simplicity – turbot cooked on the bone and served with the most effective hollandaise sauces I’ve ever eaten. My buddies had grilled Breton lobster à la Cancalaise (a sauce of fish foumette with shallots and mussels); And dip it within the spicy sauce that was reducing its personal cooking juices. The standard of the seafood was extraordinary, however what impressed and delighted most was, as soon as once more, the humility of a very proficient chef who is aware of that nice cooking skillfully enhances, not overwhelms, the flavors of nature.

Plage de Port Mer, 5 Rue Eugène et Auguste Feyen, Cancale Tel. (33) 02 99 89 64 76.

common 65 euros a la carte, www.maisons-de-bricourt.com

From France As we speak journal

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