Alexandre Gauthier x Mathieu Lehanneur: imagining the present for the future

We find them in deep conversation, just five minutes after meeting. Mathieu Lehanneur and Alexandre Gauthier don't know each other, but it's clear they already like each other. For once, the roles are reversed. The designer welcomes us around a table, certainly, but strewn with objects, raw materials and sketches. In his studio just outside Paris, the conversation takes a more abstract turn with chef Alexandre Gauthier. Ideas flow between these two men who, against all odds, are united by everything. Could this be the start of a new friendship, an ideal collaboration? We've put a few ideas on the table.

Gault&Millau: Each of you is daring in your own discipline. How do you see the other's field?

Mathieu Lehanneur: I've had nothing in my stomach since last night. I'm someone who doesn't eat much, and the more I eat, the less I need to. I like to eat and eat well, but outside of a social regularity, without schedules, without obligation. I like to eat the way an animal would eat! Have you experienced any great emotions at the table, sitting down in a civilized manner?

G.M.: Have you experienced any great emotions while sitting at the table in a civilized manner?

M.L.: The very first one I can remember was at Alain Ducasse's Louis XV in Monaco. I went there with a client, or rather a budding friendship. At the time, I'd never been to a top gastronomic restaurant. What I remember is drunkenness. Not alcoholic: I don't drink much. I can't even tell you exactly what I ate, but my head was spinning. It's a sensation I never imagined.

Alexandre Gauthier: It's beautiful. In the restaurant, we do sequences of eleven courses. It's a real rhythm, but I consider conversation at the table to be my main adversary. [Laughs]

G.M.: In fact, this is the first time we've done a conversation outside the restaurant for this column... Alexandre, you have an appetite for culture in the broadest sense. You've launched several dinner-events, like real scenographies...

A.G. : I'm very attentive to the idea of performances, of "pop-ups" - even if these terms are overused - in any case, of creating instants that have a beginning and an end.instants that have a beginning and an end and are not intended to exist in reality, but which can appear and be experienced. I first became interested in this combination of entertainment and gastronomy in 2008, when I took over the catering management of the former abattoirs in Calais, now Le Channel, a national stage. at the time, I met Patrick Bouchain, the architect who went on to remodel La Grenouillère [his restaurant in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, 5 G&M toques, editor's note]. This enabled me to meet artists and create duets with them, real live art shows, at the table. Yes, the table is a stage. More recently, last April, I teamed up with the brilliant director Julien Gosselin. We couldn't do it at the theater, so we took over an old Parisian garage: 9 courses, 55 covers on a temporary basis. We were fully booked every night!

G.M.: On a daily basis, the aesthetics of a plate are also important to you...

A.G.: All the time. I don't like false notes, I have an eye for detail, I have my neuroses. I try to be timeless, to put down roots rather than be fashionable. Anything can go out of fashion, including cuisine. I've tried to build a restaurant for today, not tomorrow. To be in tune with the times.

M.L.: It's fun, and that's exactly how I feel about my job. It's comfortable and a bit cowardly to think we're making the future. No one will be able to verify our involvement in it. Above all, there's enough room for manoeuvre in the present not to hide in the future! It's a wide enough playing field that we have a potential grip on. An understanding of what's emerging and the ability to respond to it.

A.G.: I often think of Albert Camus's words: "True generosity towards the future consists in giving everything to the present. It's about taking responsibility for our times. In this case, environmental responsibility, as far as we're concerned. In cooking, as in design, there are things we have to stop. Well, up to a point: everything is bordered in this country, but you also have to find a certain space for expression in the midst of it all. In a white neon laboratory, there are no microbes growing, but there aren't many ideas either...

G.M.: Each of you, in your own way, defends - or at least contributes to - the influence of French talent...

M.L. : We would have had to be attacked for us to feel like defending something. There's a requirement, no doubt an ambition. In my opinion, what differentiates our professions is that I confront my customers with their finiteness: the piece you're about to buy will outlive you. this idea of timelessness always creates a moment of hesitation.

A.G.: It's true that we make dishes that have a maximum lifespan of three minutes [laughs]. [Laughs] But it can be a strong feeling, one that taps into the head and the heart! So I also feel this sense of infinity, but in relation to a house I've been entrusted with. I have a 350-year-old shack that my father bought in 1979. I'm a passer-by. I put my work in this house - well, my work - it's who I am. We cook and we welcome: in your profession, Mathieu, there's also this relationship with others. But this is the first time I've asked myself about the future of the place, because of the terrible flood we recently experienced, which forced us to close indefinitely. If this place, which has 130 years of gastronomic history, is flooded every year or every five years, it's going to stop... We live with the times. What a chef really hopes for is to leave a trace.

M.L.: It's true that what unites us is the transformation of raw material into something elaborate, sophisticated, civilized, offered. That's what I find most moving, because it's the most primitive.

G.M.: You're at the very top of the primitive league...

M.L. : We've evolved for centuries! Today, we have knowledge, access to materials and tools, but I don't think the instinctive movement has really changed. On the other hand, I think that in your discipline, Alexandre, you have a chance that I don't: on paper, it's already a sensual experience. You're putting something in someone's mouth! My object can be manipulated, but I don't have access to that kind of sensuality. In your profession, you create thrills.

G.M.: Yet that's precisely what can touch people, the fact of being able to manipulate an object, as opposed to a suspended work...

M.L.: When we listen to music, we can be gripped, get goose bumps, a memory can suddenly spring to mind, for example. Taste is the same thing. Smell, too. Design can be decoded from a distance. Sometimes, there are moments of grace. The sign of a piece's success is when you want to touch it. Otherwise, it's a mistake, a failure.

G.M.: With the Olympic torch and cauldron, you've created a moment of great emotion!

M.L. : That's true, but it was easier - the context helped! I could have created the ugliest torch in existence, but it's still an Olympic symbol.

G.M.: In design, there's also this idea of innovating, of bringing a solution to everyday life. Do you think this applies to the kitchen?

A.G.: I like the ordinary as well as the extra-ordinary. In the same way as in design, it can be interesting to popularize certain simple everyday moments, the banal, while making them aesthetically pleasing. As far as I'm concerned, we have five venues, which means five different shows. I don't know if I'm innovating... But to repeat what was said earlier, I'm fighting. On the one hand, the caricature that has been made of my region - the North - for too long. It's been stereotyped, trivialized and "tuchised". And then there's the fight against agribusiness. In Italy, you can eat well in any small restaurant, even on the side of the freeway. In France, the agri-food monster has taken over. On our coasts, we eat badly. My latest restaurant [Sur Mer, in Merlimont, 2 toques G&M, NDLR] is by the sea, it's the California of the North, the beaches are incredible. You can have fish and chips, homemade vinaigrette: it can be festive and simple, and still have the same view as those who want something more sophisticated. I did it because it was impossible for me to eat a proper mussel or fry in a place worthy of the name, with no view of the parking lot and where you come out stinking. Respect people, who respect themselves by coming.

G.M.: You've both won awards... How important is this recognition in your respective fields?

M.L.: In my profession, they're less key and strategic for my business than in Alexandre's. I see them as... awards. I experience them as... hugs. Encouragement from my peers, from the profession.

G.M.: Your pieces have even entered the collections of MoMa...

M.L.: That's true, but that's not why we do it. I was very young and had no clients, no money, no projects. I had a room and a sheet of paper. One of the biggest museums in the world says to you: "I'm looking at you, I believe in you, I'm encouraging you, and since we're less stupid than the average person, we're going to start acquiring them right away! "It doesn't change your life, but it gives you courage.

A.G.: That's true, but that's not why we do it. I was very young and had no customers, no money, no plans. I had a room and a sheet of paper. One of the biggest museums in the world says to you: "I'm looking at you, I believe in you, I'm encouraging you, and since we're less stupid than the average person, we're going to start acquiring them right away! "It doesn't change your life, but it gives you courage.

M.L. : Materially, not much, because a lot of the things we develop here, we could change the context, it could work in an art gallery. But I chose this profession because I think it's a much more powerful Trojan horse. You admire the work from a distance, it's on the wall. It can grab you, move you, you can admire it and bow down to it, but everyday life? The potential for emotion also exists in design, even if it's often in three dimensions and on the floor. With design, you can be surprised: "Well, I wasn't expecting this idea, it's cleverly conceived. "It's a bit like if, in your line of work, Alexandre, I went into a boui-boui to discover that I was being served a dish of haute gastronomy. Unpredictable!

G.M.: What about the functional aspect of design, as opposed to art?

M.L. : What's the function of an Olympic torch? From you to me, none. It's a symbol, a ritual, an emotion.

G.M.: Last time, Mathieu, you said to me: "Doubting protects you from many things, especially idleness. You have to keep moving forward. "Do you still doubt?

A.G. : Always!

M.L. : Serious!

G.M.: And how are you getting on?

A.G.: I'm about to cry. [I'm in a complicated period. I have to reinvent something that used to work. We're going to try to reopen it and do it better. But what's better?

M.L.: To move forward, you have to convince yourself of what you're doubting. When you talk about a finished piece, you know how to explain and justify it, to show that the initial intuition was right. It's often a case of rewriting history!

A.G. : Mathieu is right. The day I have too many certainties, it's time to stop, because I'm getting a bit stupid. Personally, I love contemporary art and design, because innovation is constant. It forces you to move the lines.

G.M.: If you were to describe one of your dishes, in parallel with one of Mathieu's pieces...

A.G.: His glass bubbles resemble my sugar bubbles. It's a dish that's over 15 years old. The bubble, filled with sorrel ice cream, has to be broken. It's like a small object, a beautiful tachism...