Armand Arnal, cook & David Catte, gardener, in the kitchen garden at La Chassagnette

When chef Armand Arnal arrived at La Chassagnette in 2006, he inherited an establishment that already had its own organic vegetable garden and a fine reputation for its plant-based cuisine. The chef immediately felt at home in this Camargue ecosystem and, over the years, has perfected a cuisine based more on soil than on terroir, which is as close as possible to the garden... and its gardener. David Catte oversees what is much more than a kitchen garden: a team of 7 gardeners and 3 hectares of crops which, in addition to supplying the restaurant, are a veritable agro-ecology laboratory.

Gault&Millau: When did you arrive at La Chassagnette and what projects have you undertaken?

David Catte: I arrived three years ago, after spending fifteen years in Japan, where I brought back a number of living soil market gardening techniques. We quickly set up several experimental protocols. In 2020, we built a glass greenhouse to identify plants from southern regions likely to adapt to the Camargue in the coming years. It's also a place with an educational dimension, the aim being to show different audiences rare and specific plants that we're used to eating but not necessarily seeing in the ground.production doesn't allow us to use them in a menu over several weeks, but we do from time to time as part of gastronomic events.

G&M: What's so special about this vegetable garden?

Armand Arnal: The production of our fruit and vegetables doesn't have to be linked to a financial result, which means we can take the time to work not only on our needs, to have all the produce we need for the restaurant, but also to make this kitchen garden a place for experimentation. Every year, we go in search of new species, new sub-families, we try out new varieties of zucchinis, eggplants, tomatoes... There are two or three subjects of substance per year that we work on. We compile the results and take stock for the following year.

D. C.: A conventional market garden grows around thirty varieties. Here, we work with hundreds. We're practically a botanical garden! So we don't have the same organizational systems at all. Whereas a market gardener will work on 40 or 50-metre beds with the same vegetable, we segment them and sow every week or every ten days, which we renew on a regular basis. Our aim is always to improve the quality and taste of our vegetables. We work with most organic seed companies, conservatories and banks of old and rare seeds. We are constantly on the lookout for new suppliers and unique plants to broaden the palette of the artist - the chef - and contribute to creativity in the kitchen. But we also want to keep things in perspective. We don't grow tomatoes after autumn, for example, so we remain true to the idea of seasonality. One of the challenges for us this year is the production of cabbages (cauliflower, Chinese cabbage, flat cabbage, kale, etc.), which arrive late in the season and which chefs would like to have a little earlier. We're going to see if it's possible to start planting them as early as the summer periods, to speed up the process a little and be able to enjoy them before the onset of winter.

G&M: Is this vegetable garden a constraint or a freedom?

A. A.: The way we work means we have to take a lot of risks, and there are quite a few things that don't work out as we'd like. We can't just say "I want a product like this or like that"! Every time, we have to find a solution. Working with a living organism next door to our kitchen requires us to adapt and develop a much more intimate relationship with the product. It forces us to transform day-to-day difficulties into a variety of creative solutions. Here's an example: at the moment, we have a vegetable platter on the menu, with fennel and turnips. Due to the change in temperature, they have grown enormously over the last two weeks, leaving us little time to enjoy them in their small vegetable form. So we had to change our cutting and cooking times. Nothing can be taken for granted, and those who join the team need time to adapt, especially if they're used to having calibrated, well-defined products within a precise timeframe. Our strength here is constant change.

G&M: What impact does climate change have on your work?

D. C.: Climate change is at the heart of our business. Water scarcity and global warming during the summer months are priority issues. We are adjusting our structural tools to adapt to tomorrow's world, with systems that are more likely to be found in Southeast Asia or Sahelian zones. We are conducting a research protocol on shade sails, with different types of grammage to protect plants during scorching heat. We're also working on soil biology, with organic matter inputs that enable plants to become autoimmune and develop natural resistance. There's traditional know-how and technical innovation. And we try to position ourselves between the two. By bringing up to date techniques that may have been forgotten, and using modern equipment that enables us to meet the needs of the region.

G&M: Are you completely autonomous?

D. C.: We are 97% self-sufficient. There are some things that our terroir doesn't allow us to produce, like asparagus, for example, which we buy from a producer who knows how to grow it. The vegetables are harvested in the morning, and are immediately processed by the kitchen team, with no need for refrigeration. It's truly magical for us to see them sublimated by Armand's team. As a gardener, you couldn't ask for anything better.

G&M: How does this vegetable garden help the restaurant evolve?

A. A.: Having a garden like this also makes us want to do lots of other things around the restaurant. It gives us ideas that will require the knowledge and skills of the people who work in the restaurant, but with experiences that don't necessarily happen on a table where you're served food. We're working to try and make the most of all this knowledge and know-how we've acquired over the years, so that tomorrow we can present something different, a new way of doing things.