Claire Vallée in 5 dishes

Claire Vallée, formerly head of the vegan restaurant ONA (Origine non animale) in Arès, southwest France, is a highly inventive chef. The chef who won two Gault&Millau toques before opening a short-lived table d'hôtes in Paris, offers a creative vegetarian cuisine full of conviction, history and, above all, flavor. Claire Vallée takes a look back at the five dishes that have marked her career and perfectly reflect her philosophy in the kitchen.

Deforestation

Claire Vallée is a chef committed to the animal cause, but also to the environment in general. This dish was inspired by Luc Jacquet's film "Il était une fois la forêt", which tells the story of the Canopy. "In it, we discover the intelligence of trees, and that had an impact on me, because when I had my temporary table d'hôtes in Paris, there were huge fires in the Arcachon Basin," recalls the chef. This dish, based on seasonal vegetables, offers a few hints of acidity and chili to recall the power of fire, but also smoked sage, a fragrance close to wood and an impactful visual: "Theplate was completely black," describes Claire Vallée. "I like to deliver messages through my dishes, and this one generated real exchanges at the table!"

©AnneEmmanuelleThion

Le Printemps

"It's a dish I've often made, and one that pleases a lot. It's based on a salad with raw and cooked asparagus of different varieties, seasoned with notes of grapefruit, Timut pepper, strawberries smoked in pine needles, raw or lacto-fermented strawberries with mimosa, and strawberries and peppers.It'sa real ode to spring, a plate full of freshness", says Claire Vallée, who loves to draw inspiration from the natural world around her to create her dishes.

©DavidJapy

Tenderness

Claire Vallée likes to give her menus a theme. Some time ago, the chef created an entire menu based on a love story. "I described the journey of emotions. The amuse-bouche was the meeting, then we had a 'seduction' dish with a more erotic side, but also tenderness, disappointment, sadness... I'd like to linger on the 'tenderness' with this vegetable salted meringue. with this salted, vegetable meringue, which revealed a round, comforting egg inside, with a yellow coulis, a vanilla cauliflower mousse and vinegar pearls. It was a real technical challenge, but a real caress in the mouth. Visually, the dish resembled a cocoon, something comforting."

©DavidJapy

Kojified cauliflower

Koji is a ferment derived from the mold of several ascomycetes, generally used to make rice koji. Claire Vallée wanted to use this process with cauliflower, and the result is stunning. "You get a very interesting, powerful cheesiness," says the chef. "We serve it with a beurre blanc sauce and shiitake miso, which is a real technical feat! The idea was to prove that you could transform the taste of cauliflower, not with spices, but with a mushroom that makes it evolve", Claire Vallée explains. "I like to use this technique to propose vegetable 'charcuteries' or 'cheeses'!"

©AnneEmmanuelleThion

Fig, dulse and fragrant fluke

For her final dish, Claire Vallée chose to feature a dessert. "Coming from the Southwest, I'm very attached to iodine. I like to use it in dishes as well as desserts. Seaweed actually works very well with sweet things", assures the chef. "This fig, dulse and fragrant flouve dessert looks like sand with little shells. There's a spherification of almond milk, dulse with notes of hazelnut, and the fig leaf adds a light touch of coconut. Very tasty! I added fermented wakame, which gives a dessert between sugar and iodine, like a stroll along the beach!"

©DavidJapy