Emmanuel Renaut in 5 dishes
Emmanuel Renaut, chef at Le Flocons de Sel in Megève, retraces the history of five dishes that are emblematic of his cuisine. A plunge into his delicate mountain world.
in Megève, Emmanuel Renaut cultivates a cuisine deeply rooted in the Alps. Between wild harvesting, lake fish and garden herbs, the chef of Flocons de Sel (5 toques) fashions a cuisine as instinctive as it is demanding, "commanded by nature". Here are five dishes that tell the story of his territory, his convictions and his inspirations.
The dish that symbolizes his convictions: the pike cookie
Inspired by the Lyonnaise quenelle, this light, flourless cookie was born of a decisive turning point: "I stopped eating sea fish twenty years ago, to get closer to freshwater fish."A move linked to his meeting with Jacquier, a fisherman on Lake Geneva, and a real culinary gamble. "We had a clientele that wasn't very open to it, lake fish was considered bland, muddy... There was a lot of rejection." By dint of hard work, the chef has managed to impose this other idea of fish, by valorizing the local species of Alpine lakes. "The aim is to show that it can be extraordinary, that we have a richness at our fingertips."
anne-Emmanuelle Thion
A tribute to the mountains: cèpe en croûte
An avid forager, Emmanuel Renaut works with mushrooms with the precision of a goldsmith: "The hardest thing in cooking is simplicity and perfection in taste, to create emotion."The cèpe en croûte, picked in the morning and cooked in the evening, embodies this direct, instinctive approach: a raw product, prepared without embellishment, like a mountain digest. "I wanted to convey the taste of the mountains through simple products" - a cuisine that can't be reproduced, dependent on the living world, the seasons and the exact moment.
The dish that proves that mountain cuisine can be delicate: 2 mm polenta
Behind the name, a small revolution. "Fora long time, mountain cuisine was seen as roborative, with body-hugging polenta and heavy cheese dishes. But the mountains are also about delicacy", says the chef. Here, the polenta is cooked for a long time, spread out very thinly between two sheets of parchment paper, and placed like gold leaf on the plate. The whole thing is topped with a jus made with herbs of the moment. "A delicate counterpoint to the expected image of Alpine cuisine."
A tribute to a memory: the chocolate-wood tart
In this atypical dessert, wood becomes an ingredient. The chocolate is lightly smoked, and the ice cream is infused with roasted wood shavings (beech, spruce...), as desired. A souvenir of a trip to Japan, on the island of Hokkaido: "I met people there who made wood water, which they drank instead of tea or coffee. I brought that back in my suitcase of tastes", he recalls. An evocative dessert, between earth, forest and reminiscence of distant landscapes.
dR
The instinctive dish: the salad of the moment
Emmanuel Renaut's cuisine evolves to the rhythm of the kitchen garden. Cardoons, beans, flowers, leaves... Everything is anticipated, picked at just the right ripeness, in line with the day's weather. "We only pick what we need," he says.
© DR
In summer, the chef likes to compose what he calls "a picture of the T-moment": a vegetal dish that reflects the surrounding nature. A salad composed of fresh herbs, sprouts, seasonal flowers, fresh hazelnuts... "An image of the moment, an interactive salad that changes every day, depending on what the mountains have to offer."
