Abstract : This article deals with Jean Sulpice and his restaurant "L'Oxalys" in the French Alps.
Quotation : "It's tough at the top they say, and few chefs are better placed to tell you than Jean Sulpice, whose two-star restaurant L'Oxalys perches 2,300 metres (7,500 feet) up in the French Alps. Though born and bred in the region, when Sulpice took over the mountaintop eatery in the trendy ski resort of Val Thorens in 2002, aged just 24, he knew he had his work cut out for him. Val Thorens has only two seasons -- buzzing from December to April, and dead the rest of the year -- and there was no market for the kind of cuisine he wanted to offer. "People in the mountains didn't do good food," the fresh-faced 33-year-old, who today runs Europe's highest Michelin-starred restaurant, told AFP. "You ate raclette and tartiflette. "These two dishes, which make a virtue out of easily available ingredients -- melted cheese, potatoes and cured meats -- were standard resort fare. "There was no such thing as gastronomic food," Sulpice recalled. The isolated site brought obvious logistical challenges, with deliveries of basic ingredients liable to be suddenly cancelled because of snow on the roads. But the altitude also posed unique challenges, forcing the chef to relearn parts of his trade from scratch. That high up, for example, water boils at 90 degrees C (194 degrees F) instead of 100 -- which means cooking an egg takes twice the time. "I also had to invent my own type of bread because the first few years it would turn dry as biscuits" because of the low humidity levels, he said. Likewise, he had to deal with exploding packaging, because of the atmospheric pressure, as well as wine ageing faster than it should. And sometimes without serving a single customer for three days running. Though a die-hard mountain-lover who goes climbing in between seatings, one thing Sulpice really struggled with was the thick blanket of snow masking all surrounding plant life for six months of the year. "When you have a blank page in front of your nose every morning, your inspiration is blank too," he said. "There was no smell, no market, no produce. At Val Thorens, you don't see spring."[...]"
Index terms : french restaurant, gastronomy, Jean Sulpice, Alps.
Found with : AFP on Facebook.
URL : http://www.facebook.com/notes/afp-news-agency-agence-france-presse/goodbye-fondue-french-chef-takes-cuisine-to-new-heights/277240708996255
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