Rich with imagination drawn from the Aubrac and their travels across the world, the cooks from Laguiole add to their repertoire a dialogue around grains; bringing an original tone to their cooking of the most essentiel ingredients.
Michel and Sebastien found the inspiration for their newest project in the history of building. Built in 1763 and originally the "Halle aux blés", or granary of Paris, was the premier market place and storage facility for all the grains of Paris. As Arthur Young wrote in his Voyage en France : "In the arena, peas, beans and lentils are sold. In the surrounding divisions there is flour on the benches. One passes by double staircases turning one on the other in spacious apartments to put rye, barley, oats".
The cooks wish to infuse the Halle aux grains with a cuisine in which grains & seeds, from all countries and all families, legumes, cereals, oilseeds, umbellifers, will have their place. Their meticulous work began with an inventory of this rich gustatory heritage. "We welcomed more than fifty elements into our new culinary alphabet: amaranth, azuki, kamut, fava bean, alfalfa, peas of all kinds, fonio, millet, barley, flax, cumin, lupin...", explains Sébastien Bras. "We had to make the grain our own and understand it better. We tasted it, sprouted it, grilled it, puffed it, infused it, fermented it and cooked it in a thousand ways in order to compose this new script. Beyond that, it has led to some very nice encounters with grain growers, artisans and processors," adds Michel Bras.
With a few exceptions such as in a buckwheat and vanilla millefeuille, a flock of 'puffed grains' with Timut pepper, where it is majestically displayed in 4 different forms, the grain does not always have the leading role on the plate. More often than not, it is used to support a vegetable, to liven up a juice, to enrich a stuffing and to be used as a condiment or rather...a Niac. Niacs are essential elements in the vocabulary of the Bras, and are intended to bring that extra touch of intensity that will shake up an aroma, challenge taste buds, and highlight the ingredients in a thousand ways by a stroke of contrast or texture. Thus, a miso of lentils can bewitch a piece of Aubrac beef, a crust of roasted cumin refreshes a stuffed cabbage, while three turns of sprouted seeds will stun a char from the Larzac hillsides.
"Our ambition is to gather the best of our region, the best of the world, and to cook the grains at any time," summarize Michel and Sébastien Bras. "We will choose magnificent French products, sometimes spiced up with nods to the world, in view of the 1889 painted decor that encircles the dome in a tribute to the riches of the five continents. A few territories naturally attract attention. Aubrac, Aveyron and its surroundings put Laguiole, Roquefort and Rocamadour on the map for their cheeses or Aubrac beef, or La Planèze and its golden peas. Brittany and its gwell, milk from Breton cattle, fermented with leaven. "The Île-de-France region will not be forgotten," reassures Sébastien. Another strong commitment: priority to seasonal products, responsible channels, virtuous producers, and respect for biodiversity.
Seduced by the Aubrac region, the two chefs nourish their creations from this territory with its dark and bewitching skies, its infinite plateaus, where vegetation and minerals confront each other in landscapes of rare strength. They have fashioned a cuisine which is focused towards the essential, full of humility, that does not seek to attract the light or to pose, "a cuisine of the body and soul, of common sense, but also a cuisine of freedom that knows how to make room for imperfection, for the chance of the last touch. In short, a living cuisine," say Michel and Sébastien Bras. Another legacy of their Auvergne roots is the use of vegetables, which has been part of their repertoire for a long time, long before the green trend, but without banishing the countless meaty treasures of the Aveyron region. "We wish to inscribe this signature cuisine of the Esprit Bras in Paris, by blending it with the fabulous history of the Halle aux grains.
