Auberge de la Grenouillère

Alexandre Gauthier, a young chef of 28 years, has already had a long professional career. His training in some of the finest houses has catapulted him to recognition; all the guides consider him to be one of the emerging powers in French cuisine. However, it’s not terribly risky to venture a guess that the best is still yet to come. Gauthier is a frontrunner who knows how to set a steady pace in his conquest of lofty goals. Quiet and ambitious, he has it clear in his mind that he must grow, but grow while maturing, with both feet planted firmly on the ground. His career is a gradual evolution that undoubtedly will reach a triumphant peak. For now, he has already garnered a wide, adoring public with his cuisine thanks to dishes that are prepared for and assimilable by all tastes, expressing elegance and balance. Refinement, wisdom, technique, complexity, colors… savoir-faire. Proposals that are sustained in the nobility of the products, receiving individual treatment, demonstrating a sensitivity in the articulations that produces very convincing results – a cuisine that knows what it holds in its hands, admirable in its effectiveness and vocation.
The orange and olive salad with oil foam and small bread sticks denotes freshness, life, confidence, nature, lightness… boasting basic flavors in new ways. The bowl of cockles and sea bass with sea water, seaweed, spinach, chervil and basil brings together marine and country landscapes with a splash of splendor. The monkfish with abalone, broad beans, basil, garlic chips and juices from the fish whipped with olive oil is finished with a neatness, simplicity and polish that is truly praiseworthy. The beef sweetbreads, sublime in quality, very lightly cooked in milk with a precise doneness, served with lemon juice, lemon jelly and lemon with caramel constitutes a delicious, audacious act – comprehendible in its daring. The consummate Lecques blue squab is served with baby asparagus and a marvelous crispy pasta that accentuates its flavor.
The delightful modernity that young Alexandre demonstrates in all his work has two exceptions, which he inherited from his father: the frog legs with garlic and parsley and the crêpe Suzette; traditional elements that he modernizes with knowledge without losing a shred of the identity that characterizes the house.
The desserts deserve their due merits as well, especially the raspberries with sweet pepper, sablé and spicy pepper – a diplomatic provocation that expresses sweet, acidic and spicy touches. Don’t miss the “Rouge fraise/fraise rouge” either, a playful construction of strawberries with strawberry marmalade that is well finished.
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