Les Poissonchats

Cooking Nostalgia
at the Chateau

Each retreat is themed around local and seasonal ingredients and culinary traditions, traditions that are slowly fading in the eye of modern world hustle and bustle, and that I have made my quest to preserve, celebrate and share, firmly believing that not everything old should be thrown into the dustbin of history.

Days usually start with a French breakfast in the medieval chateau cuisine, followed by a deep dive into preparing a “heritage” dish, wild boar terrine in autumn for example, or boozed blackberry jam in high summer. We prepare lunch together, discovering the simplicity of French country cooking. During the full cooking nostalgia experiences, afternoons are spent visiting local wine growers or shopping for antiques. We also visit the local farmer’s market and hunt for seasonal ingredients. Of course we never miss apéro before easing into dinner preparations.

The Vibe

Sharing food traditions through my culinary retreats, I aim at making your stay a truly wonderful experience, first and foremost. If you improve your cooking skills while here, tant mieux (all the better)! My approach to cooking always is joyful and playful. We’re making an art de vivre here, mind, no competition of pros with tweezers in a lab kitchen. We learn our food with all our senses, also, if you’re entirely of the eating and drinking kind, enjoying the result rather than the process, of course you are most warmly welcome here too.

Philosophy

L’Art de Bien Manger starts with the produce, the love put into growing and tending to the ingredients, the care put into sourcing, the lien between human, work, soil and harvest, resulting in a deliciously sustainable local and seasonal cuisine. L’Art de Bien Manger, this is an ode to the good, true and beautiful, not in its immediate superficial light (though a pretty dress really is of importance), but in a much deeper sense as the expression of how we appreciate ourselves in treating our environment.

It’s setting a beautiful table, lovingly selecting the best linen and porcelain, flowers, glowing in the soft and charming light of candles. It’s animated discussions, tales whispered over the fireplace, laughter in the garden. It’s finding our own beauty to mirror the beauty of what surrounds us.

L’Art de Bien Manger, this isn’t a goal but the way to take you there, the quintessence in the alchemy of cooking. And this is what we nurture during my retreats. There is cooking, lots of it, and wine, and champagne. French dishes and dishes from where I come from and new breeds. There’s food history and the history of feasting, there’s splendid tables and starry dishes. But most of all, there are stories, intervals of our lives shared, a touch of the soul. That’s the Art.