How We Began The Chase
The winter nights are dark in the Provençal countryside, up around the Dentelles. Especially near the winter solstice, when we were careening down the two-lane D975 from Vaison-la-Romaine towards Cairanne.
“Mon ami, Cyril, has a new place near here, a little out of the way, but I think it’s worth it,” our friend Jean-François said, adding with a shrug, “Besides there are not so many restaurants open during the Christmas vacances.”
Truffles & The Mistral
Whenever we’re in France, our days and nights are full; we’re always in search of new food and wine experiences. Tonight it was a new restaurant, but the day had started with truffle hunting with another Provençal acquaintance, Joel G. (the truffle trade is very secretive, so no last names please). The morning had been biting cold with the mistral in full force. We bundled up as well as we could as Joel walked us through the oak orchard near Carpentras where he cultivates black truffles.
It takes years to grow the trees, he told us, and years for the truffles to start to form around the roots. Even so, only 30% of the trees will ever produce truffles and those only for five years. After that it’s just a tree.
Out in the frigid orchard, Lisette, the truffle dog, could barely catch the scent of truffles with the mistral winds blowing so fiercely. When she started pawing the ground Joel gently shoved her aside and used a two-pronged tool to unearth a truffle. This happened two, three, four times.
Once we shivered our way back to the shed Joel examined the black nuggets – four, a handful – and put them in my hand. “You keep them,” he had shrugged, “they’re second grade.”
A Restaurant's Quest
By evening the wind had died, leaving the night air merely brisk and we were racing through the dark with Jean-Francois on the way to restaurant Coteaux & Fourchettes, not far from the ancient Roman town of Vaison-la-Romaine, where we had started earlier that day.
We had met Jean-François when he owned one our favorite local restaurants, Le Bataleur, in Vaison. Recently he had sold the restaurant.
“It’s too much, the staffing, these young chefs think they are celebrities or football stars,” he shrugged and whistled like only the French can. Still a restaurateur at heart, Jean-François was now working at Le Grand Pré, a lovely Michelin-one-star restaurant in Roaix, a tiny spit of a town nearby.
“It’s hard work,” he said. “Up early, into Le Grand Pré by 8 am, a bit of a break after lunch service and then back again for dinner service. Most times I get home at 11 pm.” Again the shrug. Wash, rinse, repeat. Day after day. To my ears, this didn’t seem much easier than running his own restaurant.
“And now all we think about is how to get a second star. During the off-season, when Le Grand Pré is closed for two months, the team silonnent l’Europe” – travels around Europe – “visiting two-star restaurants, looking for clues. What are they doing that we’re not? Is their wine cellar better? What is it?”
Like most civilian food lovers I knew something about the Michelin star system, but I had no idea there were teams of restaurateurs scouring the countryside on the same mission, asking the same question, “What do they have that we don’t?”
I could understand the quest, though. In high school I would study the pretty, popular girls with essentially the same question. What did they have that I didn’t and how could I get it? I never solved that dilemma and neither, as it turns out, did Le Grand Pré.
A Restaurant's End
When we began working on Chasing Stars, the book inspired by Jean-François' story, we tried to get in touch with him at Le Grand Pré. But answer came there none. Digging deeper, we found that the restaurant had closed and was for sale. We learned through the Provençal rumour mill (oh, yes, it exists) that a divorce was the cause of the closure.
Perhaps that isn’t surprising. Like many restaurants in rural France, Le Grand Pré was a mom and pop affair. How long would it take for a couple to break under the immense pressure of maintaining the one star and reaching for the elusive second star.
Back on that night at Coteaux & Fourchettes I showed Jean-François the truffles that Lisette had unearthed. “Joel told me that any chef would gladly make me a truffle dish with this,” I said with the barest hint of a nod towards the kitchen. But, as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I had made a faux pas.
Jean-François looked at me and said, with half-closed eyes and a smile, “I believe that Cyril has his menu set for the evening.”
I was embarrassed. “You keep them,” I shrugged, “for your restaurant.”
-Diane
