Restaurant Racine*

Between France and Japan

Seeped in both French and Japanese cultures, what was to become his sensibility gradually became apparent, and his culinary signature took shape in front of the stove. He chose to embark upon an apprenticeship with French chefs established in Japan, then returned to France and joined the team at Gill, in Rouen, and later with Regis Marcon in Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid. Working alongside the grand master of mushrooms and wild herbs, he asserted his passion for natural cooking and a desire to satisfy his customer’s senses. There are no less than 35 aromatic herbs picked directly from his personal garden that enrich his cooking identity with flavour, the identity that he affirmed when he moved to Reims, the land of champagne. And it is not a coincidence that he chose the place of royal coronations to celebrate the sacred pairing of food and wine!  Today, his cuisine plays in the big leagues, a shrewd combination of textures, flavours, and structures… calf sweetbreads, asparagus and morels, eel and turnip, rhubarb, yuzu and salt, white chocolate, queen-of-the-meadow and lime… menus that don’t make grandiose speeches, but say plenty: seemingly simple, an ode to nature, due to meticulous research on the part of the chef!