With his kind eyes, big heart and generous table, Roland Mazère is an endearing personality.

The cuisine of the Périgord region is intrinsically rich and abundant. We live surrounded by noble products - truffles, mushrooms, foie gras, fat ducks and geese that are quickly shipped out from this region. Dealing with a lot of local clientele, he has had to invert the process and make use of these wonderful regional ingredients to create a cuisine that is uniquely his own. "To work with products from here," he says, "you have to move outside of the traditional cuisine that centers especially on duck and goose foie gras, poultry and pork - for centuries the basic products of our land - in order to make them evolve. It means constantly seeking and questioning. The echoes of travel that I bring to my cooking are added in little successive touches, to order to bring out the quintessence of the ingredient, whether it involves a spice or a cooking method."

The quality of the products is essential, of course, but what is particularly important is the alchemy involving amounts and proportions, whether it applies to seasoning or cooking. Roland Mazère's cuisine can be summed up in two words: rightness and simplicity. But making things right and simple isn't as easy as it seems.