The Marc Meneau Style

Marc Meneau's cuisine has been copied and recopied around the world, a tribute to the fact that he has been a part of the evolution of French cooking, bringing very old recipes into line with today's tastes. And with supreme faith, this unapologetic searcher has played a role in the evolution of his customers' taste as well. 

Like a film director, Marc Meneau creates culinary tableaux, both in the design of his plates and in the way he combines flavors and textures, pairing rustic ingredients with luxury products. 

To understand his cooking, you first have to know the person: a son of the harsh Burgundian landscape and an aristocratic literary background, rooted both in his native soil and in the works of the great French food writers like Édouard Nignon, Brillat-Savarin and Joseph Favre. His cooking is both straightforward and refined. Each dish is a meeting: turnips with sardine and caviar, beet with foie gras and scallops, to give just two examples. His sensual daring dishes put the spotlight on an association between several products while preserving the essential flavor of each. He never superimposes flavors in a way that would mask the taste and aroma of any one of the individual ingredients. "If it's veal, it should taste like veal and the milk on which it was fed: slightly curdled and sharp. I want to rediscover the primary flavor of the product I'm working with. I would never put five or six flavors in one dish. I work with one basic flavor and a maximum of two others that will enhance it. This cooking technique comes from my own personal taste and palate. I make what I like to eat. If I want kidney, I want it on its own: grilled, with nothing except a nice garnish and a good jus that will highlight its flavor. It should be as straightforward as possible."

For Marc Meneau, cooking is synonymous with passion, culture and skill in practice, three essentials for becoming a cook. Next comes the choice of, and respect for, products, which self-knowledge can elevate to excellence, creativity and even distinction. Wanting to cook for others is a love story. In fact, it was above all to please a young woman, the daughter of Burgundian restaurant owners, that he devoted himself heart and soul to cooking! Over time, the challenge becomes a pleasure and his greatest delight today is to gather friends and customers with very different tastes around a table at L'Espérance and to see a little glimmer of wonder in their eyes. 

"To master the cooking of today, I turned to the past." For Marc Meneau, learning to cook came from books. Accompanied by his wife, he spent his first holidays and all his spare time at the library of the Cuisiniers de Paris, copying out authentic recipes and tips from the great culinary masters of the past. Even today, Marc Meneau draws his ideas from books, joyfully blending styles from baroque to post-modern. He likes to compose plates presenting variations on a theme, such as his four steps around a potato. 

The third essential in cuisine is a mastery of techniques, products and cooking methods. With help and advice from the masters, Marc Meneau has gradually refined his skills, honed his judgment, improved his sauces. Never satisfied, he continues his quest for excellence. "You can't put a price on freshness," he says. To showcase his culinary talent, nothing is more important than the choice of good products. "I would like to congratulate every producer who turns his love and skill to respecting the product and making it grow. Whether it's meat, fish or vegetables, we can see today the passion of producers that has brought about a definite improvement. We in the kitchen should pay tribute to these products by cooking them with respect. French cooking has never been as good. " 

For Marc Meneau, cooking is a source of creativity and authentic recipes. He likes to modernize amazing dishes from the past, bringing them into line with today's tastes. "Learning about oneself helps distinguish one from others and to become a great chef." You first have to know yourself perfectly in order to create and to become a culinary artist.

Culinary inventions: his favorite dishes

• Oysters in Sea Water Aspic 
• Foie Gras "Cromesquis"
• Eggs Florentine
• Salt-Crusted Turbot with Lobster Butter
• Veal Rump with Bitter Caramel
• Strawberries Marie- Antoinette

He will surprise you with his "tureen of shellfish with caviar," and "open-faced scallop sandwich with caviar." Then there's the "all-coconut dessert" of which even the gods of Olympus are jealous!