“I believe that I am someone who is respectful of nature, of my environment. And inevitably, my cooking reflects it,” declares Olivier Nasti. Perhaps this is why this cook-hunter, as he likes to define himself, was elected best worker in France in 2007 and got two stars for its restaurant located in Kaysersberg, in Alsace.
On his plates, exceptional products. And for good reason, it is not uncommon to taste mushrooms that he has picked himself or game that he has hunted. In this environment, “of course, there are people who make mistakes, there are people who do anything and everything, but it’s full of sensible people, who live in nature, who maintain it, who regulate it, defends the cook-hunter. Not everyone can live with everyone.”
And added: “We have a huge asset. Nature and hunting give you natural products, we know where they come from. Soon, people will no longer eat meat because it only comes from livestock. You have so many advantages in game or in nature that there is no need for arguments.”
If you tell them the flavors are too strong, they will say: “What product is not more intense when it is wild? Our palates are stereotyped on tastes and scents since early youth which are simple, sweet. It’s up to us, the cooks, to try to handle this game as delicately as possible. And that comes from the hunter, from the period, from the seasonality when he is going to harvest this animal. In winter, for example, there are no flowers, there are no shoots, there are no herbs, so the animal will eat the bark. With this food, his flesh changes.”
It is to defend responsible hunting that he organizes, since 2023, a hunting festival which has already brought together a million people.
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