The precise address will only be known to customers who book. And there are already more than a hundred gourmets who have booked a place at Claire Vallée’s new table d’hôtes. First vegan chef in the world to be starred in the Michelin Guide in 2021 with her restaurant Ona (Non-animal origin), in Arès, on the Arcachon basin, the great chef continues her magnificent journey with the opening of Ona Esprit 1904 until the end of summer. A Belle Époque-inspired plant-based restaurant in the village of Hostens, in South Gironde.
After the end of the Ona adventure in Arès in 2022, Claire Vallée continued culinary trips (Polynesia, Mexico) and high-end experiences with the Ruinart champagne house, the Balenciaga brand and the Paul-Bocuse Institute in South Korea. His first table d’hôtes opened last summer in a Parisian apartment and was sold out for three months.
Return to Gironde. Behind the small iron gate opens an intimate garden where Claire Vallée welcomes her guests in 1900s attire. The lace reveals her tattoos. We are invited to wash our hands with a toilet bowl, to refresh ourselves with water filtered by us. Customers take their seats in the garden furniture or inside, in the dining room of a plush villa built in 1904 where the chef has set down her suitcases.
The portraits of the villa owners’ ancestors were taken out of the attic to complete the Belle Époque atmosphere.
Laurent Theillet/SO
Marble fireplaces, parquet floors, moldings, woodwork, the residence has survived the decades without denying its past. In the large hall, an authentic gramophone found in the attic plays period music while crackling a little. On the walls, portraits of ancestors watch over the maximum 12 guests seated around a large table. White tablecloth, silverware and china, the decor is set.
Escoffier with vegetable sauce
Leader of revolutionary and gourmet plant-based cuisine, Claire Vallée had to “get out of her comfort zone” to reinterpret dishes from the beginning of the 20th century.e century. “A time when a gourmet meal without meat was not possible,” recalls the chef. But the 45-year-old self-taught cook, adept at fermentation and long preparations, has more than one trick up her sleeve. “I pored over the books of Auguste Escoffier. I was inspired by everything he wrote, right down to the titles of the dishes presented, such as the green-meadow Consommé. But I revisited everything in my own way and everything in plants. »
Laurent Theillet/SO
Right down to the lace blouse, Claire Vallée plays the 1900 card to the fullest.
To represent the piece of meat, Claire Vallée performs a beef Wellington using the Indonesian tempeh technique. “Instead of fermenting soy, I use the technique with mushrooms, a cream of parsley, wrapped in a slice of bread, and I roast like that. I bring a fairly intense and animal flavor thanks to my misos and all my techniques. I swear, it works! » she smiled.
Laurent Theillet/SO
The 1930s gramophone found in the house’s attic works perfectly.
Escoffier blancmange, vegetable cheese desserts with aspic, floating island… The menu has seven sequences “with sequences within sequences”. “I make gestures for dressage. There are powders to pour, broths, things that I scrape off, things that the guests have to do themselves. It’s an experience,” invites you to discover Claire Vallée who is alone in the kitchen, with sake sommelier Audrey Bergounioux and two waiters in the dining room, also in 1900s outfits.
Single Belle Époque menu: 155 euros (without wines). Reservations on clairevallee.com.
His new project in a mill: “My life’s work”
An archaeologist by training, Claire Vallée abandoned the Achaemenid empire to make her passion, cooking, her profession. She had her vocation very young, raised in Nancy in a family of “bon vivants where we cooked”. Self-taught, she took the plant-based approach during a year-long stay in Thailand where she explored a cuisine that inspires her. Committed, but not fundamentalist, Claire Vallée campaigns for a different diet, as economical in resources as it is tasty. “In the future, we will be led to plant-based our diet, like our ancestors in the past who did not eat as much meat as today,” she advocates.
Today, the chef has just positioned herself to acquire an abandoned mill in South Gironde. She is looking for investors to follow her in this innovative project which will combine tables and guest rooms, food production in agroforestry and permaculture, energy autonomy, bio-climatic and vernacular renovation.
The project will include a research laboratory on the food of tomorrow, a conference room and even a coworking space. “It’s my life’s work,” summarizes Claire Vallée.
