RIMES•
There are countless ways to approach the creation of a dish, but very often our reflexion, although hard-hitting, play against our intuition, distort the purity of our intentions.
We often over think, over touch, over do, and by doing so we completely miss the voice of the ingredient we use, as we are too busy to create a composition that flatters our ego instead of listening what it has to say.
On my path, I’ve been always trying to find the right behavior towards all this alive matter we use, it is not an easy task and I do believe this is an endless process.I’m still in the middle of it right now.
Michel Troisgros helped me a lot in that quest as one day he said to me: “Lionel, trust and listen to the very essence of things, there is a simple rule, nature does things well, it has taken care to marry colors as tastes, if you choose products whose color combine harmoniously, so will taste.”
It’s an ideal way I find to start a menu, I chose botan ebi, beetroot, and Shiso, but also rosé wine, raspberry …
• The Botan ebi
Bought alive, sacrificed before every service.
Scalded, peeled
Brine in a salted Kobudashi at 4% for 15 min, and red Shiso vinegar
Slightly incised in the belly.
• Nagano beetroot tartare
Beets are vacuum-cooked for 2 hours at 85 °C , in a mixture of Kobu dashi, rosé wine, raspberry vinegar
Tartare: mustard seed, mayonnaise base raspberry vinegar, macerated red Shiso, salt, crisp shallot, Shiso flowers
• The broth
Instant shima ebi broth – rosé wine, beetroot cooking water, raspberry vinegar, red Shiso maceration
• On the plate
Olive oil, fleur de sel, black pepper, lemon juice, Shiso flower, ginger juice