A passion for terroir and amazing sauces
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FRENCH Michelin three-star chef Yannick Alleno is preparing to open his first restaurant in Shanghai and second in China.
Stay is his first, opening in Shangri-La Hotel Beijing three years ago, and his Shanghai eatery will use the same name.
Known as the “Prince of the Palaces” due to his good looks, Alleno says he still can’t guarantee when Stay will open.
“I’m just waiting for the final confirmation of the location. I don’t know why but the fact is most of the Chinese coming to my restaurant in Paris are from Shanghai,” he told Shanghai Daily recently.
The 46-year-old Parisian, who is in town for a gala dinner at Park Hyatt Shanghai, says the new restaurant will be similar to Beijing’s Stay, which is positioned between bistro and fine dining.
His connection with China goes back 12 years, when he was invited to Beijing to cook dinner at the French embassy.
“The political relationship between China and France was tense at that time and the French government had stopped exporting agricultural products to China so I had no choice but to source produce from the local market,” he said. “Surprisingly, the fish from Dalian, Chinese foie gras and caviar were all very impressive.”
At the roots
His terroir philosophy and passion for great sauces are what drive his recipes.
“The idea of terroir comes from my desire to explore who I am. I realized that as a person staying in a big city (Paris) we forgot that we have terroir,” Alleno said. “For me expressing terroir is about expressing a type of fashion, a gastronomy trend.”
Terroir, literally meaning sense of place, refers to a series of elements such as the climate, geography and soil that gives agricultural produce its flavors.
His interest in terroir has led him to work with a journalist to dig up the agricultural history of Paris.
“Before World War II, there were plenty of gardens in Paris producing more than 160 ingredients. But now there are only 40,” he said.
Alleno is proud to have revived 80 different types of produce that were nearly extinct. He beams when speaking of argenteuil, a white asparagus distinct to a small town outside Paris, because it brings back memories of his youth. The chef says it tastes like “childhood.”
As for expressing Shanghai’s terroir at Stay, Alleno isn’t sure he will be able to, saying pollution means local produce is not “complete.”
“For example it’s hard to find wild fish here so I have to import it from Japan,” he said.
If terroir is the noun of any dish then the sauce is undoubtedly the verb, according to Alleno.
“A sauce is an aromatic liquid that makes a marriage between the elements on the plate,” he said. “Without sauce, there’s no story in the dish.”
Known for being creative with sauces, the chef says that can only come with a deep understanding of the history of French sauces.
The art of using sauce in France goes back to 1850 and peaked in 1900, a period known as “cuisine classique” in France.
Initially French sauces combined all ingredients — meat, vegetables and alcohol — together before filtrating and reducing. Chefs then made variations by adding different ingredients such as cream.
The rise of nouvelle cuisine in the 1970s brought big changes to French cooking, especially sauces, Alleno says.
Nouvelle cuisine features a gentler approach with shorter cooking times and more steaming to create fresh and delicate flavors.
“Now I am trying to pull sauce back!” the chef said.
He eschews the classique technique of mixing everything together and cooks ingredients separately at different heats for maximum precision.
He also refuses traditional heat reduction in favor of sub-zero frozen reduction. During the freezing process, water content separates itself from the liquid by rising to the top.
“Fire is so aggressive that it will destroy the taste of food,” he said.
Most importantly, he ferments vegetables — an idea inspired by his interest in wine.
He says he was curious because if fermentation gives grapes new flavors, why not vegetables?
“When you taste a wine, the beauty comes from its balance between acidity, salinity, minerality and upper level bitterness,” Alleno said.
Sweet and sour is easy to achieve in food but salinity and bitterness are more difficult.
Brittany scallops, his signature dish, are a prime example of how he uses terroir and sauce together. The scallops contribute minerality while his celeriac sauce and caviar add a hint of saltiness while spinach contributes a subtle bitterness.
A sour beginning
Alleno says he has wanted to be a chef since he was 8 years old.
“I was born in Puteaux (the western suburbs of Paris) and grew up in my parent’s bistro,” he said.
His father asked celebrity chef Gabriel Biscay, a loyal bistro customer, to find Alleno, then 10, an apprentice so he wouldn’t stray into bad habits.
“Biscay picked a very touch chef to train me,” Alleno said. “I cried every single day. But you only cry for what you love.”
He attributes this early start to his later success as the youngest Michelin three-star chef in history, accomplishing that by the age of 39.
Now his culinary journey continues in Shanghai. Stay tuned.
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