SERVICE
Tales of Provence From Paris to Provence, Arnaud Donckele’s multi-Michelin-starred cuisine tells the story of the land that bore its ingredients and the people who cultivated them, in a Proustian quest to evoke memory and emotion. Words: Shanna McGoldrick • Photography: © Richard Haughton
A
s restaurant settings go, it would be difficult
Riviera institution), at the prodigious age of 27, after being
to conjure up a more serene tableau than
recommended by Alain Ducasse. By 2013, the restaurant had
La Vague d’Or. Planted in the heart of the
three Michelin stars, which it has retained ever since. This
chic LVMH-owned hotel Le Cheval Blanc
March, he confirmed his status as a culinary firebrand when
St-Tropez, Chef Arnaud Donckele’s shrine
his second venue Plénitude, a 26-cover restaurant within
to fine dining stretches languorously across
Cheval Blanc’s flagship Paris hotel, scored its own Michelin
a terrace shaded by lofty pine trees, their green needles
star hat-trick barely six months after opening, making him
drifting down onto the white tablecloths whose linen folds
the second chef in 30 years to accomplish such a feat.
puff up gently in the breeze. Waiters weave through the
His connection to the land also remains resolute. At
furniture that extends down to a slip of golden beach and
La Vague d’Or, he is famed for his hands-on method of
beyond it the Mediterranean Sea, shimmering with the same
working with local agriculturalists and growers to champion
magnetic luminescence that has been drawing artists to the
regional produce – an approach that, he says jokingly, he
French Riviera for centuries.
adopted “before it was fashionable”. He might hail from
It seems a long way from Donckele’s childhood
Normandy, but his unwavering commitment to exploring
surroundings in the agricultural heartlands of Normandy,
and experimenting with the district’s ingredients means
where he lived with his family on an entirely self-sufficient
that when he’s in the South he can often be found picking fig
farm in the village of Catenay until the age of 11. “Honestly,
leaves from the restaurant’s offsite vegetable garden, Jardin
my dream would have been to be a farmer,” he says of his
de la Piboule, or stepping off a fishing boat brandishing
early career aspirations. “It was fantastic.”
freshly-caught lobster. “I am an autodidact when it comes
Donckele, alas, was not in his family’s line of succession
to Provence,” he says. The restaurant’s cuisine is just as
for the farm – but agriculture’s loss was gastronomy’s
rooted in this sense of place, notably in the way that it
gain. Today, he is one of France’s most elite chefs, having
elevates local species such as leerfish, which are native to
utilised his early training in self-sufficiency to carve out an
Meditarranean waters, to the level of haute cuisine. “It is a
extraordinary career in the upper echelons of its culinary
true representation of the soul of the people here, and the
sector. He first took the reins at La Vague d’Or in 2004
environment,” he asserts.
(which at the time was part of Résidence de la Pinede, a
As such, dinner at La Vague d’Or might start with crispy,