Our story — Gentle Gourmet

1995

Brocfontaine was my husband's family home, and in 1995 we decided to make it our permanent home. Almost immediately, I began creating an extensive vegetable garden and orchard, planting hundreds of varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs and edible flowers. What began as a personal passion soon became something much larger. The garden attracted the attention of local television and national magazines, and it profoundly shaped the way I came to think about food: through seasonality, diversity, flavor, beauty and a close relationship with the living world.

At the same time, I ran a bed and breakfast and table d'hôte at the Domaine. Over the years, guests from more than forty-four countries came to stay and dine with us. Cooking for people from so many different backgrounds taught me something essential: food is one of the most immediate ways to create connection, generosity and curiosity around a table.

A painting of the Domaine de Brocfontaine, seen from above — The Domaine de Brocfontaine, our family home in Normandy.

The Brocfontaine kitchen garden and orchard in the valley, beans and lavender — The gardens at Brocfontaine in the early years.

Blue cabbages and red flowers in the kitchen garden

The orchard, a grass path beneath the apple trees

A bedroom in the Maison du Noyer, red bedspreads — A bedroom in the Maison du Noyer, the Walnut House.

A room under the eaves, a net above the bed

The B&B breakfast table, red cloth and a bouquet — Breakfast at the B&B, 2000-2007.

A bouquet of sunflowers and amaranth against the timber frame

The summer living room, armchairs and a large window — A sunny place to read in the summer living room.

2007

From Normandy to Paris.

In 2007, I decided to return to Paris and, together with my daughter and son, devote myself to creating a genuine vegan presence in the French capital. At that time, veganism had almost no visible culinary presence in Paris, and there was virtually no developed idea of a specifically vegan French gastronomy.

I knew French cuisine well and loved its extraordinary regional traditions, its techniques, its sauces, pastries, textures, rituals and sense of occasion. I did not want veganism to mean stepping outside that cultural heritage. I wanted to demonstrate that its essence could be preserved and reimagined entirely through plants.

The Paris B&B's sitting room, the breakfast table in the foreground

The B&B, 2007-2011.

Hot chocolate in a gold-rimmed cup — The B&B, 2007-2011.

In the kitchen, plating green dishes by candlelight — 2009-2011

A watermelon carved “Paris Vegan Day” with an Eiffel Tower — 2009-2011

“Un Nouvel An Vegan!” poster, a gala cruise on the Seine, with the Eiffel Tower lit up — New Year's gala cruise, 2011.

In the kitchen, in a Gentle Gourmet apron

A portrait in Paris, by a window looking out on the buildings

2012-2019

Paris' first vegan restaurant, caterer and culinary institute.

Outside the Gentle Gourmet restaurant in Paris — Outside the restaurant, in Paris.

The Gentle Gourmet restaurant terrace in Paris — The restaurant terrace.

The restaurant kitchen, plates being finished — The kitchen.

Gastronomy in its own right

The question was never simply, “How do we make a vegan version of this dish?” It was: what makes this dish profoundly French in the first place?

Many techniques had to be tested, adapted and sometimes reinvented from the ground up: how to create structure without eggs, richness without dairy, depth without animal products, and above all how to ensure that the result was not merely “good for vegan food,” but simply excellent food.

In our restaurant, people opened a menu filled with beautiful dishes inspired by French regional cuisine, fine gastronomy and pâtisserie, and discovered that nothing about the experience felt deprived. Some were astonished. On more than one occasion, people cried.

A person could be vegan and still be a gastronome.
A pastry chef could work without eggs, butter or cream and remain a pastry chef.
A French table could be completely plant-based and still feel unmistakably French.

A plated dish with a pansy at its centre

“Les Tagliatelles”, asparagus and flowers

“Le Glacé”, a green soup with a flowered toast

“Le Gastronomique”, vegetables and flowers

“Le Choco cacahuètes”, a chocolate dessert

The Christmas dinner menu, 24 December 2016

“5 ans, merci pour votre amour” poster, with macarons

The restaurant dining room, a table laid

Opening a path

Making the idea imaginable.

Until then, veganism in France existed only as a disparate and very marginal presence whose image was negative and counter-productive. The people who created Gentle Gourmet and the Paris Vegan Day festival set in motion a prominent vegan movement in France that, for the first time, represented the art de vivre so dear to the French and to lovers of France around the world, by getting veg-friendly people who had been totally anonymous and inactive to get involved. Gentle Gourmet also helped break through one particularly important barrier: the assumption that becoming vegan meant renouncing French food culture, gastronomy and pleasure. Other people began creating their own restaurants, food businesses and blogs; some told us that seeing what we were doing had given them the courage to begin.

That is the attitude I hope to pass on to my students: not simply a collection of recipes, but the confidence to question established culinary conventions, to understand technique deeply enough to reinvent it, and to look at an ingredient and imagine possibilities that are not written in a textbook.

Mini burgers on a slate — A great burger.

Egg-free macarons being assembled — Macarons.

2016

Back to Brocfontaine.

Then, in 2016, the story began to circle back to Brocfontaine. During the filming of an ARTE documentary that featured my work, we decided to revive the large vegetable garden at the Domaine and use its produce for a weekly farm-to-table experience. It felt like a natural reunion of two parts of my life that had never really been separate: the garden and the kitchen. From there, we began offering summer classes at the Domaine.

“Fresh from the garden” flyer: every Wednesday lunchtime, the dish of the day made with the harvest from the Domaine's kitchen garden

A summer class in the green-and-red tiled kitchen — 2016

The kitchen garden in the mist, poppies and phacelia

A class around the long table, ARTE footage

Two people in chef's jackets presenting their plates

2020 · today

In 2020, we returned home permanently.

Brocfontaine is not a new chapter added to the end of the story. It is the place where that story began.

Food can be more beautiful, more imaginative, more generous and more compassionate than we have been taught to expect. Gentle Gourmet exists to help prove it.

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