Unreserved
I waited a few days before writing these few lines. I needed to take a step back to find the right words, the ones that could truly express all the sensations I experienced following my visit to chef Jérôme Banctel’s Le Gabriel restaurant at the Parisian version of the La Réserve hotel. This lunch was quite simply a succession of sensory joys, gustatory pleasures, gourmet surprises, unprecedented pairings, languorous or fiery cooking, indescribable sauces, always with the desire to highlight certain products in order to make them more noble.
Native Brittany
In a hushed atmosphere conducive to secret encounters, where people speak in hushed tones, the restaurant Le Gabriel nestles out of sight. Jérôme Banctel is not one to relish the limelight. Modest, even shy, he has a reserved way with words and a moderate vibrato.
A former disciple of the great Bernard Pacaud and Alain Senderens, he prefers the sound of bubbling pots in his kitchen to that of clinking glasses. Far from enjoying the exercise of going out into the dining room, he discreetly plays a brilliant gastronomic score in homage to his childhood, his native Brittany, and the cooking techniques and products he is particularly fond of. With his Virée Iodée menu, Jérôme Banctel conveys his love of life in an avalanche of sensory emotions in mouthfuls as original as they are delicious. He takes us back to his childhood in Brittany, “where memories of working the land and the omnipresent iodine still shape my relationship with gastronomy”, he says.
Multiple cooking
Throughout this series of elegant creations, he redraws a notion of luxury that runs counter to the image of a palace. Mackerel is thus elevated to the same rank as sole, bottarga to the same level as caviar, to return to culinary fundamentals where gustatory humility is at the center of tastes and flavors. This is the strength of Jérôme Banctel and his brigade: to give back to the product its letters of nobility through multiple cooking methods. Fermentation, extraction, maturation, marinating or lime cooking… a festival of techniques discreetly placed at the service of the product. A masterful start with the carrot des sables, cooked with lime, candied, glazed and filled with a ginger-scented carrot purée as it comes out of the oven to restore its beauty.
It’s hard not to succumb to one of the house classics, artichoke heart (also cooked with lime) escorted by Sakura cherry blossom vinegar, artichoke purée, artichoke crunch and a devilish “barigoule” mousse… when Brittany meets Japan by way of Provence. The blue lobster is smoked with Bichotan cedar charcoal, combined with pumpkin seed praline and butternut marbles.
Cooked in the dining room on steaming pebbles, the mackerel is disconcertingly soft, topped with a sea urchin sauce, concentrated bottarga and accompanied by a few samphire on top of potatoes. An intense moment when a rolled head of pork, shellfish and seaweed cream makes its appearance. Left is the land, right is the sea. A phenomenal, astonishing, disarming dish that leaves you speechless. Difficult to put into words…
Iodine Always
Without wishing to denigrate the rest of the menu, which has only gone from strength to strength, it’s time to put away the cutlery and come to your senses. Jérôme Banctel is an immense chef, an outstanding technician, a defender of denigrated foods, a protector of cooking, a master of sauces (each more beautiful than the last), a discreet and humble character who deserves to be lifted into a radiant light in the image of his talent. At Le Gabriel, iodine is the new umami!
