Restaurant
When a chef has fun, the taste buds of his guests are delighted. And the eyes are sometimes surprised. Henri Gagneux's cuisine is creative, spontaneous, playful but always of perfect quality. Meeting with a chef who knows how to translate his values into the plates.
Latest edition : 26 April 2020
Henri Gagneux is surprise and creativity on the plate. He is one of those chefs who have long since passed the “gastronomically correct” stage to manage to surprise his guests every time.
He claims this “freedom in rigor and respect for the basics. This allows you to make a cooking of pleasure, fun too, colorful, with particular flavors that surprise! " An example ? “Raspberry monkfish with roasted watermelon or plaice toast with lime blossom honey. “But what from the outside looks like a game in the kitchen, in reality requires hard work. This quest for gustatory pleasure also requires quality products, and respect for these products.
Values that Henri Gagneux, of Savoyard origin, knows only too well. “My grandparents and my parents had a butcher shop, they had cows in the mountains. So the taste of real products, I know it! It is therefore not by chance that he joined the slow food movement. “Slow food is a way to make people realize that they have a choice in their diet. It's not a cult or a fad. Nor is it a question of outbidding organic products, but quite simply of knowing the people who produce”. “The kitchen is always on the move with the appearance of new products such as lemon caviar which looks like a large pickle with seeds like pearls of caviar. With the internet, people are more and more informed, but also misinformed. Suddenly they have sudden desires, there is no more history, no more putting into perspective. But we cannot constantly accelerate, we have to slow down”. Slow down, take the time to savor. This is also slow food.
The time to savor, we gladly take it in the large room bathed in soft orange lights. A magnificent chandelier raises the eyes to the impressive wooden ceiling.
Before settling in Alsace, Henri Gagneux, after the hotel school in Thonon-les-Bains, completed his training in several starred restaurants, in Courchevel, Bourget-du-Lac, in Geneva. After several years in Neuf-Brisach, he decided to settle down and take over the former Père Floranc restaurant in Wettolsheim. It's not easy to have to start all over again, to win back new customers.
With his wife Sylvia, who officiates in the dining room, he has created a welcoming inn which also opens its doors to artists.
A tireless chef, always with the same concern for pleasing his guests, Henri Gagneux regularly invites them to themed evenings: food and beer pairings with small mousses from small Alsatian breweries; seafood evenings; culinary demonstrations… One event is particularly close to his heart, the “long table of the Divines”, with the wines offered by the women winegrowers. “The pleasures of the table are shared, but I find that people prefer to be alone. That's a shame ! So that evening, we set up a large table for a more convivial dinner. You have to create links and I believe that getting people to meet around a good table is also part of my job! »
For the Divines menu, the chef does not choose the wines according to his dishes. " It's the contrary ! I taste the wine and imagine what I might do. It's so exciting to work this way! »
Indefatigable, Henri Gagneux also makes jams. There too, the surprise is in order. Let's skip the classics to discover vegetable jams.
“Potato jam can be worked like a torch with chestnuts. With goat cheese, I suggest a pepper-fennel jam. And taste the carrot jam flavored with star anise with foie gras! advises the chef with a mischievous smile. But it's time to sit down. Cupcake and ricotta cream, prawns with jasmine vinegar and small fennel purée as an appetizer will awaken the taste buds! The following ? Surprise!
Hotel-Restaurant La Palette
9 Rue Herzog, 68 920 Wettolsheim
Tel. 03 89 80 79 14.
Closed Sunday evening, Monday and Tuesday noon.