Nancy (54) The chef and his wife, Roxane, settled in La Maison du parc, formerly a Michelin-starred restaurant, in August 2020. They offer a personal and creative cuisine, marked by a locavore and zero-waste approach.
At just 29 years old, Charles Coulombeau impresses with his maturity. At the helm of La Maison dans le parc in Nancy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), the chef, along with his wife Roxane , 32, the restaurant's manager, offers an inventive, refined cuisine, shaped by his experiences and travels. The 2020 Taittinger winner makes no secret of it: “I like to create uncompromising cuisine . It has to convey what I live, what I feel, my mood.”
This approach was developed throughout a career punctuated by Michelin-starred restaurants: during his studies at the Biarritz hotel school, Charles Coulombeau began his culinary journey with Jean Cousseau in Majesq (Landes), then continued with the Ibarboure brothers in Bidart (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) – where he met his wife – before moving on to Michel Guérard in Eugénie-les-Bains (Landes) and Lameloise in Chagny (Saône-et-Loire). The couple then decided to go to England, to Gravetye Manor, for three and a half years: “ This experience taught me a great deal about understanding local produce: we always have preconceived notions about English cuisine, whereas I discovered incredible products there. ”
When their restaurant closed for renovations for four months, they took the opportunity to go to Japan for a two-month contract at a Relais & Châteaux. There, they discovered other products and techniques. “I had to wait until I was back home to fully embrace what I had learned, what I wanted to do. Today, for example, I have my fish delivered live, which I kill using the ikejime method,” which reduces the fish's suffering.
“Be good every day, from the first customer to the last”
It was also during this period that the chef won the Taittinger prize: “This prize certainly helped to get me noticed and triggered our return to France, since we were approached for a project in Charente. This project ultimately never materialized because of Covid .”
Having arrived in Lorraine to take over the former Michelin-starred restaurant of the Mutel family, Charles Coulombeau—committed to a locavore approach—discovered the products of a region he didn't know. It was during the second lockdown, two months after his arrival, that he managed to build his network of suppliers. All of them are featured on his menu (90% organic), as are the members of his team. Twenty-six people now work at La Maison dans le parc, ensuring the rigor and consistency that the chef demands: “You can't just be good one day, you have to be good every day, from the first customer to the last.”
It's also the chef's creativity that leaves a lasting impression. For example, celeriac, offered on the menu in fourteen variations—as dashi, in ravioli, glazed, smoked, charred… —is a testament to my uncompromising approach. It's not a vegetable that customers naturally gravitate towards, but I enjoyed imagining how to use the peel, the leaves, the roots, in a zero-waste approach. I also wanted to implement as many techniques as possible to cook it. This approach also gave him the idea of using the week's vegetable trimmings to donate 50 liters of soup to the Restos du Cœur (a French food bank) every week for the past year.
Could this inventiveness lead him to the Michelin star that many predict ? “It’s an open goal with my staff, because the people in the kitchen work incredibly hard, and it would be a source of pride and satisfaction to be part of something prestigious.” But the chef—a new father since this summer—already has other projects in mind. His next challenge: the Delaveyne Trophy in November 2022.
With kind permission from the Journal de l'Hôtelerrie