In the hushed dining room, the waiter presents me with a silver platter; a dome of prized Guérande salt conceals a mysterious ingredient baked within. Is it a plump sea bass landed that morning, or a juicy steak from a supreme breed? The waiter cuts away the salt crust to reveal neither. Between the silvery grains is a beetroot – fat, purple and sprouting whiskers from its tail.
Had this been any other restaurant, it may have inspired laughter, bafflement, even outrage, but this was Paris’s L’Arpège in 2007. Six years prior, its chef, Alain Passard, had risked his three Michelin stars to put vegetables front and centre of his cuisine. It was an audacious, headline-grabbing move – would the French countenance a menu that considered meat and fish a sidenote? That he has retained his stars since suggests so.
Throughout France, there are regions where the terroir particularly lends itself to veg, which underpins the local cuisine and economy
My meal was followed by a visit to Passard’s potager garden in the Sarthe department, where I had hurried after the quiet and thoughtful culinary genius, my shoes clumped with mud, as he explained his passion for plant-based produce. Passard and his gardener Sylvain Picard extolled the beauty of their glossy tomatoes, chocolate-brown peppers and bushy herbs, while a horse-drawn plough tilled the soil nearby. As ancient as the setting seemed, it felt like something new: a chef who loved and nurtured his veg.
It was a turning point for French cuisine, with vegetables beginning to receive level pegging with meat, fish and dairy. Since then, plant-based fine dining has taken strides the world over, with heroes including Daniel Humm at Eleven Madison Park, New York, and Alexis Gauthier in London driven by a conscious desire to reduce the carbon footprint associated with meat production, promote biodiversity and treat livestock with respect.
Yet France’s love affair with good vegetables pre-dates the climate crisis, and despite it being a nation of meat, fish and dairy lovers, the country has long had chefs who have championed vegetables. Even Paul Bocuse was deeply proud of his potager garden and was dedicated to using the freshest, most flavoursome vegetables in his cuisine.
Throughout France, there are regions where the terroir particularly lends itself to veg, which underpins the local cuisine and economy. In the Luberon, in Provence, it is said that each village or town has its signature product – from melons in Cavaillon, to asparagus in Lauris. It’s in Provence that Hélène Darroze champions vegetables at her one-Michelin-starred Villa La Coste, with dishes such as multicoloured beetroot with Mediterranean mackerel rillettes and fresh liquorice. Near Lille, Florent Ladeyn is a leading voice in ecocentric cuisine, using an ever-changing repertoire of vegetables and flowers grown within 50km (30 miles) of his Michelin-starred and Green Star recognised Auberge du Vert Mont.
Northern Finistère in Brittany has a very strong history as a place where vegetables have flourished. As early as the 1820s, the small harbour town of Roscoff became known for its gentle flavoured pink onions, sold across the English Channel by door-to-door salesmen known as ‘Onion Johnnies’, giving rise to the stereotypical image of a Frenchman in the UK.
These days, Finistère’s chefs harness the flavour of the produce, either thanks to individual producers or via the Prince de Bretagne cooperative. A constellation of Michelin-starred restaurants dotted along the coast makes this remote location a (somewhat secret) gastronomic hot spot where I have enjoyed some of my best meals in France. Among them, set on a hill high over the Côte des Sables, the sandy coast, is La Table de La Butte, where chef Nicolas Conraux won a Michelin and Green star for his ecocentric cuisine. In Saint-Pol-de-Léon there is La Pomme d’Api, where Jérémie Le Calvez is equally passionate about the region’s produce. And at Roscoff’s Brittany Hotel, another one-star restaurant, they champion everything from onions to seaweed. Its chef Loïc Le Bail tells me why the terroir is so special: ‘On our coast, at Roscoff and Saint-Pol-de-Léon, there are still small producers who use seaweed that they collect from the shore as a fertiliser. It gives the vegetables a slight flavour of the sea.’
One of the key areas for growing veg is the Île de Batz, a small, fertile island a ten-minute boat trip from Roscoff. ‘The Gulf Stream effect is important for the Île de Batz, where vegetables always come into season early, more so than on the mainland,’ says Le Bail, whose cuisine leans into the seaweed products of the area and takes influences from Japan (deliberately so – his sous-chef is Japanese). As for every cook working with seasonality, each month brings something new. ‘Among the first few vegetables we have in the year is asparagus – which grows in the sandy soil; after that, it’s artichokes and summer cauliflower. Then there are all the beans: green beans, very small broad beans, peas, broad beans, all the spring vegetables. After that, there are strawberries, raspberries, fruits… We are so spoilt in this region.’
There are other places, too, where the influence of the sea creates a particular terroir. The Île de Noirmoutier, off the west coast, has long been known for its particular variety of primeur potatoes, which gain their unique flavour from the ozone-infused climate and seaweed fertiliser. Beyond potatoes, however, few had thought to harness the flavours of other vegetables grown in the same soil. That was until acclaimed chef Alexandre Couillon, who grew up on the island, returned home in 1999 after working for Michel Guérard at Les Prés d’Eugénie in the Landes, southwest France, among other restaurants, to run his parents’ ailing restaurant and steadily gained notoriety.
In 2023, Couillon’s restaurant La Marine won a third Michelin star with menus that bring together freshly caught fish – landed at the harbour opposite the restaurant at L’Herbaudière – and island-grown produce. His passion is extended, albeit more simply, in the adjoining bistro La Table d’Élise.
Elsewhere, there have been other pioneers recognising plant-based potential in a terroir. The Aubrac Plateau, south of the Massif Central, has always been known for beef and cheese, following centuries of transhumance to the summer meadows. Cowherds recognised that the milk was particularly flavoursome thanks to the flora thriving on the volcanic soil, but no one had thought to bypass the cows’ role and nurture the plants themselves. Enter Michel Bras, whose son Sébastien now runs the family restaurant, Le Suquet, in Laguiole. The restaurant began when Sébastien’s grandmother opened an auberge restaurant – Lou Mazuc – after World War II. His father started to help out when she had health problems and quickly grew to enjoy cooking.
‘My father would have loved to train with the great chefs of the time, like Bocuse, but he wasn’t part of the system,’ Sébastien explains. ‘He came from a rural background and didn’t have the necessary contacts. This frustration led him to develop a very personal style of cooking, because his training wasn’t traditional.’ Sébastien’s grandmother focused on meat and dairy, but his father wanted to showcase the plateau’s plants. By the late 1970s, he was incorporating edible plants and flowers, a revolutionary approach at the time. ‘Customers were a bit confused by this innovative cuisine, but gradually, they began to appreciate it,’ Sébastien says.
Key to the success was the incredible terroir. ‘We’re lucky to have one of the richest floral ecosystems in Europe. Even today, we don’t know the majority of the plants. We realised that many of them, although unusual, are edible and full of flavour, plants such as yarrow or bistort. It was a very interesting project to explore this botanical universe.’
By 1988, the restaurant had two Michelin stars; in the early 90s, having outgrown the original auberge, they moved to a smart new restaurant just outside the town, looking out across the landscape towards the Pyrenees.
The flavours on Le Suquet’s plates go beyond what grows natively on the Aubrac, and Sébastien and his team now combine foraging with the produce grown in his own potager garden, 15km (9 miles) from the restaurant. ‘We quickly expanded it to include plants from all over the world, which added complementary flavours and aromas to what we already grew here, so the plant world at the restaurant grew richer thanks to these outside influences,’ he says. His dish Le Gargouillou changes daily, with some 40 different plants in April, increasing to 80 varieties in the dish by June – each leaf, young vegetable, herb and flower bringing a different texture, flavour and beauty to the plate. ‘We offer it year-round, and it changes almost daily because it’s almost a 100% plant-based dish.’
The restaurant won its third Michelin star in 1999, which Sébastien maintained for ten years before asking, controversially, to be removed from the 2018 guide in order to have true freedom (only to be given two stars against his wishes in 2019). ‘We’ve always prioritised a vibrant cuisine, inspired by nature and the land. We continue to offer plant-based cuisine, rooted in Aubrac, but we stay true to our desire for freedom and independence.’
Today, more and more diners see equal value in vegetables, meat and fish, which is driven by ecological awareness and evolving tastes. There is real momentum
Le Suquet’s menus are heavily based on plants, but fully vegan restaurants are a rarity in rural areas of France. In Paris, however, they are growing. Among the most popular are Le Potager de Charlotte, where brothers David and Adrien Valentin cook with the environment in mind. At Pouliche, in the 10th arrondissement, Amandine Chaignot has one vegan day a week, while at Sauge, her new restaurant in Normandy’s Perche area, she draws on products grown by small, local producers. ‘Veggie Wednesdays’ at Pouliche were introduced to ‘prove that a meal without meat or fish could be just as delicious and satisfying. The gamble paid off: the restaurant is as full as on other days, and our customers, even those who usually eat meat, come back,’ she says.
Does Chaignot think the French have fully embraced la cuisine légumière? ‘In the past, vegetables only played the role of a side dish in French cuisine. A major turning point was Alain Passard’s approach in the 2000s, treating them with as much respect and creativity as a fine piece of meat or fish,’ she says.
‘Today, more and more diners see equal value in vegetables, meat and fish, which is driven by ecological awareness and evolving tastes. There is real momentum,’ says Chaignot, who believes there is still work to be done. ‘It’s up to us chefs to continue showing that vegetables can be indulgent, complex and deeply satisfying.’
