Proudly presenting the Discovery Award winners - part two: France, Switzerland and Singapore
The We’re Smart® Green Guide recognises the efforts of new, newly discovered or re-opened restaurants. In countries where we have at least three newcomers with three radishes or more, The Discovery of the Year award is presented at the annual show. This month we introduce Auberge Sauvage, Osteria del Centro and Jaan.
Also read here about the discoveries in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
“If you love being in the nature, like I do, you need to cherish it.”
Chef Thomas Benady of Auberge Sauvage in France #53
In Servon, in a former 16th-century presbytery in the heart of a photogenic country village, chef Thomas Banady started farm-to-table restaurant Auberge Sauvage. Its cuisine is highly seasonal, and rooted in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, with a strong vegetable and seafood focus. It celebrates the terroir and all great producers of this part of Normandy.
Paris born and bred Benady started his career in La Machine à Coude in Boulogne-Billancourt and Orties in Paris. “I have always been obsessed with nature. Paris was a great place to work, but it is far away from nature and terroir, so I simply had to leave. I was already working with some amazing pig and beef producers from this part of Normandy, so I naturally gravitated to this area. There was room for a restaurant with my style of fine dining. Here we can listen, cook, cultivate and share the richness of the terroir”
Working with flavours typical for Mont Saint Michel
“If you love being in the nature, like I do, you need to cherish it.” Auberge Sauvage offers a menu which changes weekly if not daily. “I cook with the seasons and local produce. I really don’t understand chefs that work differently. This land and the sea offer the most amazing flavours and products. Of course, great oysters and mussels, but more importantly the most interesting herbs and plants here. We forage salicornia, obione, sea beet and maritime asters. Flavours and textures you can find nowhere else. I started working with local products for ecological reasons, but it gives me so much more, it enables me to create the most unique flavours. These plants force me to think and give it all I can. I make a glace à la flouve (sweet vernal grass, rich in coumarin and reminiscent of fresh hay, vanilla and honey when dried), which tastes faintly of coconut. Or we do apples infused with verjus made from angelica. This gives a tropical sweetness.
“We are now coming out of the winter, and we had to rely on animal products, since the fresh spring harvest was not yet here. To be honest, I more and more enjoy the spring and summer, working with all types of Pure Plant. Our amuse bouches are a fresh consommé and fermented and pickled vegetables. Right now, it is fresh young fennel with woodruff. I adore woodruff, its aromas remind me of the moment just after the rain on a warm summers’ day. That freshness.
Most French chefs cannot cook vegetables
“Here in France most people don’t know how to prepare vegetables in a delicious manner. Whilst it takes a lot of skill and attention to cook vegetables deliciously, traditional guides look down on it. It is important that We’re Smart gives a ‘high-end’ award to restaurants that are pushing Pure Plant to the center of the stage. This makes us role models for a new world.”
Auberge Sauvage, 3 Place Saint Martin, 50170 Servon, France
“Working on a farm transformed my view on fine dining”
Chef Piero Roncoroni of Osteria del Centro in (Switserland) #62
Osteria del Centro is in Comano, in the Ticino region. It is a tiny village close to Lugano. Piero Roncoroni was born in the region but left at a very young age to train for years in top kitchens in England and Spain. He finally settled back home and openend Osteria del Centro in 2021. “My character as a chef was crafted in the UK, Xavier Pellicer (Spain) really lighted my fire for local pure plant fine dining.”
From the stars to the farm
Roncoroni started culinary school at the tender age of 14. “My first real job was at Whatley Manor in Malesbury in England. I arrived fresh out of my three years cooking apprenticeship and spoke no English. My time at Whatley Manor – a very nice hotel- was the best time and the hardest time. It taught me to be precise and work long days. I saw everything: breakfast, lunch, bar, room service and restaurant. I stayed and made myself -and my dreams- stronger. The Swiss military service was an opportunity to work with people who were not trained to be a chef and feed large groups of people. All in military style, so no fine dining.”
Roncoroni stopped in San Sebastián for a couple of years at Akelarre, one of his best experiences too. Then to ABaC Barcelona as chef de partie. He realized something was missing and went from the stars to the farm, a month at the farm of the Hans Family. “This is still my second family; I go there regularly to get a reboot. The farm changed how I was seeing my world”.
“I wanted to work for Xavier Pellicer (untouchable), because he is a top chef that actually cooks. He loves to be in the kitchen and loves to eat. He showed me that a top restaurant does not need to be like the one in the UK, not so stressful. Xavier feels the products, he respects them and you can taste this in the dishes.”
A sorbet in a salad
Now we work the way we believe in. We are only open in the evening. So, we -my partner Mercedes is the maître d’- are able to have a private life too.” Roncoroni’s cooking reputation is closely tied to vegetables, precision, and a creative tasting-menu format rather than à la carte dining. “Our menu evolves every day, it all depends on the products we receive. Right now, I serve a salad with all the nice greens that come from nature. The base is cabbage which cooked for 1.5 days, raw shredded cabbage, olive oil, salt and a mustard sorbet. A great dish that lets me improvise with nature. And lets our clients taste how much love and attention we pour into it.
Osteria del Centro, Via Cantonale 50, 6949 Comano Switzerland
Growing up in Devon, vegetables were central to our menu
Chef Kirk Westaway – Jaan by Kirk Westaway #78
Westaway has not been back in Exeter for a long time, but still remembers how his Mum either picked them fresh from their gardens or got them from local farms. In an interview with the Peak, Westaway explains how he blends nostalgia, elegance, and global experience in Singapore.
JAAN by Kirk Westaway – on the 70th floor overlooking Singapore- proves that modern British cuisine can be both vegetable driven and quietly revolutionary. Devon born Westaway draws on childhood memories and the landscapes of southwest England to “reinvent British” classics, turning familiar flavours into delicate, produce led compositions that feel entirely at home in Asia’s tropics.
One emblematic dish, English Garden, assembles more than thirty individually prepared vegetables, herbs and flowers into a vivid landscape on the plate, showing how plants can outshine traditional luxury ingredients. Working with a mix of greenhouse harvests, carefully sourced regional produce and pristine seafood, the chef builds menus that can be fully omnivore or 100% pure plant, always with the same obsession: to honour the ingredient, cook in tune with the seasons, and create an experience where comfort, emotion and sustainability quietly go hand in hand.
Jaan, Level 70, Swissôtel The Stamford, 2 Stamford Road, 17882 Singapore
