Saint-Nom-la-Breteche (France) (AFP)

Veal tortelli with oyster mushrooms: picked in the morning, the mushrooms that grew in recycled coffee grounds are served at lunch in a palace in Paris. A plate "that takes the power ten," says the Italian chef Simone Zanoni.

Like many other Parisian restaurants, George of the George V hotel (a Michelin star) sends some 100 kg of coffee grounds a week to La Boîte à Champignons, a start-up specializing in urban agriculture located in Saint-Nom- La Breteche, near Paris.

"We reconstitute a tree trunk from the waste of the city" by mixing the coffee grounds with crates, explains to AFP Arnaud Ulrich, co-founder of the company.

The bags filled with substrate are suspended in a laboratory where the temperature of 16 ° C is maintained, that of "undergrowth in autumn".

"During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries market gardeners collected the horse dung, brought it to the farm and cultivated the famous mushrooms of Paris and this sector was broken little by little.We want to recreate it and allow the organic matter rather than to be cremated to return to the land, "says Arnaud Ulrich.

With a lower moisture content than an industrial substrate, it provides a more crunchy mushroom that does not release water and remains firm when cooked, a quality appreciated by starred chefs who come to stock. The Mushroom Box also sells kits to individuals to grow oyster mushrooms at home.

For the chefs, The Mushroom Box is tailor-made: the top of the bunch to decorate the plate or mushroom very calibrated the size of a 2-euro coin, says Arnaud Ulrich.

- Vegetable garden in Versailles -

"These oyster mushrooms grow in a controlled environment, we do not even need to wash them, do not add water, it's very important", to keep the crunchy side, explains Simone Zanoni.

The restaurant pays 1,000 euros a month to recycle its coffee grounds and receives mushrooms for free. "It's the same thing (buying them in the market), but we do things differently," he says.

Once in the kitchens with his supply of fresh oyster mushrooms, the chef keeps the big ones to make the stuffing by mixing them with braised veal and grabs the young ones in olive oil to decorate the tortelli made from the dough where he adds coffee. The dish is sprinkled with coffee, used as a spice.

A way to be in continuity and "make sense of the plate".

"When you explain that to the customer, the plate takes the power 10, there is a real motivation, a real interest," he says.

"We are trying to create plates like this, in the air of the times, this is the story that people want to hear and we like to tell it," he continues, assuring that the "eco-friendly" ingredient is now essential. for a recipe from a large table.

The Lombard chef also serves the oyster mushrooms in a mix of vegetables that come from the kitchen garden of the restaurant in Versailles.

Multicolored tomatoes, purple beans, yellow beets, micro-cucumbers and herbs: started a year ago, the garden now covers 80% of George's vegetable needs.

"These are the products that dictate what we have on the plate," says Simone Zanoni, son of farmers, who sends his cooks to pick vegetables at Versailles believing that they will have another relationship to the product.

"It's not easy to be ecoresponsible in the extra luxury, but as soon as you do it, the customers join," says the chef, who also offers filtered water in beautiful multicolored carafes.

The restaurant currently sells only 4-5 bottles of water a day for customers who claim it against 200 before, he says.

"We can not prevent people from coming to the restaurant because we pollute but we can think about finding smart solutions," he concludes.

© 2019 AFP