INTERVIEW
A five-star meal for caregivers this Monday. This is the initiative of the chefs of the restaurants at the Palace Georges. Christian Le Squer, three-star chef of the restaurant "le Cinq", tells Europe 1 behind the scenes of this menu worthy of great tables. "We decided to make the Easter meal for them. For that, we made a six-handed meal," says the chef.
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Three chefs, six hands and five stars
Six hands and five stars in total for an exceptional menu. "It is a five-star menu, especially well balanced, where we worked with short circuits. Our suppliers helped us to set up this menu, offered us these products." As a starter, the caregivers can taste a tomato gazpacho with a burrata and Italian strawberry, made by Italian chef Simone Zanoni from the George restaurant (one star).
For the main course: a spring vegetable "in season", says the chef. "We are still in a season where green vegetables, carrots, turnips are the products to eat".
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The vegetables will be accompanied by a lemon confit of lamb made by the third chef Alan Taudon, chef of the Orangerie (one star) and Christian Le Squer. For dessert, pastry chef Michael Bartocetti imagined a vanilla and rhubarb pie with some strawberries and wild strawberries.
"And besides, since it's Easter, we prepared eggs," smiles the chef. The delicacies have been prepared for a week by the pastry chef. "We take a very high density chocolate, 70%. It is shaped and inside we put caramelized hazelnuts, and at the last moment, we put a fleur de sel. The egg is garnished with a small gourmet frying , long finish with different flavors of chocolate: white chocolate, caramel chocolate ... "
A technical challenge, with a reduced workforce
"The flavors that were put in this package were developed for the hotel, we can find them on the menu of our restaurants," says Christian Le Squer. To prepare meals in the kitchen, minimum staff and social distancing are essential. "There will be three chefs and then the director of human resources, the security department, all the people who are confined to the hotel every day to take care of this staff," said Christian Le Squer.
"They will help us cut the vegetables, garnish the pastry strawberry pie, make the chocolate eggs distributed in the package," he laughs. "We have been putting on their aprons since last night. This morning, we are going to cook everything and we are going to deliver from 11 am."
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A real technical challenge between preparation and delivery, taking into account staggered caregiver schedules. "It's a bit like flying," jokes the Michelin-starred chef. "We took all these criteria: this lamb will be reheated in the microwave ... so we took the microwave into account by saying 'it is better to make candied meat than roast'. On each small tray, there is a small bottle for the gazpacho to be put at the last moment and come to feed the burrata. Everything has been studied so that the meal tray is excellent. We are used to it, a palace serves 24 hours a day. "