"A chef's know-how must serve others' emotions, not technicalities." Among the ingredients of Christophe Moret's new signature venture are empathy with the customer and a solid team. Fancy flights of fancy? None to be found.
Cover photo: Laurent Rodriguez
The chef
The new adventure of French celebrity chef Christophe Moret began a few months ago. After a brief foray in September 2023 at Bernard Pacaud's l'Ambroisie in the Ville Lumière - which he left only two months later, without any official reason - he now orchestrates the kitchen at Le Domaine Les Crayères in Reims, in the heart of Champagne. Moret boasts a highly successful career that began alongside the biggest names in transalpine gastronomy.
"I had the good fortune to work with three extraordinary chefs: Bruno Cirino, Jacques Maximin and, of course, Alain Ducasse. At the Grand Hotel in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, Bruno Cirino would go to the market every day in the Spanish Basque Country and bring back live fish. Sometimes, we had a sea bass swimming among the lobsters in the restaurant's tank," he told Four Magazine some time ago. In his years alongside chef Jacques Maximin - at Château Eza - Moret learned the importance of organization and of being part of a brigade of twenty-five effectively, but it was with Alain Ducasse - at Louis XV, which had just won its third Michelin star in 1990 - that he made the real breakthrough and began his long friendship with the French master.
During that long time, he became immersed in a world in which precision, technique, and perfection of movement in the kitchen ruled the day. Numerous and diverse were, then, the subsequent experiences where, however, Moret never lost sight of the founding values of his gastronomic philosophy; values that he likes to encapsulate in four simple words: products, producers, seasonality and purity. Vegetables are the "Circe sorceress" that drew the Orléans-born chef into the fascinating, yet complicated, world of cooking. He was just a child, when he looked enchanted at the vegetables his grandparents harvested from the garden, and even today precisely vegetables remain the hallmark of each of his creations, where travels and lived experiences also find their place. Similarly, tradition and technique are also cornerstones for Chef Moret, but without ever getting in the way of research and experimentation.
Christophe's versatile and enthusiastic nature - as well as his undeniable and innate talent - make his cuisine constantly evolving and eager to expand its boundaries with one ultimate goal: to excite the diner. "History teaches us that our cuisine has always been about hybridization, so why be tempted to freeze it, to focus on technical excess rather than the pursuit of emotion? Having fun and renewing does not mean distorting ourselves. On the contrary, being bold requires knowing your products well and being open to others," he confided to Food&Sens. And again, "A chef's know-how must serve the emotionality of others, not technicalities." The chef makes no secret of his preference for traditional methods over ultra-technological cooking; he remains a fan of table service - see the shellfish casserole, sporated live - and of the partnership between brigade and dining room to foster team bonding. Ban, then, the flights of fancy. In desserts at most 3 ingredients with genuine flavors, no sci-fi desserts: "I want you to know what you are tasting from the first spoonful."
Precisely with this in mind and always remaining true to its identity, Moret now delights diners at Le Domaine Les Crayères with haute cuisine at Le Parc restaurant - two Michelin stars - and a more informal, but still refined and inspired by local products, at Brasserie Le Jardin. Le Parc's menu can't miss its famous Chawanmushi, a testament to its love of Asian flavors, as well as its foie gras and mushroom puff pastry; while at the brasserie you'll find its fresh ceviche, as well as its pork chops and turbot, all rigorously seasoned with passion, love and team spirit: hallmarks of every Moret signature experience.
