Gastronomy by the Seine, which took place in Paris earlier this month and brought together 300 chefs and suppliers from Europe and the US, yielded only one constant theme in my notebook: heavy rain.
Other than that it was highly diverse. It opened with a small cocktail party in an elegant office on the Left Bank, where the waitress was the organiser's 10-year-old daughter, but most of the time it was conducted on two bustling, slippery barges with a constant stream of professional waiters in attendance. Even Michel Cloes, its softly-spoken organiser and the man behind similar conferences that have been held in San Francisco and New York and who has others planned for Beijing later this year and Mumbai in 2010, described himself as a 'hybrid'.
Cloes's background is certainly diverse. Born in the Congo, he grew up and studied law in Belgium before moving to the US, where he met his Malay/Chinese wife, and practised international law. A long drawn out case over the disputed ownership of a hotel brought the family back to Paris, where he set up an association of international lawyers so that they could all network more effectively.
As he grew increasingly drawn to the world of chefs and restaurateurs, he realised that no such networking association existed for them and so he changed career. 'This used to be the office for my law practice', he said, looking around at the bar in the corner with its bottles of malt whisky and cigar humidor as relics from that former career, 'but one day I threw out all my law books and replaced them with food and wine books'.
Cloes, 50, has now created two companies. One (see www.gastronomyfestivals.com) brings the chefs and those who want to connect with them together while another, Chef Culinary Network, (www.ccn-world.com), allows him to continue to practise his contractual expertise, by putting together commercial deals between established chefs, hotels and developers as well as representing young, up-and-coming chefs. Amongst his current stable is Guillaume Gomez, the young executive chef at the Élysée Palace, who the following afternoon explained to me the two new constraints of his job: a French President who does not drink wine at all and an official diktat that working lunches must last no longer than 50 minutes.
The combination of the festival plus the opportunity to network will, Cloes hopes, recreate an atmosphere similar to the salons in which artists used to exhibit a century ago in Paris. 'The chefs have to perform in front of an audience not just of their peers but also of young aspiring chefs and commercial companies who want to be involved because their success will depend on how well integrated their products can be. My aim is really to encourage them all to be more entrepreneurial.'
The first barge looked initially similar to a conference hall. One third was given over to suppliers such as The Duke of Berkshire pork, from pigs raised somewhat surprisingly in Belgium; the Paris-based Le Palais des Thés; and Irish beef (which proved hugely popular with the audience); while the rest was a demonstration kitchen. But in at least two ways this was no ordinary conference hall.
The first, and perhaps this was because we were in France, was that there was no shortage of food for the audience to sample. In other exhibitions the chef invariably produces just one dish while those watching just get hungrier, but not here. And the suppliers too were far more closely and effectively involved in what the chefs were cooking.
So at 10.30 am waiters were handing round trays of chocolate lipstick as Dominique Persoone (www.thechocolateline.be) displayed his interpretation of 'la dame blanche', the classic Belgian dessert of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. In this version, diners apply the lipstick and then eat the ice cream through chocolate-coated lips. Sang Hoon Degeimbre (pictured) from L'Air du Temps restaurant in Brussels incorporated Leffe beer into his intricate chicken dish while Jean-Paul Jeunet, from the Jura in south-east France, used Irish beef to produce a terrine and then his version of beef with morel mushrooms and shallots.
But it was the snail caviar which Jacques Pourcel from Le Jardin des Sens in Montpellier used to finish off his dish of courgette flowers, yoghurt and summer fruits which came as the biggest surprise to the audience and had everyone heading to the large stand occupied by its sole producer, De Viridi, (www.deviridi.com)
Here a conversation with Dominique Pierru, its general manager, introduced me to this new luxury product which sells for 1,200 euros a kilo to chefs principally within France, where for legal reasons it has to be called 'les perles nacrés', and whose production can only be described as a labour of love. He explained that during their lives snails produce only four grams of eggs and roared with laughter when I then asked him how many snails there were on the farm at Soissons, northern France, 'I don't have a precise figure but somewhere between 150 and 160 million, I would guess.' The eggs are white, 3-4 mm in diameter and in their freshness and taste are remarkably similar to the caviar from the endangered sturgeon. A few snail eggs served on a fresh sage leaf was an excellent appetiser.
Lunch on the second barge was a striking example of the connectivity Cloes is looking to foster as Gilles Verot, the eminent charcutier from Paris, and Damian Sansonetti from Bar Boulud in Manhattan presided over tables laden with Bayonne ham, saucisson Lyonnais, rillettes and terrines interspersed with bowls of salad. Sansonetti explained that Verot had been the conduit for his boss, Daniel Boulud, to source the very different meats in the US that had finally allowed them to produce charcuterie that would equal France's best.
As I left, Cloes was walking between the tables, shaking hands and, I thought, looking every inch the father of the bride.
PARTICIPATING CHEFS AND THEIR RESTAURANTS
Sang Hoon Degeimbre, www.airdutemps.be
Jean-Paul Jeunet, www.jeanpauljeunet.com
Jacques Pourcel, www.jardindessens.com
Gilles Verot, charcutier, www.verot-charcuterie.fr
Bar Boulud, www.barboulud.com
