It might look like magic, but one Canberra chef is lifting the lid on French cooking – with a cookbook to prove it. Photo: Pew Pew Studio.
France might be the world’s haute cuisine mecca, its techniques seemingly available only to the chosen few, but one Canberra chef is about to reveal the big secret.
“French cuisine might seem like magic, but once you know the trick, you realise anyone can do it,” Clement Chauvin says.
Chauvin has set out to show his customers and food-lovers at large the accessibility of French cuisine with the release of his debut cookbook Bistronomies.
The owner of two quintessentially French restaurants – Canberra’s Les Bistronomes and Brisbane’s Montrachet – says his customers and suppliers are his greatest source of inspiration.
“My customers and students in my cooking classes are always asking, ‘How do you make this dish? I wish I had the recipe’,” he says.
“With the opening of Montrachet, I figure there’s no better time to have my recipes in black, white and standardised, to ensure my staff have something to follow to the letter. And why not share that with the world?”
Somewhat controversially, Chauvin will publish his recipes verbatim, so readers can recreate exact dishes served at Les Bistronomes and Montrachet from the past decade.
This includes classics such as beef Wellington, chateaubriand and duck a l’orange, signature dishes such as Chauvin’s mushroom cappuccino and all the magic elixirs frequently used to elevate French cuisine. Some are quite personal.
“In the index are all the basic recipes, including dressings and sauces like my aioli. That dressing is literally my mum’s recipe,” Chauvin says.
The book is billed as a bridge between the kitchens of Les Bistronomes and Montrachet and those in his customers’ homes.
“A good bechamel might seem impossibly creamy and smooth. Then you learn when to add the flour to the butter, how to whisk the milk over a low heat to produce this silky sauce. Once you start to see the secrets, even a soufflé is not that complicated,” Chauvin says.
“That’s the point of the book, it’s very much for home cooks and professionals alike.”
In Bistronomies, Chauvin hands over the apron, so you can bring the bistro experience home. Photo: Pew Pew Studio.
But Bistronomies is not only a cookbook; it’s a love letter to Chauvin’s customers and suppliers across the two regions supporting his restaurants.
In the past decade, Chauvin has made strong connections with suppliers and farmers, particularly in the Canberra region.
“Without them and my staff, my restaurants would not be what they are, simple,” he says.
“I have a very close friendship with Christoph from French Flare, an importer of French gastronomical wine.
“Another Christoph and Josephine run a wonderful truffle farm in Bungendore. I get excellent free-range duck from Tathra Place in Goulburn. In Brisbane, there’s a mushroom farm called Urban Valley where they grow beautiful mushrooms in a warehouse, and Stockyard produces the most amazing 200-day grain-fed GMO-free beef.
“So many incredible producers make my work possible and I want to shine the spotlight on them.”
Les Bistronomes has achieved something of an institutional status among food lovers in Canberra. During COVID, the restaurant’s dinner packages allowed people to create the fine dining experience at home with minimal effort and they’ve been asking for an encore since.
That’s probably not in the cards for the moment, but Chauvin says Bistronomies is the next best thing.
“If I have done my job right, it gives you the ability to create the magic of Les Bistronomes in the comfort of your own home – and you and your loved ones will be the only customers you need to please,” he says.
Bistronomies is now available for preorder.
