Born on a farm near Fougères, Bertrand Larcher grew up with fresh produce from his region. In Cancale, where he opened his first Breizh Café in 2005, or in Paris, he never ceased to value them in his cuisine, starting with buckwheat (called "buckwheat" in western Brittany), but also semi-salted butter, chouchenn, sardines, oysters, andouille, buttermilk… and cider, "too often considered a hick's drink"! "Working the raw material" is his watchword. For this, the chef calls on the best oyster farmers, fishermen, market gardeners, breeders or cider makers in Brittany.
Discovering Japan in 1995, he then worked on bringing the two cuisines together through what made them compatible:Japan eats buckwheat (and especially soba, buckwheat noodles), Brittany too; Japan is an archipelago, Brittany a peninsula... He opened the country's first Breton crêperie there in 1996 to "make them eat buckwheat my way, with cider, apple, pork and butter". Today, there are six Breizh Cafés in Japan, and there are countless culinary round trips between the two countries in the kitchen of Bertrand Larcher. A "Japanese-Armorican fusion" that can be found as much in the form (with the Breizh roll for example) as in the mouth (yuzu, ikura, etc.).
By publishing "Breizh Café, 60 recipes around local Breton products"*, Bertrand Larcher opens the doors of his kitchen and gives us the opportunity to impress our guests, from the aperitif (rolled pancake with sardine butter, lemon or andouille , mustard butter) to dessert (crepe tatin flambéed with calvados, brown sugar or chocolate, caramel, ginger crepe amuse), to the "classic" complete egg, ham and cheese galette. For each recipe, Carine, cider sommelier at Comptoir Breizh Café in Saint-Malo, gives the best pairings with apple and pear wines.
*"Breizh Café", by Bertrand Larcher, photographs by Marie Pierre Morel, Editions de la Martinière; 25€.
