The World’s Best Restaurant Now Serves Food According To The Moon
Winner of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in 2019 and a three-Michelin-star holder, Mirazur, which overlooks the Mediterranean on the French Riviera has taken their menu to another world, quite literally.
Since the Mirazur at Menton reopened on 12 June, it has been serving four menus based on flowers, fruit, leaves and roots, all intricately linked to the lunar cycle.
Argentinian owner Mauro Colagreco already uses biodynamic principles following the natural cycles — in the kitchen garden of his restaurant. From now on, he said, he would follow the same principles on the plate too.
Colagreco, the first foreign chef ever to get the maximum three Michelin stars in France, said he decided to make the leap during the coronavirus lockdown as he sought solace in his vegetable patch. “I did not see myself reopening in the same way that I had closed three month earlier,” he said.
He wanted to go further, “not in changing the style of my cooking but in the soul of the restaurant”.
Leaf Days
The chef has said some of his classic dishes, such as salt-crusted beetroot with caviar cream, might have to wait their turn. On “leaf days”, for example, when the moon is rising, the leaves that go with the alpine lamb and algae strudel would be at their best.
“During the lockdown, I worked a lot in the garden. It allowed me to work out all my worries and to really be in contact with the earth,” the 43-year-old said. “I began to question a lot of things — the way we work, the way society is developing and the way we produce and consume. We wanted to shake that equation and to say that the garden was part of the restaurant and the restaurant was part of the garden.”
Farmers traditionally planted and harvested according to the moon, and “the lunar calendar is one of our guides in the garden. A lot of what we do is biodynamic. For example, when we sow spinach we do it on a leaf day (when the moon is rising) because there will be a bigger concentration of energy on that part of the plant.”
Flower Days
Colagreco is convinced his customers will be able to taste the difference.
On a flower day, when the moon is in any of the air signs, shrimps with rose petals, rhubarb and almond milk are likely to tickle the taste buds that little bit more. “We are trying to get a message across about seeing nature in another way and having a more direct contact with it,” he said.
He isn’t forcing biodynamic ideas down anyone’s throat and he didn’t want it to become “a dogma” in his kitchen. “We are introducing the idea with tact,” he insisted.
While Colagreco is of the opinion that it might take some time for Asian and American foodies to return to the Mirazur on the French-Italian border, he saw encouraging signs of a post-lockdown recovery. His Paris restaurant, Grandcoeur, has been doing well since it reopened and “everything points to a strong revival”, he added.
