Team Lunch out at Le Farçon

La Tania is lucky enough to be home to TV star chef Julien Machet’s very own Michelin starred restaurant, Le Farçon. He serves delicate, creative and delicious food in our favourite mountain setting. Snow Retreat’s directors Phil and Andrea treated this year’s Snow Retreat Dream Team to a chance to experience Le Farçon this January.

At lunchtime there is a reasonably priced menu with several courses for 38 euros (not including wine) that features fresh and local ingredients presented immaculately. Here are a few of the team’s thoughts on our meal …

Grace – Host, Chalet Leman 1

A unique experience with perfect time intervals between courses to allow you to truly savour each dish and also ensure that after the 3 hours, all the Petit courses leave you feeling perfectly full and satisfied.

Ash – Host, Chalet Leman 2

I really enjoyed it, especially the egg starter. It wasn’t like anything I have ever eaten before, but super tasty.

Gav – Chef, Chalet Bonne Etoile

La Farçon delivered with its usual high quality but unobtrusive service. The food used a good selection of local and traditional French ingredients delivered in some novel ways ie snail lollipops. Slow cooked egg with leek cream and lobster was good, however, for me the egg yolk was not soft/runny enough to complete the flavour of the dish. The main delivered a good combination of flavours with the highlight being the cheese cream potato. I must point out that as a committed carnivore, it is strange for me to focus on the potato and not the meat! However, the braised pork did set this side up perfectly. The dessert of Apple mousse was superb, light and flavourful.
In all an excellent culinary experience that is well within the range if an average budget. Trying to find this standard of service and quality of food for a similar price in the UK would be impossible…

The Veggie perspective of Le Farçon

Rach – Chef, Chalet Petit Coeur

It’s a well known fact that chefs (some, not all!) hate vegetarians. However, I feel at this day and age those chefs that do need to move with the times and accept that not everyone wants to eat animals. As a vegetarian myself and working as a chalet chef, I love having fellow vegetarians/vegans stay as it means I can be creative and cook
something I would love to eat myself. Our lunch at Le Farçon was a special treat organised by our bosses. My experience at Le Farçon last year wasn’t great as a vegetarian. It seemed things were thrown together last minute and I had to wait longer for my courses. This year we told them our dietary requirements in advance so we could all share the same dining experience.

We started with a selection of amuse-bouche; herb and garlic snails, polenta crisps and Savoie cheese sticks. Amuse-bouche literally means ‘something to please the mouth’, and they did! The latter two were delicious and a good introduction of what was to come. The first course was turnip, vanilla and black pepper. The combination of flavours worked well together and looked beautiful on the plate. The second course was poached egg on a bed of leeks surrounded by a white wine mousse and croutons. The local white wine complimented the flavours and it all tasted sublime. This was definitely my favourite course as it had a variety of different textures and flavours. The salty croutons added a lovely crunch as did the leeks against the soft egg and mousse.

I must say I was slightly disappointed with the main course. I had cheesey mashed potato topped with black truffle shavings. Although it tasted great, I think there is somuch more you can do for vegetarian dishes with the ingredients that are available. I think what I was served lacked creativity and finesse. The pork main looked more interesting on the plate and was more interactive. Despite this, the dessert was incredible. A mini apple crumble topped with apple mousse, vanilla ice cream and orange. This was followed by mini meringue hazelnut creams, pastry twirls and specially designed Le Farçon hay flavoured chocolates.