L'Orée de la Forêt

L'Orée de la Forêt is a family-run, Michelin-starred restaurant at Château d'Étouy, a property held by the family since 1950 and welcoming guests for over 60 years. He starts cooking in the family kitchen at 21 and, with his parents — the mother front of house and the father tending the garden — helps secure the Michelin star in 1994. The team offers tasting and à la carte menus served for the whole table and positions itself as guardian of family moments while refining its craft. The restaurant occupies a bourgeois country house in a shaded park at the edge of a forest; the atmosphere is intimate, elegant and rooted in family. Cooking is modern, product-driven, simple and purified, described by the chef as at the service of the product and working to the rhythm of the seasons with subtle flavour pairings and intelligent use of spices and aromatics. A 20-are potager, harvested daily by the chef and his father, supplies fresh seasonal vegetables which nourish the kitchen and prompt menus to change with the harvests. Nicolas Leclercq is the chef. Specialties include lobster with celeri remoulade and a lobster roll; pan-seared foie gras with duck; a garden vegetable composition "Comme dans un jardin"; scallops with leek and shiitake; BBQ venison with red cabbage and root vegetables; and a vanilla millefeuille with spiced arlette.