The first vegan restaurant to earn a Michelin star in France
The Michelin Guide has awarded one of its stars to a French vegan restaurant for the first time. The restaurant “Origine Non Animale” (ONA – Non-Animal Origin), is located in Arès, a small Atlantic Coast town about 40 km west of Bordeaux and is the first animal-free restaurant to appear in the Michelin Guide to France since it was created in 1900.
The Michelin Guide has already awarded stars to restaurants in the United States and Germany that have mixed vegetarian and vegan menus. But this is the first time a fully vegan restaurant has received a star.
The restaurant was opened five years ago by self-taught chef Claire Vallée. Ms. Vallée is an archaeologist by training who fell in love with cooking after she took a summer job in Switzerland. She decided to improve her skills over several years of cooking, including one in Thailand, where she discovered the potential of a cuisine focused only on plant-based materials.
The ONA serves a seven-course evening menu priced at 59 euros. Its specialties include dishes with intriguing combinations of fir, boletus mushroom and sake, or dulse seaweed, lemongrass and galangal, a relative of ginger.
The chef said she was overcome with emotion when the Michelin guide’s international director called her to tell her ONA had earned the award. “Cooking with my team is like performing in a theatre. You never really know how it’s being received until the very end,” she said.
Vallée opened the restaurant in 2016 after crowdfunding finances and securing a loan from La Nef, a bank that specialises in lending to projects it considers ethical. When the money ran out to complete the works on the restaurant, Vallée said she rallied 80 volunteers over social media to help finish the job in two months.
“This is a good thing for the vegan community as this star is evidence that French gastronomy is becoming more inclusive. That plant based dishes belong there too,” Vallée said.
ONA was also among 33 restaurants around the country to receive a green star, a new category created by the Michelin Guide last year that rewards restaurants that are “committed to advocating a virtuous, sustainable approach to gastronomy.” Gwendal Poullenec, the international head of the Michelin Guides said inspectors looked for restaurants that work with local producers, grow their own fruit and vegetables or limit the amount of waste produced in the kitchen.
“The general public might not associate pure veganism with a gastronomical experience, a Michelin star might ‘liberate’ chefs who are still unwilling to explore plant-based cooking. But awarding a star to a restaurant that is not just meatless but vegan has the potential to shake things up even further” Mr. Poullenec said.
