Rhythms of nature
Simple ingredients can become extraordinary dishes when you develop a connection with nature, writes
“OH wowww!” I couldn’t help exclaiming as my eyes fix on an image of an undulating landscape of green pastures and trees in southcentral France. The verdant plateaus of the Aubrac region extend as far as the eye can see to the horizon, with the only visible building being a tiny traditional shepherd’s hut.
It’s the kind of location where I’d be motivated to wake up at sunrise, collect fresh eggs from the chickens, make ovenbaked
pastries, pick up some cheese from a local artisan and tend to a pretty little edible garden.
“That’s our place,” remarks Sebastien Bras, smiling with pride, as he shows me a photo of this idyllic French countryside on his phone from across our table in sunny Langkawi. He’s not referring to the hut but to the area where he was born, raised and which has been a source of inspiration for the Bras family who earned gourmet recognition worldwide for their flagship restaurant, Le Suquet.
It’s in the middle of practically nowhere but despite the remoteness of Laguiole (there are just three inhabitants per square kilometre), Le Suquet isn’t short of patrons at all, partly perhaps because it earned and held three Michelin stars for 19 years. Despite famously requesting to be removed from the guide in 2017, Le Suquet is back in the 2019 guide, to the Bras family’s surprise, albeit with two stars this time.
In its praise, the current edition of the Michelin guide remarks: “Aubrac is the very DNA of this contemporary restaurant, where Sebastien Bras is now at the helm. The chef offers up a fitting celebration of produce and the seasons: you can almost hear the earth singing as you tuck into certain dishes.”
Casually attired, save for the aprons that offer a hint to their vocation, Sebastien and his father Michel, highly revered duo in the culinary world, take a moment out from their afternoon to chat with me at one of the restaurants at The Datai Langkawi, Kedah, with help from an interpreter.
Both father and son are renowned for crafting intuitive and refined cuisine where nature is their defining influence. They have maintained a philosophy whereby “Aubrac is the source of inspiration and nature, the source of creation.”
Inspired by their natural surroundings and the region’s agricultural bounties, the Bras family always endeavours to create locally-sourced dishes, preserve the natural world and conserve precious traditions. These commitments are also in line with those of The Datai Langkawi, which recently hosted the two chefs.
Their presence in the kitchens of The Dining Room at the resort has stirred up excitement and whet the appetite of guests, who have been anticipating their speciallycrafted dinner menu themed Rhythms of Nature.
Michel and Sebastien’s eight-course cocktail dinner event kicks off the Signature Chef series which has been re-introduced at The Datai as part of the resort’s reopening last December, leading us to expect further gourmet experiences from other illustrious chefs in the coming year.
For the Bras duo, it’s their umpteenth visit to Asia and their fourth sojourn to Langkawi where this time they’ve discovered a type of heart of palm and ginger flower which they’ll be using to enhance a couple of recipes for the fine-dining event the following evening.
Their nature-embracing ethos has me wondering if we’ll just be dining on gourmet-style roots, shoots and leaves.
The younger Bras soon clears up that misconception, elaborating: “Vegetables and legumes have a strong presence. They’re important in what we do but we’re not a vegetarian restaurant and neither are we vegetarians. Our region is all about agriculture so we have so much produce to use from the land.”
Keen to emphasise that their approach is definitely not a concept, 47-year-old