For Eric Frechon, not all bread is created equal.
The head chef at Le Bristol Paris has long made his own loaves, rolls and baguettes. But for the last five years he has also ground his own flour, making his bakery unique among the French capital’s top luxury hotels.
A favorite with celebrities including Leonardo DiCaprio, Lady Gaga and David Beckham, Le Bristol employs around 100 cooks. But Frechon had his bread epiphany hundreds of miles from his glass-walled office in the middle of the hotel’s kitchen, where his desk is lined with awards including his 2009 Chef of the Year gong from the industry’s Le Chef magazine.
Related Articles
It was in the hillside village of Cucugnan (population 113) in the South of France that he discovered the work of Roland Feuillas, who grows and mills ancient varieties of wheat to produce what he terms 100 percent natural “living bread,” as opposed to industrial bread made from standardized grain.
You May Also Like
A lover of authentic, local products, Frechon was conquered by the idea of going back to the origins of breadmaking. For this Normandy-born chef, it meant replacing fancy bread rolls with rustic loaves that are served in slices.
“We were radical. From one day to the next, we banned the old bread and we said, ‘This is it,’” he explains. “The notion of quality is different for everyone, so no doubt there are some who will be less demanding than others. I think we probably push it to the extreme.”
Feuillas, the wheat expert, has traveled the world cataloguing different types of grain and believes that, contrary to conventional wisdom, flour should be used immediately instead of being left to rest.
That’s why Frechon had a stone mill installed in the basement of the hotel, where he also makes his own pasta and chocolates and stores a selection of cheeses and fine wines. Despite his many accolades, the chef believes food excellence lies not in fancy techniques but in sourcing the best-quality ingredients.
“Bread is such a simple product that to actually make it something incredibly unique using just flour and water — since those are the only ingredients — we had to source beautiful varieties of wheat,” he says.
Frechon has handpicked seven types of single-variety grains, including khorasan, which is known for its rich, nutty flavor and excellent nutritional properties. The resulting sourdough bread is served exclusively at the hotel’s three Michelin-star Epicure restaurant.
“It’s unlike any other wheat. This one gives us a lot of trouble,” he says. “You have to tame it and each day is a little different, and that’s what makes it difficult for the baker to deliver regular, excellent bread every day. That’s where their expertise and intuition come in and where they truly excel.”
Matthieu Favier, head baker at Le Bristol, says he had to unlearn old habits. “Nobody works with fresh flour like this,” he explains during a tour of the facility. “You have to think of it like coffee: between ground coffee and freshly ground beans, you won’t get the same aroma and nutritional qualities.”
The dough needs more time to rise. “The kneading is slow and short. The fermentation time is quite long and afterward, there’s no shaping,” he says. “It’s a different approach, but it’s much nobler to work in this way.”
As an added benefit, the resulting bread is said to be easier to digest. “Rather than rejecting gluten, I think it’s much wiser to return to a more natural approach,” Favier argues.
He admits he wasn’t immediately convinced about the need to overhaul the hotel’s bakery. “I had a hard time understanding what the chef was trying to achieve,” he says. But a trip to Cucugnan, where Feuillas runs workshops, made him a convert too. “All the pieces of the puzzle came together.”
Today the Bristol gets through around 220 pounds of wheat daily, by Frechon’s estimates. The hotel sells its bread and pasta alongside a range of gourmet foods at its in-house grocery, L’Épicerie des Ateliers du Bristol, which is open from Wednesday to Sunday.
Frechon, who next year will celebrate 25 years in the job, would love to add a charcuterie workshop next, but space is limited in the historic building.
One thing’s for sure: the Bristol’s “living bread” is here to stay. “Once you’ve tasted it, there’s no going back,” Favier says.