Cooking seaweed with Hugo Roellinger

As a free man, Hugo Roellinger has always cherished the sea. Lulled throughout his childhood by stories of sailors, adventurers and perfumes from elsewhere, he grew up with the taste of waves on his lips and the open sea as his line of sight. ‘horizon. He could have devoted himself to board sports like kitesurfing or foiling, he who never misses an opportunity to put on his wetsuit to take to the water between two services. He first opted for the merchant navy. “When you wake up every morning with the sea as far as the eye can see, it’s hard not to want to see what’s beyond. I needed to leave, to face the storms. » But the months spent on the waves also lend themselves to introspection. “I had the time to ask myself questions and appreciate the urgency of protecting the oceans and biodiversity. »

What better way than cooking? Returning from a mission, while running with his father to catch a train at Montparnasse station, he outright announces his decision to abandon the merchant navy for cooking. He is 24 years old. The age that Olivier Roellinger was when he decided to open, self-taught, a restaurant within the family Malouinière. The latter recounts the shock caused by Hugo’s announcement and the silent journey that followed. “It took me two weeks to get over it. For his mother, Jane, it took two years! »

At the time, the three-star chef had already closed his gourmet restaurant. The teams moved into Château Richeux, an imposing 1920s residence which houses a chic brasserie: Le Coquillage**. Hugo Roellinger will train with Michel Bras, Pierre Gagnaire, Michel Troisgros and Michel Guérard before returning to anchor in Cancale. “They gave me the basics, but I didn’t stay long because I wanted to find my own way in cooking, not reproduce that of others. » He will naturally find his way between winds and tides, armor and argoat. His decision, five years ago, to stop working with meat allows him to assert a guideline, “an iodine line”. No more chicken broth as a culinary base, replaced by seaweed broth.

What fascinates me about seaweed is this primitive taste that traps the flavor and memory of the sea.

“I make a cold infusion of seaweed for 48 hours in very precise proportions. The one I call my “marine water” is the base of my vinaigrettes, my broths, a support for all my dishes. This provides fluidity without the stickiness of chicken broth. However, the notion of liquid is essential in my cooking. I am guided by an idea of ​​light, limpidity, transparency. »

The tasting menu served at the Coquillage table offers a luminous stroll, poetic at times, hair-raising at others.
If lobster, spider crab, fenouillette, the scent of maritime pines, buckwheat or spices (so dear to Olivier Roellinger and today brought from all over the world by his daughter Mathilde) come to the table, this are the algae that make up the fabric of its cuisine. “They have been used in my family for thirty years. And for good reason, our supplier, the seaweed farmer Jean-François Arbona, was at school with my father! What fascinates me about seaweed, in addition to their incredible nutritional richness and their low impact on the environment, is this very primitive taste which gives the impression of having imprisoned the flavor and memory of the sea…”

This flavor of the abyss, he wanted to refine it, sublimate it, by installing an astonishing aging cellar: an algotheque, where the wakame, dulse, royal kombu or sea lettuce, harvested by Jean-François, mature a year minimum, between 15 and 40% humidity, time to lose this fishy taste and gain softness and roundness.

“We are also experimenting with scallops,” smiles the chef as he takes out a jar filled with dried walnuts which already show a 2017 vintage! A technique well known in Japan. The other cellar that is worth the detour at Maisons de Bricourt is the one that houses 900 references of wines that respect the earth and people. Sommelier Gaylord Goulette is responsible for composing the pairings to best accompany this lively cuisine that flaps like a sail in the wind. He recommends beautiful Chablis, pretty Sancerre, sparkling Aligoté. His current favorites? La Joue, VDF, Chenin, by Julien Delrieu, lively, tense, nervous, which gives pep to the delicate scallops. Grittermatte 2016, a Riesling from Julien Meyer whose acidity highlights the full and sluggishness of iodized dishes. Or even Les Crêts 2018 by Michel Gahier, a very typical Chardonnay d’Arbois, with a saline and sunny finish, which goes perfectly with marine dishes sprinkled from elsewhere. Elsewhere, the enchanted parenthesis, is precisely the feeling that persists in the mouth after a meal “according to the wind and the moon” with Marine and Hugo Roellinger, now at the helm of Le Coquillage. Don’t be surprised if you stay quiet and don’t talk much during the meal. It’s not a spell. It’s a journey, a crossing that we can make in silence, even alone, as it is true that this abysmal and luminous cuisine takes us on a journey to better reconnect with ourselves, anchor us on earth and in the moment. .

Le Coquillage** at Château Richeux, Le Buot,
35350 Saint-Méloir-des-Ondes.

roellinger-bricourt.com/fr