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| Source: MICHELIN Guide California |
A Vegan restaurant in the small southwestern village of Arès, near Bordeaux, France is now the first animal-free restaurant seen in the Michelin Guide France since it was built in 1900.
It’s a recent activity in France where chefs are trying to shift diet from meat-based to vegan as French diets are very meat-based. The Michelin Guide has already been granting stars to restaurants in the United States and Germany that have been proposing mixed non-vegetarian and vegetarian menus.
But this is the first time in France that a fully vegan restaurant has received a star in France. It is among 54 restaurants to receive its first star in the 2021 update. It is opened by a self-taught chef who was a former archaeologist, Claire Vallée.
The restaurant is called ONA, which stands for Origine Non-Animale means animal-free origins. ONA is located near the Arcachon basin, a seaside hotel in southwest France.
ONA is now the first vegan restaurant to gain a star in France. ONA proposes a seven-course menu priced at 59 euros. Dishes on a seven-dish foodie menu at the eatery include combinations of ingredients such as fir-tree, boletus mushroom and sake, tonka, and amber ale.
Its specialities comprise a yellow zucchini ravioli with black truffle gnocchi and a Swiss chard ballotine with vegetable ricotta.
Most French vegetarians always say that it’s not easy resisting meat in France, the land of culinary savoir-faire but now the condition is changing eventually.
Since 2018, vegetarian choices can be found across the country and now even schools have been legally needed to offer vegetarian options at least one day per week.
Journey Done by Vallée for a Vegan Restaurant
ONA was also awarded a green star which Michelin launched rewarding last year for excellence in ethical practices. While talking to the media Vallée, owner of the ONA, expressed her happiness and told that it was one of the best moments of her life and she is extremely proud of her team.
Vallée said that she rallied 80 volunteers over social media to help finish the job over two months when the money ran out to finish the work of the association.
Vallée started her business in 2016 with a loan from a green bank, Le Nef, and a successful crowdfunding campaign. She even faced objections from many restaurants.
Vallée told that traditional banks had said that her opinion of veganism and plant-based food is too risky and the location chosen for the restaurant in the Arcachon basin on the Atlantic coast is also not promising enough for earning.
Vallée acknowledges that she always wondered during all these processes whether they are good enough as cooking vegetarian food is challenging and requires innovation.
But she enjoyed her journey and admits that nothing is impossible if tried in the full heart. She feels that her attempt to show that people can eat differently and still can enjoy that is now on the way.
After this Michelin has even come under criticism for operating its annual awards during the Covid-19 pandemic when most restaurants are shut down.
Other restaurants and cafes complained that they were forced to close shops in the spring when the governments imposed a strict nationwide lockdown in a pandemic.
After a short summer reopening restaurants, cafes, and bars they have shuttered again in November led to having immense psychological or economic pressure on chefs and restaurants to retain their rating.
Gwendal Poullenec, the international head of the Michelin Guides, said that the concept of vegetarian food is not entirely new. But rewarding a star to a restaurant that is not just meatless but fully vowed for a vegan is unique.
An attempt at activities like vegetarian food and the uprising voice for animal rights have been met with some opposition in France where animal-based foods are still a prominent element of the country’s culinary identity.
Eating Meat Has Now Become Controversial in France?
Vegan and animal rights activists are making the French reanalyze their behaviour towards eating meat. The brutal treatment of animals in some parts of the country has made drawing in the eyes of many activists from time to time.
But at the same point, it's a mandatory notice that the animal-products industry is producing 26 billion euros in annual revenue and hiring thousands of people across the country.
An important item of the French diet is that they must have meat meals at the table. This eventually led to their consumption of meat production on an industrial scale.
But Vegetarians and vegans may resist eating meat because of concerns about the ethics of eating meat and the effects of meat production on the environment, or the nutritional effects of consumption.
Therefore, nowadays chefs are trying to have a menu that delivers both vegetarian and non-vegetarian so that customers have enough choices to make.
Written By - Supriya Singh
Edited by - Christeena George
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