À Table

As the head chef of Cyrano & Roxane in Sopot, I entered the yellow guide in 2016. With a note of 11.5/20, I think it was a nice surprise. It’s some kind of recognition for all the staff in the kitchen.

Well, may be I should write a word or two about the yellow guide.

We call it the yellow guide. Like we call the Michelin guide the red guide. It’s the Gault & Millau. A very influential french restaurant guide created in 1965 by 2 french critics. They give points – maximum is 20 – based on the quality of food, they also comment on everything else, but the actual notation is only about food, unlike the red guide that gives rewards based on everything in the restaurant. They also give toques, up to 5, to high ranking restaurants.

The other difference with the red guide is their different idea of gastronomy. While the Michelin guide was more concerned about tradition, the Gault & Millau preferred to emphasize on the Nouvelle Cuisine.

For some people, the Gault & Millau is more purist as they only regard the quality of the food.

They created the polish yellow guide in 2015. And since, the number of restaurants in the guide is increasing. Which is understandable. Since I arrived here 10 years ago, I saw a great number of very good restaurants opening. At that time we didn’t know where to go as the choice was bad, now we still don’t know where to go because the offer is so huge…

So last Monday was the second edition of the Gault & Millau Tour for Northern Poland. It was organized in Szafarnia 10 in Gdańsk. 5 hours with presentations, culinary demonstrations from awarded chefs, drink & food tasting, discussions… A nice place to meet fellow chefs and check out what is trending – a little – on the polish gastronomic scene.

As I’m more of a sea food and fish kinda guy, I really loved the Trout Tartar made by Mariusz Siwak – lovely combination of structures and taste – and the Scallops Course made by Iwona Niemczewska. I didn’t have the time to try the Scallops Tartar made by Sebastian Krauzowicz as everybody jumped on it. Too bad, it looked very appetizing.