FIELD OF DREAMS
Forty-five kilometres south of Paris, where the City of Light meets the historic farmland and forest of the Île de France, the walled estate of an 18th century château in the village of Saint-Vrain is a hive of activity. For the past five years, Australian chefs James Henry and Shaun Kelly have been building an expansive kitchen garden as a homage, of sorts, to the historic market gardens that once fringed the French capital, supplying its residents with fresh vegetables.
After catching the attention of le tout Paris with their free-form, produce-driven, nose-to-tail cuisine at neo-bistros Au Passage and Bones, the two friends (who met in 2008 while working at Andrew McConnell’s Cumulus Inc) began hatching the idea of creating their own farmhouse restaurant.
