Archive
Thank you for rating this article
Menu fit for a Prince
2011-07-01 20:32
With two new restaurants opening shortly in St Petersburg and Doha, you would have thought that
Alain Ducasse would have enough on his plate in the next few weeks. But the award-winning chef of the celebrated Louis XV in Monaco has another small matter to attend to in the meantime: the official menu for
the wedding of HSH Prince Albert and Miss Charlene Wittstock.
The bride's South African origins give a clue at least to one aspect of the meal. With the exception of the champagne, all the wines will all be sourced from the
Haskell vineyards at Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, whose prizewinning Dombaya label (named after a local wild pear) includes a highly-respected Merlot and Chardonnay.
One of Monaco's own beehives
These will provide the perfect accompaniment for the proposed menu, which will include Mediterranean vegetables grown at the Prince's own farm, honey from Monaco's own urban bee-hives, and local fish, line-caught on the day - and incidentally from entirely sustainable species. It sounds, and will no doubt be, idyllic - the perfect gastonomic seal on a momentous day.
As well as the three-Michelin-star Louis XV restaurant and La Trattoria in Monaco, Ducasse is also responsible for gourmet establishments in Italy, Japan, Hong Kong, New York, and the Jules Verne in Paris at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
But this is an entirely new departure for the 54-year-old maestro. In all his time at the top of the culinary tree, he has never before served a state meal, and to be accorded the honour of being asked to design the wedding menu is more than simply a feather in the cap: it's an acknowledgement from the Palace of the greatest trust in a man who became a Monégasque citizen exactly three years ago.