These seasons when colors love to overwhelm us.

The door to this house has never opened like the others. Not this door, nor the one before it, nor the doors of the Carmelites, nor those of the ephemeral, nor any of the doors Christophe Hardiquest has placed along his journey. So many worlds, so many horizons. So many men and women in the brigade, in the audience, so many people behind the scenes. So many stars, a constellation of multiples.

A few months ago, Christophe Hardiquest laid down a new blank page within his walls, still at the edge of the Sonian Forest. The wood has arrived, here through a canopy of branches, there through a voluptuous curved counter; as a harbinger of other elements, it beckons with its arms, it invites the garden, welcomes the forest, and calls upon the earth. The sky and the sea are never far, more complicit and loyal than we are. The elements are always right.

Now more than ever, Christophe Hardiquest "writes his cuisine like a text, drawing from memory, life, the world, books, encounters, travels, movements, and revolutions. He invents the story of a meal with his words."

While Christophe Hardiquest’s restaurant may have found a new costume, the deep soul of his cuisine remains unchanged, branded in iron. And on that day, it took only a single amuse-bouche to rediscover the essence of what makes the great Chef’s cuisine. The "bam" that we are all seeking! Then comes a cuisine driven by major flavors, one that is invigorating on the one hand, sensitive on the other, readable and complex, yet so free. We are beyond precision, above it, far above.

After each meal, one can only summon superlatives. For countless seasons, for so many reasons, he deserves them. If only for the joys already experienced and those yet to come.

LD