Daniel and the Troisgros legend

Visiting restaurant Daniel Canzian in Milan, one night, it’s as if we were kidnapped and moved, blindfolded, to Roanne, 500 km to the West. In the open view kitchen in Via Castelfidardo, next to the chef-patron from Conegliano, under very long toques, Cesar and Léo Troisgros, 25 and 21, get all worked up: they are the epigones of a dynasty of French high cuisine which has no equal in longevity, this side of the Alps.

They are the fourth generation at Maison Troisgros, which blossomed in 1930 when Jean-Baptiste and Marie bought what used to be the Hôtel des Platanes, in front of the train station, in this forgotten village in the Loire region.

They conceived brothers Jean and Pierre, who, in 1954, inherited the reins in the kitchen from their mother, writing the history of a great cuisine certified by one star (in 1955), a second (1965) and a third (1968).

These are the years that pave the way to Nouvelle Cuisine, which owes and then keeps its distance from the traditional post-Escoffier French cuisine, which was leading throughout the first half of the 20th century. It’s the era of Saumon a l'oseille, salmon with sorrel sauce, the Troisgros masterpiece: «For the first time», the famous pupil Daniel Boulud later summed up «salmon is no longer boiled, placed on a hot plate and covered with a tablespoon of sauce. It is quickly braised in the pan, and put on the dish, on top of the sauce. A gesture that seems meaningless today, yet was a revolution at the time».

The third generation of chefs, Michel, son of Pierre, gets on board in 1984, right after uncle Jean passed way. Michel consolidated the prestige of the Maison with a cuisine that gradually reduces the fat in the opulent heritage accumulated since its origins, making the food lighter, also thanks to foreign techniques. Consultancies around the world flourish, and among these there’s the Hyatt Regency restaurant in Tokyo. And with this we close our trip down memory lane.

The idea for the other night’s dinner came to Daniel Canzian during a dinner in Japan together with Cesar and Léo, just before opening his ambitious restaurant in Milan, in October. «With them», he revealed, «a friendship was born which perhaps one day will become something more stable». Meanwhile, it is nice to investigate all the different links, some of which are really unexpected, creating a strong connection between the Maison in the Loire region and Italy.

The internship in the Seventies of Gualtiero Marchesi with the Troisgros is a known fact: who knows what would Italian high cuisine have been like, hadn’t it been for the lessons brothers Pierre and Jean gave to the future master of Via Bonvesin de la Riva (3 stars in 1986, the first case in Italy, 18 years after the Maison). Pierre himself was married with Olympe, a lovely woman from Friuli, who passed away in 2008, and transmitted her husband and son her love for our ingredients. Canzian himself, who was a pupil of Marchesi for a long time and was inspired by a brief experience in the Loire region, wrote his impressions for us: «In the menu one can always find Piedmontese ravioli del plin, babà and focaccia. And they adore culatello, which they serve on a raised plate to give it the right importance».

On top of this, one should add that the other night, cooking with Daniel, Cesar and Léo there was also Marco Viganò, the Italian chef who was Paolo Lopriore’s second for a long time, at Albereta in Erbusco, again, under the careful eye of Marchesi. Today he’s at the helm of Aux Anges, a restaurant which he opened4 years ago in the very Roanne, together with his wife Annabelle - French of Italian origins. This chef is so unexpectedly respected by the locals he is ready to open a second restaurant after the summer. It will be called Vigà and who knows if these 8 friendly hands are not ready to get to work together and this roof.