BRUSSELS: Le Chalet de la Forêt, one of Brussels top restaurants run by chef owner Pascal Devalkeneer is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a series of dinners including one with Belgian legendary chef Roger Souvereyns.
The first dinner will be held on 16 November with René Meilleur, the chef of restaurant La Bouitte in Savoie.
The second will be with Pascal Devalkeneer’s mentor Roger Souvereyns who has had a huge influence on a number of contemporary chefs and who was extremely famous during his time having three stars for his restaurant between 1985 and 1993. This will be held on 1 December.
The third dinner will be more of a party with friends Pierre Marcolini, Julien Burlat, The Folmer brothers of Couvert Couvert in Heverlee and Pau Barba of Can Domo in Ibiza. The third dinner will be held on 8 December.
The three dinners are selling at the price of EUR 345 including of aperitif, the menu and wine.
Kasper Kurdhal, who was the executive chef at Le Chalet de la Foret before moving to Dubai had this to say about Roger in an interview with Food and Wine Gazette, “He was extremely famous in the past. He was one of the stars of that époque but when he sold the restaurant in the beginning of 2000s everyone seemed to forget him. He was extremely important for my career. He was very hard, very straightforward, pushing, working hard and always asking the best from everyone. The plates we served were huge. I remember we had a salad with sweet breads and goose liver. Every salad had 150 grammes of sweet bread, 150 grams of goose liver, a whole artichoke and a huge salad. The plate was 35 centimetres and this was just the starter. We had a seven course tasting menu where we would serve half a lobster. It was a very rich cuisine but we were already working with flowers and herbs. Every night we served 120 covers so you can imagine the kilos of food we had to prepare. It was maybe the most beautiful restaurant I’ve ever seen. In the countryside, with original paintings from Van Dyck and a garden, it was really well done.”
Le Chalet de la Foret is nestled in the immense Sonian Forest a bit further away from one of the main parks of the city, the Bois de la Cambre.
Pascal was considered to be one of the rising stars when Phaidon published Coco, a book where 10 culinary masters selected 100 contemporary chefs. His work has been recognised over the past years not just by the Michelin guide but also by many in business and he is known to have inspired many of today’s young Belgian chefs who are now working on their own. Pascal has been known for his ‘rock and roll’ style of cooking despite his very classic basis of his cuisine.
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