How we choose our ingredients

Every dish begins before the kitchen — at the market, with the supplier, in the choice we make before the stove is even on. Three rules guide that buying, and we do not bend them.

Vegetables picked that morning

Most of our vegetables come from nearby and are picked the day we use them. Tomatoes, courgettes and greens do not sit in storage for days. You taste it — the colour is brighter and the flavour cleaner.

That is partly why the menu shifts through the year. We buy what is best that day, not what is easiest to order.

We do not change butchers

The beef for our steak and tartare comes from the same butcher, year after year. A good supplier relationship is not built overnight, and it is not worth breaking over a few dinars.

He knows how we want the meat cut and how long it should rest. We know he will not let us down when the room is full.

If it is not good, we do not buy it

This is the simplest rule and the hardest to keep. If the fish is not fresh that morning, it is off the menu that day. We would rather tell a guest something has sold out than serve a plate we are not proud of.

Better to pull a dish from the menu than to serve it below our level. The guest remembers that longer than we do.

That is what every one of our days looks like. No grand words — only the same choice, made again, from the morning to the last dinner.