The book is published in November by Hachette Cuisine, just as the chef settles at the foot of La Rhune. It makes the cuisine of the South-West a map of her origins.
An itinerary opens Txistorra, Muxus & Tortilla. It leaves the Landes forest, passes through Bayonne and Biarritz, climbs into the Pyrenean summer pastures, follows the bay of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and crosses the border into the Spanish Basque Country. Hélène Darroze, born in Mont-de-Marsan and raised in Villeneuve-de-Marsan, finds there the places of her childhood holidays, between Biarritz and Hendaye. She co-signs the book with the food journalist Catherine Roig.
Two cuisines at the same table
The contents page sets two families of dishes side by side. The first are domestic and expected: poulet basquaise, garbure with duck confit, veal axoa, marmitako, piperade, Basque cake. The second bear the chef’s signature: white asparagus from the Landes with a tonnato sauce and fried capers, grilled rock octopus with chipotle, fines de claires oysters with an Izarra granita, marinated foie gras and Aquitaine caviar.
The comparison is useful. It shows that Hélène Darroze’s palate is not confined to the terroir. A tuna tonnato sauce on a Landes asparagus, a chipotle on an octopus: these dishes come from elsewhere, but their base products are those of her childhood. The book thus proposes a filiation, and the table of contents is enough to make it legible.
The producers, on a par with the dishes
The book also announces a place made for people. Breeders, fishermen, charcutiers, cheesemakers, pastry chefs and chocolatiers accompany the journey, with their gestures and the ties the chef says she has forged with some of them. Landes foie gras, Kintoa ham, Espelette pepper and sheep’s-milk cheeses are presented with those who produce them.
Her roots are older than this project: she is the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of restaurateurs. What follows plays out elsewhere than in the book, since she has chosen to settle at the foot of La Rhune, where she envisages a grand kitchen and an open table.
What remains to be verified
The publisher promises recipes to make again at home. The question will arise page by page: will the family dishes hold without the support of the chef’s creations, and will the creations lend themselves to being cooked without a brigade? The book will answer only through use, in the kitchen.
Read also on Luxsure: Hélène Darroze and her grandmother’s recipes. · Prix du Livre Nohée: when 90-year-old readers choose the books of the year · What French luxury had never bothered to define · Sandrine Collette wins the Prix du Livre Nohée 2025 for Madelaine avant l’aube
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