Three stars in their eyes

The Haeberlin family has achieved a remarkable feat at its restaurant, Auberge de l'Ill, in the small Alsatian village of Illhaeusern. After Restaurant Bocuse, it has held three Michelin stars longer than any other restaurant in France - since 1967 - and, alongside the establishments of Paul Bocuse and the Troisgros brothers, is one of three restaurants which, when their three-star careers are combined, have held Michelin's top accolade for nearly 120 years.

I visited Auberge de l'Ill late last year with a group of head chefs from Conran Restaurants. They were on a trip organised annually by the group to thank its chefs for their hard work and to keep their passion for food well stoked. Each year they go to a different gourmet destination - this year it was Alsace, with Auberge de l'Ill as the centrepiece.

So what keeps Auberge de l'Ill floating serenely on high, clinging securely to its stars?

A major factor must be consistency, achieved because the restaurant has been owned by the same family since it opened more than 150 years ago. Marc Haeberlin, the current chef-patron, started to learn his craft under his father, Paul, in 1976, and represents the fourth generation of the family to have manned the stoves. Marc explains: "We have been lucky, but we have also put a lot of work in every day because it is a family business."

The restaurant started life simply, serving fish from the River Ill, which it overlooks. That restaurant, L'Arbre Vert, existed until the end of the Second World War, when it was destroyed by the retreating German forces. After temporary rehousing in US Army huts, a new permanent home was found and the restaurant was renamed Auberge de l'Ill.

Paul started serving specials, which evolved in turn into the very refined, classic French cuisine that the restaurant is famed for today. In 1952, it earned its first star; the second came in 1957 and the third in 1967.

The traditional haute cuisine we ate was superb, especially considering it was being served for a banquet-style table of 40.
We ate veal sweetbreads with foie gras and langoustines and a shellfish dressing to start; noisettes of venison with wild mushrooms and the Alsatian detail of knepfla (like dumplings) as a main; and a whole peach doused in Champagne sabayon to finish.

But it was not to everyone's taste. A couple of the Conran chefs thought the style a little dated, and there were murmurings along the lines of: "If I opened a place serving this sort of food in the UK, would I get three stars?" It was a fair question, and highlighted how food styles have changed. Is also fuelled the suspicion that you do not retain three stars just through the quality of the food you serve. Whatever Michelin says about its top accolade being awarded for "exceptional cuisine, worth a special detour", almost everyone accepts that, once you get past the one-star barrier, you need to offer a little extra.

Auberge de l'Ill certainly has that. It has some of the best service I have ever experienced, exquisite table settings and a fabulous location, and it plans to add a spa. None of this can hurt its claim to a top spot. But in France, where culinary heritage plays a massive part in national culture, perhaps three stars also become a badge of honour for those who continually contribute to the region's and country's long-term wealth. Haeberlin seems to confirm this. "We have helped to put Illhaeusern on the map," he acknowledges.

This was a point that André Garrett, head chef at London's Orrery restaurant, returned to over breakfast the following day. "I don't think we appreciate that yet in the UK," he said. "Restaurants in France are so much more about their relationship to their region."

In fact, the whole trip was a reminder of just how strong regional ties and character are in France. For example, our first stop-off, organised by Scottish Courage, was at the new K2 Kronenbourg Brewery. This brews some 6.5 million hectolitres per year and was likened by Jeremy Lee of the Blueprint Café to the "lair of an evil Bond villain" rather than a symbol of regional produce, but it is still only 30 miles from the original brewery in Strasbourg. Our guide explained: "We keep it here because of the quality of the water."

Next, we visited Riquewihr, the medieval town that has been home to the Hugel winery since 1639. It is a picturesque spot, where grand, timber-beamed townhouses built by wine merchants stand over cobbled streets filled with wine and food shops, as they have for centuries. Through a weathered doorway on one of those streets, which breathed barely a whisper of the treasure-trove housed beneath, the Hugel cellar was to be found.

Hugel is synonymous with Alsatian wines and our first meeting with that heritage was Jean "Johnny" Hugel. Johnny is a member of the 11th generation of his family to run the business and, at 81 years of age, he is the current elder in residence. As with the Haeberlins at Auberge de l'Ill, it is this that ensures continuity and the protection of tradition - in Johnny's case, with considerable gusto.

Holding court with quips about Alsatian history ("we've become experts at war - we haven't missed one in 2,000 years"), he trumpeted the Hugel values of only using grapes that they have grown themselves or have been grown for them under long-term contract, and of using no new wood to make their wines; and, commenting on the state of the global winemaking, the fact that: "We make wines with grapes only - unusual, these days!"

Next we toured the cellar, and got a glimpse of the St Catherine barrel, dating from 1715 and the oldest working barrel in the world. Back upstairs, Hugel export director David Ling and the wine consultant to the Conran buying department, Bill Baker, were preparing glasses for a sumptuous tasting.

Hugel makes wines from all the typical Alsatian varietals, ranging from dry styles to the label's speciality late-harvested sweet wines. But the pinnacle of the wines we tasted was a 1997 Gewurztraminer Selection de Grains Nobles. For this, only certain grapes are picked by hand from the bunch when they are at the optimum stage of over-ripening. The result is a wine with a whistle-clean sweet acidity balanced on the finish by an elegant dryness, suitable for sweet or savoury dishes, but rich enough to be drunk on its own.

We left Riquewihr early the next day but not before Mikael Weiss, head chef at Coq d'Argent, and James Walker, of Pont de la Tour, had celebrated another part of French culture. If you can ever get them to perform their late-night renditions of songs by kitsch French disco crooner Claude Francois, do.

By the time everyone got back on the plane, shopping bags were loaded and bellies beaten - proof that, everywhere you turn in a region as gastronomically rich as Alsace, you cannot escape good food and wine. However exciting we know the food scene is in the UK these days, France still can't be matched for the depth to which food runs through its culture.

Let's just hope that Heston, Gordon and others soon-to-be will carry on what the Waterside Inn has begun, and will still be holding their three stars in 40 years' time.

Frogs' leg mousseline from Auberge de l'Ill

Ingredients (Serves six to eight)

4 diced shallots
150g butter, unsalted
2kg frogs' legs
1/2 bottle Riesling
200g skinned pike fillet
2 egg whites
500ml whipping cream
500g spinach
1 clove garlic
1tbs sandy roux
(50:50 flour and butter, cooked out without colour)
1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper
Chives

Method
For the frogs' legs, sweat the shallots in 120g butter, add half the frogs' legs, pour the wine over them, season, cover and simmer 10 minutes. When they're cooked, strain the legs. Pass the cooking liquor through a chinois and reduce by half.

For the mousseline, bone the rest of the legs (raw) and blend them with the pike in a food processor. Add the egg whites and blend again. Add the same volume of cream. Blend again and season. Transfer the mousseline from the blender to a terrine or bowl and keep chilled.

For the spinach, boil for 5 minutes in salted water, drain and squeeze out excess water by hand. Sweat the garlic (skin on) in 50g butter. When it starts to foam, add the spinach and stew for 5 minutes. Bone the cooked frogs' legs.

Butter six to eight ramekins or darioles. Pipe mousseline over the base and round the sides. Fill the hollow in the middle with cooked frogs' legs. Cover with a little more mousseline. (You'll probably have some mousse left over.) Stand the moulds in a bain marie and cook for 15 minutes.

For the sauce, bind the reserved cooking liquor with the roux, boil, add cream, reboil and whisk in the rest of the butter. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and check seasoning.

Turn out the mousselines onto plates garnished with spinach, coat with sauce and sprinkle diced chives over it.

Munsters and monsters As well as visits to Auberge de l'Ill, the Kronenbourg Brewery and the Hugel winery, the group also visited Munster cheesemaker Haxaire and foie gras producer Lucian Doriath.

The importance of regional character was again on show at Haxaire, since the local Vosges cow breed is fed on the herbal pastures of the Vosges Mountains - integral to the final flavour imparted by the milk. Rennet is added to the milk, and the curd formed, cut and stirred before it is moulded. It is then salted (with salt from regional mines in Nancy) and ripened.

Our coach was duly stocked up with some pongy, unpasteurised Munster and other offerings - our apologies to the rest of the passengers on Air France flight 5811 back to Gatwick.

Our final destination, the foie gras producer Lucian Doriath, produced more mixed feelings. Apart from Charlie Trotter banning foie gras in his Chicago restaurant (and all the inter-chef bitching this precipitated Stateside), chefs are not usually the most sympathetic of animal rights activists, especially when it comes to the esteemed livers of fattened ducks and geese.

This, however, was not a pretty sight. It didn't help that Monsieur Doriath looked a little like the loathsome Child Catcher from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, but rows of two-by-three-metre pens, each packed with tens of overweight, panting ducks, barely able to stand up, did not look good. The smell was even worse, exacerbated by central heating turned up to make sure the ducks don't waste energy in keeping warm. And if the birds don't struggle with the tube stuck down their gullets, it's probably because they are too comatose by then to register much complaint.

Conran Restaurants doesn't actually get its foie gras from this producer, and a couple of chefs, momentarily dropping the c'est-la-vie carnivore's shrug, commented that they were rather pleased about that. Its supplier gets livers from birds which are kept free-range right until the end of their lives, and which actually run to the farmer every time he comes near them at feeding time. The chefs had witnessed this themselves when they visited the producer (near Bordeaux) on a similar trip two years before.

This comparison did at least make them aware of the difference between the version of foie gras they get and the version they saw here. And with this being an educational trip, that was exactly the point.

Sponsors

This year's trip was made possible by the kind sponsorship of Scottish Courage, Chefs Connection, Daily Fish, H&B and W&W.