His television will be off this Wednesday evening, for the launch of the new season of Top chef. “In addition, I will be on duty,” laughs Xavier Koenig, who hadn’t planned to watch the famous show on M6 anyway. Not out of contempt or lack of recognition for a program that revealed it in 2015. No, simply “because it’s been seven years now, I don’t want to be reduced to Top chef “Admits the 27-year-old Alsatian. Especially since the former winner has seen kitchens since…
But let’s start with the dessert. The digestive itself. Where is it today? Always in his native region, little left finally. Just after his national triumph, he entrusted 20 minutes want to work “in a restaurant where there aren’t too many covers, twenty-five or thirty. Where we offer simple, good quality cuisine with market products, where we change dishes according to arrivals. “All while evoking his desire to open his own place” in the Haut-Rhin “. Goals achieved!
To find it now, you have to know a little about Colmar. At the end of an alley near the historic center, the storefront of “L’incontournable” does not mention its name anywhere. “It’s a choice,” he explains. When we wanted to open in March 2020 but couldn’t because of the first lockdown, I advertised on my Facebook page. Since then, I have removed everything because people only came to Top chef and the only bad remarks came from them. They expected a show, that I come to the theater, etc. But I hate it all! My job is to make customers happy with the plates. I don’t like notoriety. »
“The truffle, I find it tasteless! »
Worse, the sudden celebrity experienced in 2015 weighed on him for a long time. “I could no longer do my shopping in peace, nor go to the market. We had to take pictures… I feel good in my kitchen! “The native of Thann (Haut-Rhin) also regrets it now, some restaurants had then contacted or even hired him “to advertise”. Hence a certain instability until 2019, when he chained contracts, rarely longer than a few months.
“I was unstable, I didn’t really know what I wanted and I wanted to discover a lot of things”, justifies Xavier Koenig, also admitting “a problem with authority”. No question for him to drag on within the large brigades specific to starred restaurants. “I’ve also been there but it’s not my thing. It’s too much pressure and you have to work with products that I don’t really like. The truffle for example, I find it tasteless! I prefer a good porcini mushroom from the Vosges. »
During the show, he was presented as a prodigy in the kitchen, today his credo at “L’incontournable” is “a kitchen of instinct where there is no written recipe, he replies. All with fruits and vegetables that do not leave a radius of 20 km. I am inspired by everything and I do not hold back my ideas. Yesterday, I had an idea for a shallot dessert and I started. We have to taste it. »
A dessert… with white cabbage
The customers of the last fortnight, the maximum time of the slate change, were also treated to a sweet with white cabbage, a spiced confit, a hazelnut crumble and a vanilla cream. “I like to offer an unusual dessert and it pleases”, welcomes the entrepreneur, who took over this restaurant with his wife and rearranged everything just before the health crisis. “For a loan at the bank, I must say, it was easier because I had won Top chef he laughs, happy with the first real months of operation.
“We have just arrived, we would now like to make a name for ourselves and stay for at least ten years, continues Xavier Koenig. After ? No, I don’t think I’ll go back to a star hotel. My dream is to one day open a restaurant in a large farmhouse. There would be the vegetable garden with aromatic herbs that I love. And maybe still not the TV in the kitchen.