Is the stylish young chef Jérôme Schilling the next Alain Ducasse, or something else entirely?

by Air Mail's Alexander Lobrano

In the tiny village of Bommes, in the heart of Sauternes wine country, lies Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey. Now that it has been transformed into an intimate Relais & Châteaux hotel, it’s all that France’s most knowledgeable gourmets are talking about.

Lafaurie-Peyraguey has been renowned for its wines for centuries. A Premier Cru Classé, it was the second entry on the original 1855 classification of Bordeaux wines created at the request of Emperor Napoleon III. The reason for its new allure is the restaurant Lalique, the turf of the next great French chef, Jérôme Schilling.

Declared a grand chef de demain (major chef of tomorrow) by the Gault&Millau guide in 2018, the Alsatian-born Schilling was awarded a second Michelin star in the French Michelin guide this year. He also won an M.O.F., or Meilleur Ouvrier de France award, the highest accolade the country offers to its craftsmen and -women, at the 2022 edition of this prestigious government-run competition in Grenoble.

Topping off the year during which Schilling emerged as a gastronomic talent on par with the late Joël Robuchon and Paul Bocuse, Lalique debuted on La Liste, a French-run ranking of the world’s 1,000 best restaurants, compiled by threshing some 600 different restaurant guides through a date-processing algorithm. It received a score of 92.5 out of 100.

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