Franco is like a child filled with wonder! He wanders through the grass, passes under the branches, sniffs the leaves, breaks them, crunches them, lives the moment to the full and already imagines adding them to his cooking or even inventing new combinations of flavours, rediscovering the fruits and vegetables of “lavi lontan” (life in days gone by) , those that the supermarkets have forgotten, or worse! those that modern life and “profitability” forbid to be born!

Gaël produces 58 different fruits and so many vegetables, berries and herbal teas.  When he welcomed Chef Franco, he slipped pink, white and small Indian guavas into his hand. He produces five varieties! Walking through his plant paradise, Franco tastes them, skin included, while Gaël names, like a never-ending poem, the marvels of his estate: beef heart, lucuma, letchi, local avocado, masolo, vavangue, redcurrant, corosol, plum, jambrosade, badamier, maradamian, longan, tamarind, red jambosa, Ceylon olive, pink berries, carambola, lemon, bergamot, grapefruit, mandarin, pine fruit, jamblon, Malagasy pistachio, dwarf and giant Cytherean fruit, yellow mangosteen, passion fruit, allspice, cinnamon, around fifteen herbal teas (tulsi, basil, mango and guava leaves to boil in water, citronella, ayapanan etc.) and lemons! These lemons are huge. Gaël picks one and weighs it… 500 grams!