Ferme de La Ruchotte: One of the best restaurants in Beaune, Burgundy, France

Recognized as one of the best restaurants near Beaune in Burgundy, France

Discover the La Ruchotte carving knife

“My Guide is the people who come to eat here. All the rest isn’t worth a moment’s thought.”
Frédéric Ménager

Farm to table: the Chef and part-time chicken breeder revisits French Haute cuisine, honoring it with the utmost respect for nature and the seasons. Chef Ménager treats all of his ingredients with a virtuosity that is evident to all who have the unique pleasure of tasting his delicacies. Among Ménager’s fervent admirers are many of the greatest Michelin star chefs who do not hesitate when it comes to praising his talent.

The greatest French Michelin star chefs praise the excellence of his work

Many great Chefs praise Chef Frédéric Ménager’s work and highly recommend his organic farm restaurant - Ferme de La Ruchotte^®. Ménager proudly welcomes recognition from his starred peers and much prefers their appreciation over that of the famous Michelin Guide.

Éric Pras (3 Michelin Star Chef, Maison La Mêloise)

"Above all else, meeting Frédéric has been a very beautiful experience in my life. He is a remarkable cook and an exceptional vegetable gardener whose environmentally-conscious and sincere approach allows him to make ingredient-driven dishes that highlight true flavors. His cuisine transports me back to my place of origin, which was form me was a "rural" upbringing. His poultry and vegetables maintain their original flavors, bringing joy to us and to our customers.”

William Frachot (2 Michelin Star Chef, Chapeau Rouge)

"Fred, more than a chicken breeder, more than a vegetable gardener, more than a cook... He had the courage to push our mutual passion for cooking to the limits by using unadulterated, quality products. Thanks to Fred, not only do I offer our guests the taste of a job well done, I also pass on our region’s essence, I tell them the story of a land through an unparalleled experience. Thank you for your products, your generosity and your unfailing friendship... without which everything would be much blander!”

Bruno Verjus (2 Michelin Star Chef, Table)

"Just a fleeting moment’s thought of our friend Fred Ménager’s Ferme de la Ruchotte^® brings memories of childhood rushing back in waves. This rich sounds of farm animals, which had been forgotten, are revived by the grace of diversity. The great purebred Barbezieux roosters crow among the young Flèche and Le Mans chickens, the golden Gauloises and the proud Coucou de Rennes. The Guinea Fowls squawk while the Khaki Campbell ducks quack. A fox that has been flushed out pushes forth a howl, the dogs bay, the pigs grunt and the ram bleats. It’s an entire universe unto itself! A philharmonic zoo that sweeps across sweet-smelling landscapes of crumpled Pennyroyal and Shaggy Ink Cap mushrooms delicately huddled under the ephemeral shelter of a tuft of Sweet Vernal Grass.

Daydreaming about this enchanted farm is like pouring your heart out and filling yourself with color and flavor; painting the uncommon, the eternal, the unique - the living. Today, his universe nurtures mine - my kitchen and my creations are open to rare and exceptional ingredients. They draw unparalled and wild beauty from this energy. A eulogy of echoes, the magic of circularity, an ode to friendship, Fred Ménager’s Noah’s Ark has not finished inspiring me.”

Fred Cossard (Domaine de Chassorney)

"Fred Ménager’s La Ruchotte^® restaurant and organic farm is a bit like ‘Going back to my roots.’

Nostalgic for my grandmother Léa’s cooking, who raised chickens, rabbits and pigs, I find these childhood flavors in the sincerity of Fred’s cooking and am lulled by a feeling of "well-being" from the love you receive and the joy you are imparted with. It is a place of rejuvenation!

At La Ruchotte^® we don’t cheat! Our ‘tattooed chef’ and music fanatic, sublimates the magnificent ingredients he gave life to in his garden with the passion of a pianist.

Is it by chance that he was sous chef to the late Alain Chapel? Where I had the chance to drink an extraordinary 1979 Moulin à Vent from Jules Chauvet that made me want to make wine? In the passing years, Fred’s restaurant has become, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful culinary addresses in our beautiful country.

As I write these few words, frogs, golden Gauloises chickens, pâté en croûte, vol au vent and Crêpes Suzette come to life in my head... Tonight, my dreams will be sweet!

Bravo Chef!"

PEPITA (Le Comptoir des Tontons)

“The Ferme de La Ruchotte^®… A haven of nourished earth,
Mother Earth,
Eden of biodiversity?”

“We are the ones who must reshape both stone and plant so that we can walk in ourselves.”
Nietzsche Quote from the garden entrance of the Cormatin Castle in Burgundy

Freedom and simplicity Vs. Luxury and prestige: Frédéric Ménager’s philosophy

"The first freedom I gave myself when I came here as a chef was to refuse the Guides. The Michelin Guide called me twice but I told them I didn’t want to meet with them. My guide is the people who come to eat here. All the rest isn’t worth a moment’s thought. What’s the point of a restaurant having a Michelin Star, two or three? To say I am more beautiful? I have more luxury, more people working in the dining room? People go to a restaurant to eat, to feel good. You can be good with simple things."
Frédéric Ménager

After reading this particularly vivid excerpt from BFM TV’s piece on La Ruchotte^®, it’s easy to see why you won’t find the famous Côte d’Or gourmet organic farmhouse restaurant in the Michelin Guide.

Very alternative in the world of fine dining, Chef Fred Ménager has a special relationship with the Michelin Guide and has declined their offer to come review his restaurant on several occasions.

Read the article and watch the video (BFM TV) "Ces restaurateurs qui ne veulent plus entendre parler du Guide Michelin" ("Restaurants that no longer want to hear about the Michelin Guide").

The press, celebrities, guides and other specialized cook books

Due to its meteoric rise to success, drawing diners from all over France and countless international patrons, the gourmet farm restaurant has been featured in numerous restaurant and tourist guides and even receives prestigious international awards. Chef Fred Ménager’s farm restaurant has garnered itself with laudatory reviews, glowing press articles and extraordinary crowd-sourced reviews!

A highly-recommended Chef despite himself

The List: international ranking of the best restaurants in the world

Winner of one of ten international prizes, Le Prix de l’Authenticité (Authenticity and Artisan Prize):

In 2021, the French Chef Frédéric Ménager was awarded a spot on La Liste’s 1000 Best Restaurants in the World. He was one of three winners - alongside a Mexican and a Japanese chef - under the category Artisan and Authenticity Award. The Chef of the famous gastronomic restaurant in Beaune was officially rewarded for 20 years of work, "Promoting the culinary heritage of a region or country through skill, produce and sourcing.”

Écotable award: A community that promotes sustainable food

The Écotable label – a company that supports, trains and promotes restaurants that are involved in sustainable catering - awarded the organic restaurant farm Ferme de la Ruchotte^® with its highest rating:

“A few miles from Beaune, there is a farmhouse like no other, a bastion of good manners and good food. Built on the remains of an ancient Celtic territory, the Ferme de la Ruchotte^® has seen generations of farmers come and go. Since 2002, Frédéric Ménager has been showing resilience, cultivating food autonomy as well as the art of entertaining. People come here, sometimes from far away, to delight in his roasted heritage chicken breeds or his famous monthly vol-au-vent feast. Vegetables are not forgotten at La Ruchotte^®: the restaurant’s daily menu features a 100% vegetable entrée, but they are also core ingredients in all the juices, broths and innovative condiments.”

Le Gault & Millau: Gourmet experts

Well-being, intelligence, ethics, awareness and good taste...

"Not far from Beaune, Fred’s organic and self-sufficient farmhouse inn is a refreshing revisitation of one’s origins, a moment of well-being and intelligence, where ethical practices give the gift of a clear conscience and good taste. Chef Frédéric Ménager works primarily with poultry; he is a master at cooking all of the various poultry dishes with equal talent -chicken liver cake, pate en croûte with Burgundy truffles, guinea fowl with wild mushrooms and for dessert, an apple charlotte. All for a fair price."

The organic restaurant farm is recognized as one of the best restaurants in Beaune well beyond Burgundy’s borders

In view of the glowing comments from the greatest names in French gastronomy, the press is also full of praise for Ferme de La Ruchotte^®’s Haute cuisine bourgeoise. The organic farm restaurant offers a creative and authentic culinary experience.

Le Monde: One of France’s leading daily newspapers

"There are few places in the world where you can do a horizontal poultry tasting. [One that enables you to taste a range of different types of chickens] Le Mans, La Flèche and the golden Gauloise.... [Chef Ménager] selected heritage breeds, raised them free-range without vaccines or chemicals, and cooked them like Alain Chapel once did in Mionnay... La Ruchotte^® is first and foremost a farm that rejects the dictatorship of battery reared chickens... Here, everything is organic, drugs are not on the menu and the gallinaceous birds are given the time to mature. Solognot sheep and Noir de Bigorre pigs complete the herd and are given the same care and diet.
A passionate cook who, one day, understood that without the ingredients, he didn’t amount to much. A citizen who decided to rely on his own strength and whose recipes are more than recipes: a life dedicated to the well-being of animals and people who love to see them happy in the barnyard and as delicacies on the plate..."

Libération: The French newspaper of the party for socialism and liberation

"The apocalypse took place on Sunday, February 18th, between 1:00 and 4:00PM at the Ferme de la Ruchotte^®, a gourmet restaurant in the Côte-d’Or. For it is a sacred and intangible fact: one can die without regret from the meal after tasting 49-year-old chef-countryman-tattooed-metalhead Frédéric Ménager’s seven-course vol-au-vent feast. If God had invented the gourmet orgasm, it is certain that he would have blessed this infernal brew of crayfish, young chicken, veal, quenelles, truffles, morels, cream, butter, puff pastry... You have to be a bit of a polymorphous pervert and a heroic warrior monk to imagine such a monument that leads you to an orgasmic death and rebirth that replenishes the taste buds."

Le Temps: One of Paris’ most important daily newspapers

"The head Chef at La Ruchotte^®, a farm inn restaurant in Burgundy, is respectful of biodiversity and indoctrinated in the belief that the quality of ingredients is measured by the conditions in which they were created and the care taken to ensure that they thrive. He cultivates vegetables and raises endangered poultry [on his farm].”

Well-known outside of the hospitality industry

Rolland Feuillas: Miller and famous artisanal baker

"A famous publicist once said, ‘Everyone has a Rolex. If you reach the age of 50 and you don’t have a Rolex, it means that you have failed in your life.’ Well, then I failed my life, because at 58 I still don’t have a Rolex... Honestly, I would never have one because I find it obsolete, old-world and even worse, in direct causality with the terrible legacy the old world is leaving to our children and their great-grandchildren to come.

Not only did Fred understand this before others, but he has written it into the core of his DNA, he has made drastic, fundamentalist choices, some who have not fully realized the situation we are in would say his choices are wrong. One must strike while the iron is hot, again and again.

To take the road less traveled, one that brings a solitary existence on an isolated farm is demanding - working from dawn to dusk is laden with meaning and also sacrifice. It could be a departure from the world, following the example of Diogenes of Sinope, to distance yourself from the hell which is "the other," to break away from social values, to stop depending on the economy and all institutions. This is not the case with La Ferme de la Ruchotte,^® it is a welcoming place, full of human connection and ennoblement. Here everything is created to arouse curiosity, to elicit growth in others in the most beautiful way: through sincere and dynamic emotions! To experience this farm, this restaurant, is as enriching as reading a great work of literature.

In fact, it seems that the best way to say things is to do them, and what’s more, at Fred’s, these things are tasted. The vol-au-vent fine dining experience is the prime example of this. To give positive momentum to your life, you have to do try it, absolutely!”

Yoann le Nevé (Epicurian and Co-Founder of Hellfest)

Because Fred is also a musician…

"I had the chance to meet Fred at Hellfest’s office, but I had already been following him for several years on social media... I was a dedicated follower because I was drawn to his universe, his values and convictions, his love of simple cuisine, his respect for culinary traditions that he perpetuates through his recipes and dishes. I was really touched by how he sublimates ancestral techniques with quality, flavorful products.

I really wanted to go to the Ferme de la Ruchotte^® but I had to cancel our plans to visit with friends three times due to unforeseen circumstances... I started thinking I’d never have the chance to go, then I finally had the honor of welcoming him at Hellfest’s production office where we cooked a recipe with his friend Hervé Coquerel. A recipe that was, of course, shared with our fans on our festival website and social media.

As I expected, it was a great moment filled with connection and, of course, an opportunity to taste his poultry cooked at our home! As a result, I am even more determined and eager to explore his universe in Burgundy and to share great moments of culinary joy and friendship with him and his team!"

Hervé Coquerel (Bon vivant and drummer for the heavy metal bands Loudblast and Black Bomb A))

"My friend Hervé Coquerel and his band’s new album is, deep and powerful, simply beautiful.”
Fred

"La Ferme de la Ruchotte^® - my corner of paradise in the heart of Burgundy! An editor friend suggested the restaurant and I found myself there with my brother and I must admit that since that day in August, my life, and I would even say my way of seeing life in general, has changed...really!

Firstly, in terms of taste of course, because at the Ferme de la Ruchotte^® you can eat the epitome of what an organic farm can yield when the land treated with respect. Exceptional heritage poultry breeds, Gascon pigs, divine eggs, to-die-for vegetables, emotion in every bite and the chef and his team prepare all of these ingredients with a great love for cooking and respect for the ingredients. I am on tour for a good part of the year, the crazy dream of having Fred in the kitchen during our concerts would change our lives and health! Now that’s something to think about...

But above all, in this unique and magical place, far from the bustle of life, I met a second family: Carole - the incarnation of zen, who manages the restaurant and many other things, her two daughters, and Fred of course, the great Chef who has become my friend, another brother, and even he agrees, a soul mate. Everything brings us together, the kitchen but of course the music which is part of our daily life and heavy metal in particular, which is like a drug to us, a vital need!”

Make a carbonade live with Fred and Hérve!

Sébastien Tibackx (Foodie, famous bass player and founder of UBassTool)

"Sometimes there are encounters or places that make you grow. In Côte d’Or (21), the restaurant Ferme gastronomique de la Ruchotte^® is both at the same time. Thank you Fred and Carole for this timeless moment."