Gault&Millau Normandy 2027 crowns David Gallienne

Gault&Millau named David Gallienne, of Le Jardin des Plumes in Giverny, its Gault&Millau d'Or for Normandy on Monday evening. The regional ceremony was held at Blonville-sur-Mer, on the Calvados coast, ahead of the guide reaching bookshops this week.

The gold is the top regional distinction in the guide's rolling programme of local editions, which it has been staging across France through the autumn. Gallienne cooks a few hundred metres from Monet's garden, in a dining room that has built its reputation on Norman vegetables and dairy rather than on the region's postcard cream sauces.

Who Gault&Millau Normandy 2027 put on stage

The awards follow the coast road, and the inland départements keep paying for it.

Ten other awards were read out. Samuel Gaspar, at the Château d'Audrieu, took Grand de Demain, the prize for the chef the guide expects to hear from next. Benoît Chicot, of La Toile de Lin in Doudeville, took Jeune Talent, and Claire Chapdelaine, of Le Littré in Avranches, the equivalent award for the dining room.

The rest split along Normandy's obvious strengths. Morgan Socha, of L'Assiette Normande in Honfleur, won the seafood prize; Tom Blain, at Rhiza in Pré d'Auge, the terroir award; Jérôme Alleaume, of L'Essentiel in Deauville, pastry. Juliette Leblond, of La Bise in Le Havre, was named sommelier, and Stéphanie Amy, of L'Angle Saint-Laurent in Bayeux, took the front-of-house prize.

Calvados takes five, Orne takes none

The map matters more than the individual trophies. Calvados collected five awards, Manche three, with Seine-Maritime and Eure sharing the rest. Orne, the inland département with no coast and no resort towns, took nothing at all.

That is the pattern the regional editions keep producing: the money and the covers sit on the coast, in Deauville, Honfleur and Le Havre, and the guides follow. It is the same reading that produced the Paris gold earlier this month, where the winner also sat outside the centre.

The Gault&Millau Normandy 2027 edition reaches bookshops on Thursday. Whether Orne appears in the 2028 selection will say more about the region than another gold in Giverny.