Sunday brunch at Ruinart

Olivier Livoir, head of hospitality for Maison Ruinart, shares some of his secrets with us.

Olivier Livoir, how did this brunch project come about?

It all started during the health crisis we experienced a few weeks ago.My team and I found ourselves working from home, and the main activity of a department like mine is hospitality, i.e. receiving the public.So we did a lot of work on what was going to be the famous "After" that everyone was talking about. When you run the hospitality department of a House as fine as Ruinart, you wonder what you're going to be able to do without foreign tourists.They make up the bulk of our regular customers. French tourists couldn't necessarily come from far away either, given that at the start we had distance restrictions of less than 100 km.So we thought we had to be able to offer new activities to a more local audience. When you live in Reims, Épernay or 50 km away, you've often already visited the caves Champenoise. So we asked ourselves how we could get people interested, again, in a Champagne House they might already be familiar with. That's how the idea for the brunch came about.

Have you ever offered brunches in this way before?

This is the first time we've created a brunch at Ruinart.It's a convivial occasion, a real time for sharing, because sharing is at the heart of our business.It's even the DNA of the product we make: champagne.

What's special about this Ruinart brunch?

We offer exclusively local products.For example, the charcuterie and cheeses are from the Champagne region, or rather Champardennais.There are a lot of cheese makers because there are a lot more livestock farms in the Ardennes, more so than in the Marne, where the focus is more on vines.We worked hard with our chef Valérie Radou on the selection of products, on the producers we went to meet one by one.That's what we also want to highlight in the brunch, talking about the person behind the product. As for the market gardeners, it's the same: we're purely local, and the fruit and vegetables are selected by Patrice Richard of Maison Ladam, the best "primeur" craftsman in France, based in Reims. You'll also find pâté en croûte made with meats from local producers, salads with fennel and orange to evoke the aromas of the vintages, rosé lentils from Champagne, cheeses such as Chaource and Tomme des Ardennes, and fruit-based desserts like rhubarb tart and cherry clafoutis. We also source apricots from the Drôme region, but always, no matter what, 100% French! As for seafood products, we have chosen not to offer any, with the exception of salmon.And that's because we have a salmon farmer just outside Epernay.

The art of the table is also an important element at Ruinart?

We had already created our own tableware and cutlery.We wanted to use the same crockery as for gourmet meals , but for brunch.We also want our tables to have a story behind them.Our knives, for example, tell a story.One day, we met Arnaud Donckele, the Michelin-starred chef of the Cheval Blanc restaurant in Saint-Tropez, and he introduced us to his cutler, Thierry Henriot, from the Neptunia company, who, as luck would have it, is from Champagne. We brainstormed with him about the idea of creating knives that would only resemble the Maison Ruinart.We were inspired to recycle the House's old desks, the special tables used to stir bottles of champagne.After 30 years, they deteriorate because of the humidity in the cellars.We recycle them and use them as handles and knife holders.

How would you define this Ruinart brunch?

It's a brunch of generosity and sharing.