François-Xavier Laubacher

Your cooking feels deeply rooted yet constantly moving at the same time. Where does François-Xavier end and Kitchnkink begin?

Kitchnkink is the excuse I needed to finally step out of the frame - to be cook, curator and host at once, in a way that’s both unconventional (kitsch) and spicy (kink). My initial studies and my earlier career kept boxing me into something strict and never quite satisfying. With Kitchnkink I let myself embrace every side of who I am, the bright ones and the darker ones too. François-Xavier holds the roots, grounded in personal history and terroir; Kitchnkink is where they’re free to move, act and interact. Take the sablé stamps I’m making for a one-off archive sale this July: a Petit-Beurre, a French classic, pressed with a boot-sole motif from the Maison’s archive - the dough is pure François-Xavier, the imprint pure Kitchnkink.

You grew up surrounded by mountains, forests and family cooking in Eastern France. When you think about your childhood, what’s the first smell, flavor or image that still lives inside your food today?

My grandmother Lucette drove a tiny apple-green Twingo that she kept filled with cakes, pâtés and fruit tarts - the whole car smelled of caramelized tart. She had a hard life running her own farm, but however busy she was, wherever she was headed, that little car was always full of homemade food. She was an incredible woman, a dedicated farmer and a generous cook. It’s this kind of family cooking, rooted in the season and in whatever’s growing nearby, that I’m trying to make mine today.

Paris is your “home and nest”, but also part of your creative mythology. If someone had 24 hours in the city to understand your world, where should they go — to eat, wander, look, shop, get lost?

If you want to understand my world in Paris, spend your time wandering between Bagnolet, Montreuil, and the 20th arrondissement — this is where I usually am, and where many of my obsessions, habits, and references come together. Start with the Tours Mercuriales in Bagnolet, inspired by New York City’s World Trade Center. Try to catch sight of them from wherever you can: their reflective windows are hypnotic. If you want to dig deeper into my fascination with them, look up Antoine Séguin’s book Type Mercurial or watch Virgil Vernier’s film Mercuriales. Then make your way to Parc des Guilands, perched between Bagnolet and Montreuil. It’s the perfect place to wander, picnic, run, read, or simply take in the view and the energy of the area.

In Montreuil, stop by À la Marge, my favorite bookshop. It’s where I go for thoughtful reads about the past, the present, and the future, as well as an excellent selection of cookbooks. For lunch, head to Paloma in Belleville, where you can enjoy a fresh, high-quality three-course set menu for just €16. Back in Montreuil, spend some time around Place de la République. It’s the place for family couscous at Bar de la Place, and on Saturday mornings, the food market is not to be missed. If you want to shop like a local, visit Myiam Robespierre, where you’ll find seasonal, mostly organic groceries sourced from the surrounding region. For a swim, I love the public pools Yvonne Godard and Georges Vallerey in the 20th arrondissement. Go early in the morning or late at night, when the atmosphere feels especially good. And finally, end the day at Place de la Réunion in the 20th, with sunset beers and fries.

Talking eateries, where do you go in Paris when you need comfort food or fresh culinary references? The places that still surprise you, challenge your palate or make you want to cook differently.

Honestly, I don’t eat out much, and when I do I tend to order the same dish I love at the same place. But when I feel like sitting down and enjoying something fresh, I head to Belleville and its family-run Asian restaurants. At Lao Siam I go for the papaya salad and the chicken green curry, a crunchy salad and a heart-warming spicy curry. The upfront chili heat resets my palate and pushes me to cook with more punch! I also love Chantefable, a classic French bistro in Gambetta, where I’ll order a plate of oysters, some snails, and profiteroles for dessert, my absolute comfort food combo!

Your approach to food feels connected to atmospheres as much as ingredients. Which places in Paris — markets, bookstores, cafés, gardens, streets — feed your imagination the most right now?

Paris has been so hot these past few weeks and it’s not even summer yet! Almost every day I walk up to the Guilands park, just behind my house, where I have the best time enjoying the view over Paris (sunset right next to the Eiffel Tower), reading, working, exercising, people-watching and picnicking real banquets with friends. Dates, people on their own, friends, couples, families - there’s so much joy and youthful energy up there, it makes me really happy to see all these people from different backgrounds come together in one free, open space, and that’s exactly what I want from my cooking and my guest-house project: to gather people who wouldn’t usually sit together and share a table. The park also looks out over the Mercuriales, eastern Paris’s iconic twin towers, one of my architectural obsessions.

Lately you’ve been spending more time outside the city. What are your favorite escapes around Paris when you want to slow down, eat beautifully and reconnect with nature?

Escaping by bike is pure bliss for me. Riding makes me feel free to go anywhere, stop anywhere, breathe, slow down, and sometimes go fast too! Before setting off, I stop by the market on Place de la République in Montreuil for some cherry tomatoes, goat cheese, a good piece of bread and sparkling wine. Then I head east out of Paris along the Marne for a full one-day adventure. You start in very chic Joinville-le-Pont with its riverside villas, then reach the oh-so-kitsch, charming, out-of-time guinguette in Neuilly-sur-Marne, where you can drink and dance into the night - the food is basic but the terrasse by the river is the whole point. Next comes the brutalist, cinematic Bofill architecture in Noisy-le-Grand, and finally a swim by the Château de Champs-sur-Marne - careful where you jump, it’s forbidden and not without danger but so invigorating. Afterwards, perfect timing to enjoy your market snack. Bring sunscreen, and don’t be afraid of the aches the next day: it’s a solid 50 km ride!

Your retreats and culinary residencies seem to blur the line between travel, hospitality and storytelling. What makes a place inspiring enough for you to build a whole food experience around it?

Definitely the people behind it! Since I started this culinary adventure, I’ve met extraordinary people with sincere values and a clear vision: for their companies, their teams, and the world as a whole, which makes collaborating with them feel natural, interesting and fun. Sofia, from Tribú Mūtō, hired me to cook for families on retreats where parents come with their children to spend quality time together but also apart, since the kids spend the day in the park with Montessori-style educators while the parents can work remotely or simply relax at the château. Step by step, hand in hand with Sofia - we’ve been working together for two years now - my mission has grown from ‘just’ cooking for the families and staff to curating special dinners and experiences for parents and children across the castle, usually the Château de Thauvenay near Sancerre, by the Loire river. I take so much pleasure in dreaming up and setting a table in an unexpected spot - outside in the park is my favourite - one that makes guests feel really unique. And welcoming the children into the kitchen to bake cookies, letting them discover what’s behind a recipe, is so much fun and messy at the same time. I never would have imagined my adult life filled with the magic of children, and I’m deeply grateful for it. What links us all, I think, is that we want to feed a world full of genuine human connections and surprises

Are there any chefs, farmers, winemakers or artisans outside Paris whose work deeply inspires you right now?

There are two women chefs I find especially inspiring. One is Keiko Kuwakino, based in the Japanese Alps; the other is Manon Fleury, who opened her own restaurant in Paris while maintaining close relationships with producers outside the city. Both have a deeply sensitive approach to plants, seasons, and the possibilities held in a single ingredient. I think it’s both poetic and necessary to use every part of what you cook: there’s so much flavor in the skin, juice, and flesh of a tomato, for example. I was lucky enough to work for Keiko in Japan for a month. You imagine Japanese kitchens as disciplined and repetitive, but hers was the opposite: a joyful, baroque storm of flavors. Many of the ingredients we used were harvested ourselves in the surrounding forests.

When it comes to hospitality, I’m deeply touched by the genuine, generous approach of Guillaume and Alexandre at the Au Petit Thouars guesthouse. Both came from the fashion and design world in Paris before opening their beautiful house to guests in a hidden corner of western France. Alexandre runs the house, Guillaume the kitchen. Their interiors blend vintage paintings and objects with furniture they designed themselves, and the whole house opens onto a terrace overlooking a stunning 17th-century château. They create the atmosphere themselves and love sharing it with their guests, alongside their three dogs and a newborn duckling. Whether it’s tasting a glass of rosé from Jardins de Fleury and a plate from Guillaume’s cuisine on the terrace, or simply enjoying the quiet rhythm of the house, every moment feels deeply personal. Guillaume cooks with produce from local farms — butter, vinegar, asparagus, raspberries — and his plates draw on his Alsatian roots. That’s certainly why we’re such a good match, and why I’ll be in residence there, cooking in their kitchen throughout July.

Which region around Paris do you think is having the most interesting food moment today?

Parisian suburbs! Years ago I heard an interview with Renzo Piano where he lamented the museumification of European city centres and praised the rising unapologetic energy of the suburbs. I couldn’t agree more: the centre of Paris has become very elitist, whereas the outer arrondissements and extra-muros Paris beyond the périphérique are blossoming with fresh projects. And you can taste it: in the 20th, around Place de la Réunion, you can have great Turkish eggs for breakfast at Trombone Coffee Shop, or sit down to fine dining at Moderno or Des Terres. Cross the périphérique and you’ll find delicious couscous at Bar de la Place, or fresh, contemporary plates at Arsène on Place de la République in Montreuil. Again, what excites me about all these places is their warm hospitality, built on sharing and convivial service.

What’s a place outside Paris that still feels secret or underrated to you — somewhere that captures a different rhythm of France people rarely experience?

Go experience Thouars for a weekend! Stay at the guesthouse Au Petit Thouars, hit the market on Saturday morning for fresh oysters and a glass of white from Domaine des Venelles, then wander the old town and its antique shops. Have a bistronomic lunch at Le Café des Arts, spend the afternoon by the river at Crêperie Sarrazine, and end the day watching the sun set over the château from the guesthouse terrasse, a glass of rosé from Jardins de Fleury in hand. The château was built by Cardinal Richelieu’s own architect and has quietly become the town’s school - you can tour it on guided visits in summer. That’s definitely a rare taste of a French art de vivre that still feels secret.

If you could take someone away from Paris for a long weekend entirely curated by you — food, landscapes, markets, hidden addresses, late dinners — what would the journey look like?

The Vosges, in Gérardmer — and, soon, at my future guesthouse. You arrive late on Friday evening on the last direct TGV from Paris, and we sit down at home to a good pâté lorrain and a frisée salad. Or you can head straight to dinner at the Ferme-Auberge de la Mexel, where Brigitte’s generous local cooking is full of flavour and, sometimes, ends with dancing in the kitchen alongside her. The next morning starts with a breathtaking sunrise and a hike along the Route des Crêtes. You walk past lingering patches of snow, with cliffs dropping toward Alsace on one side and the rounded green Vosges on the other. On a clear day, you can even glimpse the Alps in the distance. Along the way, I love foraging bilberries and wild fennel. Afterwards, lunch at the Ferme-Auberge du Kastelberg is essential: a traditional set menu of meat pie in pastry, smoked pork with melting potatoes cooked in butter, onion and bacon, Munster cheese with cumin seeds, and farm fromage blanc with kirsch and sugar. It’s a hearty meal, but winters here were once long and harsh.

In the afternoon, head down to Lac de Longemer for a swim or a pedalo ride on its incredibly green waters. Then stop at Les Herbes du Valtin for herbal teas and liqueurs before returning to Gérardmer for sunset by the lake and a flammekueche dinner at La Géromoise. On your last morning, you can choose between two routes. Cross into Alsace for white asparagus at Ferme Clarisse and unique jams and local delicacies from Christine Ferber’s wonderfully charming épicerie. Or stay in the Vosges: visit the animals and shop for farm produce at Ferme des Plombes, hike around Lac de Lispach, and finish with some home-linen shopping at Gérardmer’s local outlets.

And lastly, if you could bring one place you deeply love from the French countryside into the very center of Paris — a château, a farm, a restaurant, a garden, even just an atmosphere — what would it be, and why?

Honestly, I’d bring the lakeside summer nights of my teenage years - that easy, light, open-air feeling. And the late summer nights in Paris already come close: kids jumping into the canal, people enjoying the terrasses, the whole city feeling carefree and joyful, like my youth by the lake. That’s all I really want: happy, relaxed and cheerful atmosphere.