One name, three generations

Grandma Bras acquired a simple unpretentious restaurant in Laguiole in 1956, serving up "delicious home cooking, well prepared" (according to her son, Michel) to local workers. A precocious initiation for this autodidact, who even at a tender age was to be found in the kitchen helping his mother. From necessity sprung invention as Michel Bras embarked on his life's work, guided as much by his sense of contemplation as his relentless desire to experiment.

With his wife Ginette, he took over the running of the family restaurant in 1968, creating his own style of cuisine, refined, audacious, sincere and most importantly a transcription of nature and a reflection of Aubrac, with a contemporary voice. In 1992, he created the restaurant Le Suquet on a promontory overlooking Laguiole.

For Sébastien, the eldest child, cooking was always in his blood. This boy, who was lulled to sleep by the noise of the pots and pans and the aromas of the bouillons simmering in the kitchen below his bedroom, started cooking at a very young age. No time for him to take his time. Having successfully passed his 'diplôme de cuisinier' (professional cooking diploma) at the Institut Paul Bocuse, he was on the verge of leaving for San Francisco when the lure of Aubrac and the imminent opening of Le Suquet resulted in a change of plan. Father and son thus developed this relationship of confidence and sometimes diffidence, although they were both conscious that they shared the same vision and sensibility, that of an ethereal yet grounded style of cuisine, shaped by the land and raised with generosity of spirit. Ever since the day when his strawberry and rhubarb dessert found its way onto the menu, Sébastien has succeeded little by little in imposing his own emotions and writing his own script, without denying the past but, on the contrary, with an enormous respect for his culinary heritage. As a result, Michel has been able to retreat gradually from the stoves of Le Suquet since 2009 and spend a little more time with his grandchildren, who are already expressing an interest in what goes on in the kitchen…