Édouard Chouteau: A Chef’s Passion for Milk

By Laurence Gounel 

Édouard Chouteau took over a Lille institution, La Laiterie, and reinvented it as an authentic gourmet restaurant. His guiding principle? Milk, an ingredient rooted in our collective memory.

« I’ve always liked milk since I was a child. So it felt natural to start working with it when I arrived here.»

After 10 years in Paris, where most of the produce came from Rungis, however good it was, this grandson of a dairy farmer felt the need to reconnect with nature and local producers.

« I need this direct contact, to give fair value to the right people. What I do here isn’t palace cuisine, but cooking rooted in local produce and the reality of the region. »

From the very beginning, he built a partnership with the Mont des Récollets farm in Cassel, which today provides him with raw milk, exceptional crème fraîche, and goat’s cheese.

The first nod to the restaurant’s heritage? A mise en bouche of homemade yoghurt: curdled milk with herbs and flowers from Flanders.

Whey reduced to a syrupy caramel with a lingering finish… The same indulgence continues in the pre-dessert: puffed milk mousse, fermented milk sorbet, homemade milk jam, and two other milk variations. A lightly vanilla-scented, fresh and not overly sweet interlude that ‘resets’ the palate for the dessert to come.

Although milk varies in density with the seasons, spring milk being the best, the chef likes to use it in winter to enrich his purées and root vegetables.

He also makes his own butter, extracting the whey to infuse haddock and accompany one of the restaurant’s signature dishes: a haddock soufflé biscuit with caviar.

« Milk is a wonderful ingredient: fairly neutral, easy to work with, and able to take on a variety of textures. I like it slightly frothy, for example, infused with bacon, thyme, or rosemary. »

At the end of each meal, customers at La Laiterie leave with a gift: a small pot of milk pudding made with gluten-free grains from a neighbouring farm.

By highlighting this chef’s inspiring journey, Teritoria reaffirms its commitment to authentic gastronomy, grounded in product integrity and respect for the terroir. His passion for milk and local produce illustrates Teritoria’s vision: hospitality that nurtures creativity, supports small producers, and helps build a sustainable future for the culinary profession.

With Teritoria, discover innovative chefs who, through their cuisine, express a deep love of nature and its riches, offering gastronomic experiences that nourish the soul and respect the planet.

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