It's a charming river, the Canche, which flows into the English Channel. It's so peaceful, in fact, that in La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, a hamlet in the north of France, the dyke along the river had over time blended into the valley. "There had never been a flood in 300 years," said Alexandre Gauthier, the chef at the two-Michelin-starred La Grenouillère. Yet, on 10 November 2023, he experienced the unthinkable in his restaurant, nestled in the heart of the marshes just a few meters from the riverbank.

The rain had been pounding for days against the bay windows of the building designed by architect Patrick Bouchain, and Gauthier was hard at work with his team, surrounded by the smell of warm bread. One of his cooks was busy carving a winter radish, another peeling pearl onions, tiny components destined for the chef's creations, plated like works of art. In the afternoon, an eerie silence suddenly fell over the kitchen. There was a faint but unmistakable whoosh of water rising into a house. The Canche had burst its banks.

One year later, La Grenouillère remains closed. Everything from the insurance to the renovations and permits is taking an interminable amount of time. Moreover, it's raining hard again this autumn. Gauthier listens to the frogs, which had disappeared for years, and keeps an eye on the dyke, raised by 20 centimeters by the département's technical services. "It won't be enough. The marshes are full, they can't take another flood."

The images of Valencia, Spain, submerged on 29 October, reawakened the trauma and stirred up memories. Memories of that day in November 2023, when, after the initial shock, the chef's hat was replaced by that of a general on a battlefield, and his team transformed into a regiment of soldiers. Save everything you can: crockery, pots and pans, furniture, wine and flour reserves. Run to get sand and sacks, fill them, tie them and build barricades. But the water still seeped through the floors and pipes, black with mud, until it lapped at the edge of the long communal table. You needed waders to cross the courtyard, and the dining room resembled a lake. "It's almost beautiful," Gauthier had written on Instagram, announcing an imminent reopening: "Our home took on water but we didn't!"

That was without accounting for the flooded garden, the ravaged guest rooms, the burst pipes, the destroyed toilets, the unusable stoves and cold rooms. There was also the rust, which began eating away at the metal structure from day one. The chef smiled bravely, alone in the storm. "The firefighters were overwhelmed, the politicians powerless and the contractors nowhere to be found," he said.

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