Cyrille Gerhardt, Mario Willems and René Mathieu are behind Arômes et Saveurs de saison. Photo: My Roots

Cyrille Gerhardt, Mario Willems and René Mathieu are behind Arômes et Saveurs de saison. Photo: My Roots

Chef René Mathieu and Mario Willems (through their company My Roots) and fragrance specialist Smell Marketing have teamed up to create an experimental, never-before-seen box of five edible fragrances. An original and unique experience.

It’s an adventure that took them no less than two years to develop. Michelin-starred chef , Mario Willems of My Roots and Cyrille Gerhardt of Smell Marketing worked hand in hand to develop a set of five perfumes that can be eaten. “We were inspired by nature and came up with a fragrance for each season, plus a rose scent.” All of it is presented in an elegant box.

These perfumes are in fact blends of hydrolats (a distilled water) that are edible. “You can use them to enhance your cooking or to make cocktails,” explains Mathieu. So as not to leave customers at a loss when it comes to these new products, a set of recipes (in French and English) are available via a QR code printed on the box to help them use these concentrates and discover all their flavours.

“For each season, I wanted to work with seasonal produce, as I do in the kitchen. Spring is a blend of strawberry and rhubarb, summer is a mix of lavender and peach, autumn highlights apples with a sweet apple flavour, and winter brings together patchouli and chocolate.”

Packaged in small bottles with pipettes, just a few drops of these preparations are all you need to add to your dishes. “The rose can be used, for example, to perfume a flute before serving a crémant, or to scent the napkins of guests,” explains Mathieu. “The winter flavour is delicious in warm almond milk. And as all the products are made from natural ingredients, they are safe to eat.”

This boxed set is a first experiment that could perhaps lead to others if it proves a success. “I like trying new things,” says Mathieu. “After producing a comic book with an augmented reality section, this boxed set is a way for me to continue to develop my knowledge of the plant world in a way that doesn’t involve cooking.”

The boxed set will shortly be available on myroots.lu and in selected outlets for €125.

This article was originally published in .