The fabulous fate of the mill's Etang
Do you like nature, quietness, gastronomy and being an archbishop? In the heart of the Doubs, the mill's pond offers twenty cosy rooms, a spa, a traditional bistro, a star restaurant and a welcome to onions. An enchanting place built and managed by an entire family of Francs-Comtois, over the years and generations. Jacques Barnachon and his sister Sandrine Boissonnat have taken over their parents' estate for some 30 years.
One is an accomplished cook, the other an emeritus sommelier. And both of them are sacred entrepreneurs. But let's start from the beginning: once upon a time... a fantastic family!
A cabin by the pond
It was in 1972 that Maurice Barnachon had a crush on this exceptional site, in a wild state, in the commune of Bonnétage, in the Doubs, perched at 900 meters above sea level... «There was nothing. No water, no farm, a ruin, swamps and fir trees», tells Jacques, the Benjamin of the three children of Maurice and Renée Barnachon. The problem is that Mauritius is native to the Loire. Arriving in Bonnéin 1957, he may have exercised his many commercial talents in the region and married Renée, born in this Doubian village, Mauritius, he is not here. So, selling him this land... but Maurice doesn't let go, which ends up in 1976. A first part of the ponds is dug, a wooden cabin arranged: this is the beginning of the fabulous adventure of the Mill Pond. Renée, a very popular waitress in the village, moved to the mantles of the cabin with girls, Sandrine and Corinne, sisters, cousin, aunt... and sent roasted chicken and fries to gogo. Maurice installs a bridge on the pond.
Fishing, laughing and drinking. Anyway, it's a box.
« From June to September, it's full. At that time, France had fun!», comments Jacques Barnachon, born in 1971, who, as a child, wrestles in the midst of this joyful crowd.
Opening of the chalet
The cabin is growing, the pond too. Mauritius deposited a building permit in 1980, finally accepted in 1982.
Representative of trade in watches, lighters, pipes..., Mauritius built, the weekend, the cottage of his hands, assisted by friends and family. «Mom's brothers and sisters come to help. A sibling of nine children, all still here today, goes from 78 to 93 years. I've got 23 cousins and 52 little cousins and small cousins», tells Jacques who remembers that he was required for painting. Winter 1983, it snows. A lot. The family no longer had a penny. The cottage remains empty. A bank eventually believes in the project and grants a loan to Mauritius. Isolation, floors, heating, electricity are made. The chalet opened on April 5, 1985. « We've been here for forty years!», notes proudly Jacques. But at the mitan of the 1980s, the road was not cleared. If the bar sells beers, crazy wines from Henri Maire (a Jura cremant) and Pontarlier anis, if grilled pieces and fries of carp or perch make the guests' joy in the beautiful season, on October 15, everything stops. «My father, mother and sister remained without pay until 1990», says Jacques. All this time, he grew up with little Jacques, but joining the family cottage doesn't tell him more than that.
Learning from Jacques
«I wanted to be a builder. Join the Companions of duty, build roofs and renovate cathedrals»Remembers Jacques. But at Barnachon, Maurice decides and the father wants his son to be a cook. Bar-point. Jacques integrates, against his will, the professional high school of Pontarlier: «I was fucking stupid, stuck all the time, I didn't agree.»Today the star chef laughs. Until this internship at the Hôtel de France de Villers-le-Lac, at Yves Droz-Bartholet: «I've discovered things I've never seen before, I've enjoyed it and I'm asking to do my apprenticeship there.» Jacques gets his kitchen CAP, he won't be a builder (although...) and the culinary passion won't let him go.
He followed the beautiful experiences: the Hostellerie du Vieux-Moulin at Jean-Pierre Silva, a two-star in Bouilland, Côte-d'Or, then at Jean Crotet at the Hostellerie de Levernois, near Beaune, doubly starred as well. Wasn't it too hard to work in these stars? Jacques laughs with good heart: «It was almost a vacation after the rhythm at Mr. Droz's.
At his house, it was 6 days a week and after the service, in turn, we stayed to make the family dinner. It didn't matter, it was like that.» This endurance, this energy, this dip is also one of Jacques Barnachon's brands. He then made a quick visit to Philippe Groult's, L-Amphycles, Paris, but, the capital, no thanks. He returned home in 1992.
The beginnings of Jacques at the Mill Etang
When he arrives at the Mill Pond, the kitchens turn with roast chicken, fried apples and fish frying. A good franquette in a rather brief room which still serves some 28,000 cutlery l-year, at 70 francs. But James saw and stored many other things during these starry experiments. It has other ambitions: to modernize the kitchens and to change the culinary offer.
It won't happen without serious explanations with his father and sister, Sandrine, who has been managing the restaurant's accounts for several years. Two years later, new work plan and new oven, the restaurant sent «plus» 14,000 meals a year, but 140 francs. The quality has climbed, the accounts are kept, the brother and sister act together. Jacques Barnachon no longer leaves his neck or his toque. The mill's pond will not cease to grow, to improve, to evolve.
Consecrations
In 1996, Le Michelin opened his pages with two forks. In 1999, parents agreed to sell to their children. New projects, new works over several years, a bistro and a gourmet restaurant, a spa, comfortable rooms will be born. Sandrine, passionate about wine, tastes all-va and becomes a well-informed sommelier at the head today from a cellar with 1200 references and some 15,000 bottles.
Jacques, on the advice of Philippe Gobet, «my godfather, my protector, my friend», sign up for multiple cooking competitions: « I spent three times the MOF, without getting it, but very instructive, six times the Taittinger, three times the Delaveyne... I learn, I learn, I learn! » In 2000, the stakhanovist of the contests won the Trophée Masse from this family-run foie gras company. In 2005, Michelin awarded a star to the gourmet restaurant in L A consecration that lasts today: Twenty years of starhood is a milky way!
The New Generation
Projects, new adventures dot the way of Jacques. If he is now focusing on the mill's Etang, he opened a restaurant in Morteau, sold in 2020, another in Hong Kong where he visited about 30 times, arrested in 2018. It's time to keep the star, maybe realize new dreams and consolidate the family home... thanks to the new generation. Since 2022, Céline Delagrange, one of Sandrine's daughters, has acquired the business of the hotel section of the house and manages rooms, breakfasts and lingerie: «I am very happy with my decision. We all work for each other. We help each other and my sister Émilie will soon join me.
I have first contact with customers and advise bistro or gourmet», says all smile the young woman, mother of three little girls. And she knows better than anyone to recommend Jacques's dishes that she loves: frog legs, of course, but also risotto with Morteau sausage and in the county, the famous cream and yellow wine morilla stew or duck foie gras with red fruits, the chef's signature dish. As for the Charolais beef fillet, lacquered with Sakatia pepper and its creamy vanilla sauce from Madagascar, this is the favorite dish of Alexander, the son of Jacques who joined his father in cooking this early year. « I always wanted to work here. I started at 14-15 years old, did my apprenticeship there, then my additional mention in wines with Sandrine», tells the young man born in 2003, who trained among other things at Wenger House, a tri-toilete in Switzerland. Alexandre turns in the kitchen as in the room: «I like to do everything and want to know how to do everything. It's important to perpetuate everything my grandparents, my father and my aunt have done.» Her twin sister, Charlotte, planned to integrate the house at the end of her studies. What a fantastic family!
A big family house
Jacques Barnachon surveyed the 40 hectares that now surround the mill's Etang. In season, he picks pimprenelle, oxalis, angelic, queen-of-the-pres, wild cumin... that will perfume his dishes. He points at a thin pipe in the trunk of a birch to collect the sap. He knows every plot, every plant, every tree in this estate. The Franc-Comtois caress the bark of a spruce: «I saw him grow up.» Close and respectful of nature and green writing in which they live, James and Sandrine, their parents before them, and, today, their children.
Valérie Bouvart
For culinary magazine n°955 May/June 2025