LePresage: Solar restaurant with 400 days of sun a year to open June 2024!

Pierre-André Aubert recounts the history leading up to the imminent grand opening of Le Presage (the Omen) in Marseille, France. Huge lessons for our community, such as patience in working through regulatory hoops and how best to cook with sunlight.
Clement Flint starts us off with a tour of the Scheffler reflector and quick peek inside the converted shipping container. Pierre-André then talks of the years of planning, crowd-funding, and design of a permanent restaurant. Sunplicity creator Alain Bivas joins us for a view of the plot last July, with plans posted on the construction fence, and more closeups of the Scheffler and Solar Brother's SunChef Pro, a large vacuum tube oven.
To keep up with the rapid progress and grand opening, visit lepresage.fr

[@Avocado740]

Neat!

[@SolarCookingGermany]

If you want to grill with a Fresnel lens, put a carbon steel pan on an electric turntable and let the food rotate slowly, like in a microwave. It'll take some time, but it'll grill evenly without burning the food, I get perfect results with this method.

[@normanpouch]

93 million miles away. No cables or pipes. Its magic.

[@patriciabrowne9956]

Need to change that 400 days down to something less. Unless the French consider 12 hour days as counting.

[@KiranMehtaPuneIndia]

Does solar-cooked food taste different/better?

[@SolarCookingMuseum]

Yes, it tastes better, or I would say, all the tastes are preserved, for many reasons: First the temperatures in a solar box oven or panel cooker rise slowly, and without circulating air like a gas oven, the moisture in the food is not drawn out quickly. Most food is intended to stay moist but "modern" cooking methods can dry out just about anything, sometimes before the food has had a chance to really cook. Second the often somewhat longer cooking time at lower overall temperatures mean the proteins, sugars, and other components of the food do not cook to fast and thus char or skip steps in property breaking down proteins etc. While visiting you'll see Pierre-Andre pull out a spectacular batch of baked eggplant--it smelled like butter-baked mushrooms!

[@gordybishop2375]

Different at times as Luther says. It cab be a different approach. Like using less moisture so it cooks faster or as fast depending on preheating and heat limits. If any, of cooking method.

[@lesmcevers915]

It tastes like sunshine

[@normanpouch]

Why not solar PV and electric cooking?

[@SolarCookingMuseum]

If I were to hazard a guess it would be, they wish to cook with the cleanest energy possible using the materials for a cooker that have the least impact on the environment. Aluminum already smelted, vs. PV panels with their many metals plus the extra copper for cabling, etc. etc. Since they can cook with pure unmediated sunlight, why complicate matters? But that's just my guess.

[@SolarCookingGermany]

What does a Scheffler mirror with tracking system cost vs a PV system that does the same? My guess would be thousands vs tens of thousands, and let's not forget that batteries have only a limited lifetime. There's a German startup Solarbakery you can look up for comparison, their installations cost several hundreds of thousands which is insane. Meanwile, you can get a Lytefire for $5000 or diy for much less.

[@SolarCookingMuseum]

I don't know the cost, you could contact Pierre-Andre via their website. Apparently they felt it was cost effective for a restaurant doing dozens of entrees and hour, and they will have 2 at their restaurant slated to open June 11. The tracker for the one unit we saw needed only occasional adjustment, per Clement's tour of the cooker on its trailer. I doubt that the Scheffler costs in the six figures or even close to it.

[@SolarCookingGermany]

@@SolarCookingMuseum I know the smallest Scheffler reflector with 2m² costs €2000, I couldn't find a price tag for the 2.7m², 10m² or 60m² models on Simply-Solar. As I understand it people can also get the instructions and diy, same with Lytefire.