La Rhétaise is a restaurant serving (among others meals) oysters and sea food. All of which is harvested locally by themselves.
The gallery above shows how this harvesting looks like: nets and baskets containing the oysters have to be collected from the swamp manually.
Jana (one of the owners) and her team get the oysters out of the water in either baskets or nets. To bring them to the cleaning station a forklift is used. After visiting Jana and her team, there was one thing that stills sticks with me: fun - they laugh so much that it more seems to be a hobby than a job.
The oysters have to be fed to the cleaning machine manually. Sea water is used to clean them from any remainders of the swamp. In case any of them is broken, it will be dumped.
Depending on how the oysters will be served, they will be opened for the guests. Opening requires some experience. Jana told me, that Elisa learned very quick and is a “champion”. Although this is a monotonous job, Elisa always has time for a quick chat and some laughter.
Kilian is the master of their kitchen. Apart from cooking he also works outdoors in the swamps to collect and harvest the oysters - although he doesn’t like to eat them :-P
Orian takes care of serving the drinks. The three dogs are also part of Jana’s team - they help with what they can to best: napping, eating fish, hunting rabbits, …