What he found blew him away. “Every day I saw something new, and each day was amazing,” he says.

He visited small farms in the New Territories, the fish market in Aberdeen and the wet market in Central district.

“The farm, the fishermen, the purveyors and producers were all amazing. I didn’t expect it to be so good, and I knew we had the right foundations to make this happen,” he says.

The result is Feuille (French for leaf) in Central, Toutain’s first venture outside France.

At his flagship in Paris, now celebrating its 10th year, “it’s about David Toutain, about Normandy where I’m from, and French products”. There, he sources produce from his own farm, where he can often still be found getting his hands dirty.

“It’s always about vegetables, provenance, and working with nature and the seasons,” says Toutain. Hong Kong is different. Without access to his own farm, he relies on the city’s independent farmers, growers and suppliers.

While many chefs complain about the territory’s challenging weather, which makes it hard to source consistently good local produce, Toutain sees it as working with the seasons, and an opportunity to use vegetables and fruit in creative ways.

“We cannot organise the weather, so we look at what we can fix.”

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Instead of asking suppliers to guarantee set harvests across six or eight months, he asks them what they have each day.

“We’re agile enough to work with what we are given,” he says, and such flexibility helps “change the dialogue between local farmers and restaurants”.

Feuille’s menu reflects his vegetable-focused, no-waste philosophy, and is divided into four multi-course sections inspired by the life cycle of plants.

First stop is “grains and seeds”, which might include an earthy wafer topped with mashed pumpkin, quinoa and thyme, or creamed egg and corn with a squiggle of cumin caramel and served in the shell with matchstick-thin breadsticks for dipping.

Next, “leaves, stems and roots” features a signature bread. In the absence of local butter, Toutain improvises with dill pil pil spread, made with turbot bones to impart a luscious, collagen-rich texture.

A main course described as “red meat” is superbly cooked breast and leg of pigeon under a thatch of beetroot leaves. Accompanying it is beetroot gnocchi, beetroot mille-feuille and beetroot consommé, using nearly every part of the vegetable.

“Flowers and fruits” is dessert, possibly an intriguing medley of powdered and candied tomato, longan foam and marigold petals, while the finale, “origins”, comes full circle with petits fours that incorporate plant parts from each cycle.

Toutain spent many of his early years on his grandparents’ farm in Normandy in northern France. His grandfather worked the fields and reared livestock while his grandmother grew vegetables and cooked hearty meals for the family on a wood-burning stove.

He wanted to emulate his grandfather and become a farmer when he grew up, but at age 15, his best friend decided to become a cook, and he followed suit.

It was an unpromising start. Toutain admits that, at first, he lacked the motivation or passion to be a chef. His mother, who had initially objected to his career choice because of its gruelling conditions, encouraged him to continue.

While staging at a one-Michelin-star restaurant in Normandy, something clicked.

“I loved the order and organisation. We would pick mushrooms and wild herbs, buy from the local farm, and everything suddenly made sense to me,” he says.

From them, he learned about terroir, vegetables, herbs, the importance of a restaurant’s spirit and the need for a point of view.

“It’s about the story, not just the food, because chefs are also artists,” says Toutain.

By 2012, Toutain was earning rave reviews as head chef at L’Agapé Substance, when he decided to take a year off to explore the world with his wife. He describes the experience using his favourite superlative.

Eating tacos on the street in Mexico – amazing. Dining in no-frills hawker centres beneath gleaming skyscrapers in Singapore – amazing. Doing pop-up restaurants in a different city in Japan every other night – amazing.

For him, travel and exposure to different cultures are essential parts of being a chef, because “it opens your vision not just of food, but of life, everything”.

Returning to France, Toutain opened his own restaurant in 2013, which in addition to two Michelin stars, holds a Michelin green star for sustainability.

Despite the technical prowess of his cooking, he insists his food is simple.

“We can do 20 to 25 dishes per person, but each one is very focused. I prefer to have a long tasting menu where each plate showcases a different technique, flavours, textures and way to eat.”

Toutain also wants to dispel notions that Feuille is a vegetarian restaurant, and that the produce is 100 per cent local.

“I don’t want to put a number on how much is local because it puts unnecessary pressure on us,” he says.

Hong Kong has been fertile ground for Toutain’s curious mind.

“I just go to the market with a local chef and buy [unfamiliar things], then come back to the kitchen and don’t speak to anyone. I try to understand the product and prepare it my way.”

He waxes lyrical about spring bamboo shoots, which is “like my caviar, my truffle”. Other items such as lotus root proved harder to crack, and he admitted defeat and sought advice from his team.

Having worked for so many chefs whose restaurants have won three Michelin stars, Toutain is asked if he feels the pressure to follow suit, or if opening in Hong Kong adds to the challenge.

With characteristic optimism, he answers: “While winning a Michelin star is a great achievement and I am very grateful to have done so, I don’t wake up in the morning aiming to win a star, so I don’t feel the pressure … I don’t want to drive myself crazy thinking about that, and hope it will come naturally when it is meant to.”

“I’m very happy to be here in Hong Kong and very happy to meet nice people. I know we need to work on things, but we get better and better every day.”