Enfance gourmande
Here is my solution for the medium OSINT challenge Enfance gourmande as part of the 2026 edition of the 404CTF held online by the French secret service (DGSE) and Telecom SudParis.
We are given a video representing one’s memories of a restaurant and an item from the menu (“l’entrecôte de boeuf cuite au barbecue, accompagnée des légumes du potager du Roi”). The visit occurred before New Year’s Eve, during Covid-19 lockdown, in France. The flag is composed with the name of the hotel and the price of the meal.
Here are screenshots from the video :
Approximate location
Using the third screenshot above, I knew the restaurant was located somewhere around Versailles using notable locations such as the basilica of the Sacred Heart (yellow), the Eiffel tower (red) and the Montparnasse tower (blue).
Identifying the restaurant
Screenshot 1 shows that the restaurant is part of Relais & Châteaux. A member list and a map are available here. These 2 restaurants meet the requirements :
- Le Corot, located in Avray
- La Table des Lumières, located in Versailles
However, only Le Corot is located near a lake as suggested by screenshot 2. The name of the associated hotel is Les Étangs de Corot : etangs-corot.com.
Retrieving the price of the meal
France was affected by 3 lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic1 :
- From March 17 to May 11, 2020
- From October 30 to December 15, 2020
- From April 3 to May 3, 2021
Our target must have visited the restaurant in late 2020.
Using Wayback Machine, I found an archive of etangs-corot.com from November 30, 2020 and the menu at : etangs-de-corot.myshopify.com/collections/notre-carte-a-emporter
Back then, the meal was worth 60€.
🚩 Flag
404CTF{les_etangs_de_corot-60}