And to think I’d probably walked by this place in the rue des Saussies just across the street from Chez Sarko, or the Elysees Palace, dozens of times during the twenty years I’ve lived in Paris without giving it a second thought. On the other hand, Stephane Delleré, one of the greatest bistro keepers in the city, has only been the owner for a few months. Delleré, whom I admire to no end, previously ran Le Gavroche, which he still owns, and Le Duc de Richelieu near the Gare de Lyon, which he’s sold, and originally from La Sarthe, he’s worked in almost every type of restaurant job you can imagine, which is one major reason why his places are always so heart-warmingly good. The other, of course, is that he insists on serving only the very best of everything—his beef comes from La Bourcherie Premiere, he buys his wines from flock of independent vigneron friends, and everything else aside from the cheese is homemade. As crucial as Delleré experience and commitment to quality maybe, however, the real reason his restaurants are so remarkable is that he has a real vocation for making other people happy.
It helps, too, that La Cave Beavau has the delicious atmosphere created by an almost untouched 1950s Parisian bistro interior, including the wonderful violin-shaped swirls on the ceiling that made me think of a set for Cocteau’s “Orphee,” a bank of old-fashion under-counter refrigerators behind the long bar in the entry, and various other vintage bits and pieces, including cash registers and telephones from several different long ago decades. Of course no one designed this look, however, and of course this is why it’s so wonderful, guilessly sincere and haphazardly authentic.
Bruno and I met two friends at the bar and we sipped a terrific white wine from La Touraine and, thanks to Delleré, ate more hors d’oeuvres than we should have before sitting down to dinner. But I couldn’t stop myself, and neither could Bruno or Ann or Maggie. So Stephane kept slicing more delicious Serrano ham and refilling a small plate of bulots (sea snails) poached in a good court bouillon everytime we emptied same.
Finally we sat at a cosy booth table in the backroom and ordered a round of profoundly Gallic and profoundly delicious starters—oeufs mayonnaise (hard-boiled eggs in ivory-colored homemade
mayonnaise); jambon persille, that Burgundian classic of shredded ham in parslied aspic; and two superb terrines—chicken liver and duck, both of which were homemade, which explained their perfect coarse texture. Next, an impeccable steak tartare with homemade frites, a pave de rumsteak with pepper cream sauce, an andouillette AAAAA and a daily special of sautéed scallops with fresh vegetables, all excellent. And finally, baba au rhum and Saint Marcellin cheese, which we all shared. Delleré has also put together a superb wine list, including many excellent Beaujolais—Saint Amour, Julienas, Chenas, etc., along with remarkable bottles of Crozes Hermitage and Cornas. La Cave Beauvau is a truly precious address for anyone who really loves authentic, moderately priced old-fashioned bistros.
------------
Though not easy to get to, the northern edges of the 17th arrondissement continue to be the setting for a variety of the city’s best new contemporary bistros (Hier et Aujourd'hui, L'Entredgeu), and the latest candidate is the very good new La Fourchette du Printemps, a simple storefront place just across the train cut of the defunct circular railway known as La Petite Ceinture.
It’s a very simple, sincere and reasonably priced place with white walls, oak tables, aluminum hanging lamps a la IKEA, and comfortable scarlet-upholstered chairs, and I stopped in to sample one of the excellent good-value lunch menus (18 Euros to 30 Euros) prepared by two amiable young men who trained at a suite of star-studded tables before going out on their own. We started with a complimentary hors d’oeuvre of delicious creamy parsnip soup, and then sampled an excellent old-fashioned potage Dubarry (cream of cauliflower soup) that had been made with an excellent, full-flavored bouillon and a delicious terrine with a rich lobe of foie gras and a delicate wrapping of fine ribbons of poached leek. Next, a perfectly cooked cod steak with a sauté of autumn vegetables for my friend, and a carefully cooked supreme de volaille (chicken breast) on a bed of very good risotto for me. We finished with simple but very good desserts—meringue with orange slices and a deconstructed tarte Tatin that was less successful; instead of baked apple, cinammon-flavored crumbs and cream in a dreaded verrine (stout glass), I’d have preferred the real McCoy. Still, this very pleasant restaurant offers very good food at very reasonable prices, and I’ll definitely go back to sample the Waterzoi de la Mer on the dinner menu.
La Cave Beauvau, 4, Rue des Saussaies, 8th, Tél: 01-42-65-24-90. Metro: Miromesnil or Champs-Élysées – Clemenceau. Open Monday-Saturday, 7am-8pm, and Wednesday, Friday and Saturday for dinner. Average 35 Euros.
La Fourchette du Printemps, 30 rue du Printemps, 17th, Tel. 01-42-27-26-97. Metro: Wagram. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. Lunch menus 18 – 30 Euros, Dinner 42 Euros.
]]>Rose himself was manning the new gas-fired rotisserie in the small open kitchen, and I have to say I really admired the way that he not only sent out excellent food all night long but adopted a cordial if thoroughly Zen attitude towards all of the sharp pencils in the room. They serve a single menu here nightly, and we began with a superb salad of gem lettuce garnished with pomegranate seeds and thin slices of delicious raw noir de Bigorre bacon and perfectly dosed with a cider-vinegar vinaigrette, a brilliant mix of textures and varying tones of sweet-and-sour acidity. Next, the main event, half of a beautifully roasted Coucou de Rennes chicken garnished with roasted carrots, turnips, parsnips and apples and a side of potatoes cooked with goose fat. This was happy, delicious, generously served comfort food at its very best, and the firm, almost alabaster-like flesh of the chicken was fine but full of flavor.
Finally, a baked pear cake with a wonderful garnish of creme fraiche, apple puree, lime zest and chocolate shards.
A fine bottle of biodynamique Moulin a Vent vieille vignes at 23 Euros was just the ticket with this meal, and La Table 28, still a work in progress, is a place where I could very easily become a regular. Speaking briefly with Rose after dinner, though, he advised that reservations are essential, because he can only get so many of these chickens a day. He also mentioned that he'd liked to do suckling pig on the rotisserie, and maybe duck, and that he's toying with the idea of serving an all shellfish menu during the summer; rotisseried lobster just a ten minute walk from my front door? Now I really have something to look forward to next summer.
---------------------
Get ready to wince--the latest dispiriting French take on American eating in Paris is called HAND, as in Have A Nice Day. Oh help! During the twenty plus years I've lived in Paris, the city's popular idea of American food hasn't evolved one wit. It's still burgers, and burgers, and burgers, and Caesar salads, and brownies, and bagels, and Tex-Mex, and enough already! This stereotypical fat-fest is not only indigestible but just so totally wrong, as anyone who has eaten around America recently can tell you. From truly wonderful and very original little restaurants like Aldea in New York City to the terrific new wave of oyster houses in the South End of Boston, to say nothing of the gastro Renaissance of New Orleans and the endlessly appetizing food scenes of Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Miami and a dozen other major U.S. cities, America has never eaten so well.
So why the stodge fest in this great-looking little place with cobalt blue walls, industrial lighting, and the scuffed up wooden floors that are meant to recall, um, er, Soho? I went for Saturday lunch with one of many French friends who claim to love American food. She wanted a Caesar salad, a dish I could never imagine ordering in a restaurant, and what came to the table was something that might have been created by a drunk at a motel salad bar--chopped iceberg lettuce, oddly uniform chunks of lukewarm chicken breast, and a hair-pomade consistency dressing that had no taste at all.
Since I'm defenseless when it comes to onion rings, I had to have some with my bacon cheeseburger. If the burger was respectable enough, the accompanying "fries" were greasy, unpeeled potato quarters, likely baked, and an increasingly common cheat in busy profit-conscious French kitchen where real fries demand too much time and effort. To be sure, the "bacon" had nothing to do with real American bacon either and the bun was too large and too dense. But the beef was good, and if this burger didn't clock in at 13.50 Euros, or almost twenty bucks at current exchange rates, I might be tempted to return from time to time. Oh, and the onion rings? Just plain awful, as in in deep-fried. oil-impregnated little O's with the alarming consistency of a flabby arm. Or actually they reminded me of a deranged experiment a friend and I attempted a longtime ago with a box of Mrs. Paul's Onion rings while on a Spring break trip to North Carolina. College students with empty pockets, we avoided restaurants and spent most of a week living on sandwiches. Then one hot afternoon on the way to the beach, we stopped at a convenience store to buy beer and the onion rings called to me from deep inside of a frozen food case. The problem, of course, was that we had no where to cook them...but wait! Maybe we could leave them on a piece of aluminum foil on the hood of the car while we were swimming and the sun would cook them! The soggy, greasy muck that we found when we returned three hours later immediately went into a litter bin, and I swore off a career as a physicist.
La Table 28, 28 rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, 9th, Tel. 06-42-87-79-64. Mo Cadet. Avg 35 Euros
HAND, 39 rue de Richelieu, 1st, Tel. 01-40-15-03-27. Mo Pyramides or Palais Royale. Avg 20 Euros.
]]>
Tucked away behind the magnificent Place des Vosges, it's a good looking restaurant in a beautiful 17th century mansion on one of my favorite streets in the Marais. Stepping through the door, I knew we'd eat well. Why? The welcome was cordial but professional, the place was packed with local boutique owners, and it smelled delicious. We opted for the 29 Euro three-course lunch menu, an excellent value, and it was exceptionally good. I started off with one of the best risottos I've ever eaten in Paris, perfectly al dente and topped with tiny pan-fried squid, and Robin had a delicious galette of roasted pork shank meat mixed with lentils and foie gras. "This is terrific," she said, "and this restaurant is exactly the kind of place we'd kill for in New York. The ingredients are first-rate and there's so much technique in the cooking, but it's reasonably priced, low key and quiet." Next, cod with a crust of buttery crumbs and fresh herbs for me and a daube de sanglier (braised wild boar) for Robin. Neither of us could resist the tarte Tatin for dessert, and we were wise to sucuumb, because it was beautifully made with soft tart caramelized apples and a flakey buttery crust. We were dawdling over coffee when the chef, young Marc Ouvray, emerged, and during a friendly chat, he told us that he'd previously cooked with Eric Briffard, now chef at Le V at the Four Seasons George V and one of the most exigent classically trained chefs working in Paris today.
Though the wine list and a la carte menu are more expensive (we drank a very good Corsican red from Ajaccio for 29 Euros), I can't wait to go back for dinner.
-----------
Sunday lunch in Paris is always a challenge because so few really good places are open. I'm not a big fan of brunch in restaurants--I can do a much better one at home and don't have to change out of my home gear uniform of an over-sized T shirt and sweat pants to eat it, and most of the cities brasseries, the weakest link in the Parisian food chain, are at their worst at Sunday noon. The main reason is that the Sunday lunch crowd usually orders the cheap prix fixe menu, but service is likely to be slow and the kitchen sloppy, since no one really wants to be working in the middle of the day.
So I gave it some thought when Frances, a new friend from California, suggested we meet for lunch. Knowing that she loves old-fashioned Paris, I booked at La Fontaine de Mars, the 1908 vintage bistro that was selected for a very public private dinner by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle when they were here recently. I hadn't been to this old-timer for a while, but knew the atmosphere would make Frances happy--red-and-white checked table cloths and a pretty setting overlooking a fountain on the rue Saint Dominique and also that owners Jacques and Christiane Boudon are consummate pros.
Suffice it to say, we had a very, very good meal, and that this place has vaulted to the top of my Sunday lunch list. The elegant Frances didn't want a starter, but I couldn't resist the oeufs au Madiran "facon meurette," which are as good a reason as I can imagine to get out of bed on a Sunday before noon---two perfectly poached eggs in a sauce of reduced Madiran wine with onions and lardons (bacon chunks). A charming Dutch woman at the table next to us had the foie gras de maison mi-cuit and probably because I couldn't take my eyes off it, very kindly offered me a taste on a toast point, and it was excellent.
Frances ordered the steak bearnaise with homemade frites because "the beef in France has so much more flavor that it does in the U.S.," and I had free-range chicken in a cream sauce that was generously loaded with morilles. My chicken was juicy, tender and wonderfully infused with the taste of the morilles, and after Frances put a serious dent in her beautiful pile of golden frites, I finished them off. Her bearnaise was homemade, too, a sad rarity in Paris these days, with a lovely bite of tarragon preserved in vinegar.
Finishing up over first-rate mousse au chocolat and baba au rhum, I concluded that the presidential minders had made an excellent choice for the first family, whom, I gather really like their food. Putting politics to one side, I'm all for a president who loves the superb Mexican cooking at Rick Bayless's Frontera Grill in Chicago as much as I do.
I'm also heartened by the fact that Michelle Obama is taking such an interest in healthy eating, and word is that my batterie de cuisine shares something in common with that in the White House, since the kitchen there is apparently equipped with a SEB Acti-Fry, too (The Obama girls love fries). As I mentioned, this brilliant new appliance, the fruit of ten years of research by the French SEB appliance company, makes a whole load of fries with any oil you care to use--olive, duck fat, etc., and it does so via an ingenious system that uses hot air from a small electric fan to crisp the fries. By avoiding the traditional deep-fry method, these fries have a fat content of 3% instead of the 20% you find a Mickey D's, and the most miraculous difference between SEB fries and traditional ones is that they actually taste like potatoes. I cut tiny Rattes du Toquet potatoes in half the other night, tossed them with sea salt and herbes de Provence and cooked them with tablespoon of Greek Kalamata oil, and the results were terrific. The other advantage to this machine is that it doesn't leave your house smelling like a MacDonald's for a day or two.
Le Carre des Vosges, 15 rue Saint Gilles, 3rd, Mo Chemin Vert. Lunch menus 22 Euros (2 courses), 29 Euros (3 courses), Avg a la carte 50 Euros.
La Fontaine de Mars, 129 rue Saint Dominique, 7th, Mo Ecole Militaire or Pont-de-l'Alma. Avg 40 Euros.
]]>The grand finale: apple cappuccino with ginger ice cream and a gelee of mostarda di Cremona, the best dessert I’ve eaten all year, and a perfect example of Ledeuil’s imagination. “The mating of different culinary traditions is a very ancient story,” Ledeuil told me after dinner. “Olive oil was once exotic anywhere in France outside of Provence, but today it’s an essential part of the modern French pantry. I see my cooking as part of this same tradition—I exhilirate French dishes with Asian herbs and seasonings.” True, but the main reason Ledeuil’s food is so good is that his finely honed culinary technique doesn’t “fuse” these foreign ingredients into French bistro cooking, it sublimates them.
--
114 Faubourg is a glamorous new duplex restaurant that occupies most of the ground floor of the new twenty-six room annex of the Hotel Le Bistrol in Paris, and it not only offers a chance to sample the superb cooking of Eric Frechon, head chef at the hotel’s very expensive three-star Le Bistrol restaurant, at relatively more moderate prices, it shrewdly offers a new take on the Parisian brasserie for the 21st century.
With a décor seemingly inspired by the painting of Chinese and Japanese screens—giant dahlias and tiny butterflies on a scarlet background, the centerpiece of this wonderfully well-lit (both dining rooms are bathed in low flattering golden light) restaurant is a grand curving staircase that connects the ground floor dining to the open kitchen and basement dining room below.
Banquette seating lines a whole wall in the main dining room, which seems to say that 114 Faubourg is clearly gunning for other beau monde classics like the Plaza Athenee’s Relais Plaza restaurant.
The reason that 114 Faubourg will trump the competition and is a welcome new addition to the Paris dining scene for being open seven days a week 365 days a year, is that it’s serving up some very good contemporary French food from a menu that offers a puckish snapshot of what stylish Parisians like to eat these days. I loved an hors d’oeuvres of hard-boiled eggs with fresh mayonnaise and shredded crab and thought the spaghetti with octopus bolognaise was not only delicious but smart—it’s very low-cal comfort food. Honey lacquered pork knuckle from the restaurant’s huge rotisserie came on a bed of gently pungent turnip sauerkraut, and the mille feuille with salted caramel sauce is the type of dessert that makes it easy to say the hell with your waistline. Service is smart, polished and multi-lingual, and they pour a great selection of wines by the glass as part of a surprisingly cosmopolitan—foreign wine still barely gets a look in in Paris—list. The only fly in the ointment is a big one, however—this place is shudderingly expensive.
KGB, 25 rue des Grand Augustins, 6th, Tel. 01-46-33-00-85. Metro: Odeon. Avg 50 Euros.
114 Faubourg, Hotel Le Bristol, 114 rue du Faubourg Saint Honore, 8th, Tel. 01-53-43-43-00. Metro: Miromesnil. Average 100 Euros (gulp)
]]>These were my thoughts as I sipped an excellent Sauvignon Blanc from the Languedoc while waiting for friends at Au Coin des Gourmets, the wonderful Indochinese restaurant on the rue Dante in the 5th arrondissement that's one of my favorite casual restaurants. This week I had two excellent meals at restaurants that haven't caused a media furor, and so are available to anyone who wants to reserve at the last minute instead of calling weeks ahead of time.
To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from Le Jardin d'Ampere, the restaurant in the Hotel d'Ampere in the 17th arrondissement. It's a pleasant place, but has a decidedly corporate following, and I was having dinner there because that's where an old friend from Boston in town on business was staying. She only had one night free and was ghastly jet-lagged and so asked if we could eat in. Little did I know that I was just about to have a truly memorable meal. We started with beautifully made duck foie gras which came with a delicious black cherry chutney, a great idea for tempering the liver's richness, and sublime langoustine ravioli with curcuma and an intriguing emulsion of toasted bread crumbs. Next grilled veal sweetbreads with wild mushrooms in carrot jus for me, and John Dory cooked with lemongrass and served with a delicious sate (peanut) jus and gnocchi with black olives for Laurie. We split a wonderful and dramatic lemon dessert, and finally I was curious about the chef and asked the waiter, who told me that young Laurent Tessier previously cooked at La Maison Blanche. Tessier also offers two very good value 24 Euro and 28 Euro lunch menus, and the courtyard garden next to the sleek contemporary dining room must be a lovely place to dine in good weather.
A few days later, I had a superb tasting menu at Le Cafe Moderne, a terrific restaurant with a somewhat difficult location behind the old Bourse, or French stock exchange, in the 2nd arrondissement. Busy at noon with a executive lunch crowd, it's much quieter in the evening, which is when I like to go. Frederic Hubig-Schall, one of the best and hardest working young restaurant owners in Paris, is the host and sommelier. Hubig-Schall knows and loves his wine, and generously serves some really excellent bottles from little known vineyards--we drank a terrific all Syrah red from vineyards adjacent to those that produce Condrieu, one of my favorite white wines, for very fair prices. His chef is Jean-Luc le Francois, a solid talent whom I first discovered when he was cooking at L'Astor. The other night we were six and made our way through an outstanding tasting menu, with each dish a wonderful miniature that intrigued with the architecture of its tastes and textures. Foie gras with tiny flecks of fruits confit was wonderful, as was beef with pepper and a celery millefeuille, but the stand-out was sea bass with a gently sweet and wonderfully earthy sauce of chestnuts and grilled cepes mushrooms, an autumnal dish par excellence. With its low lighting, friendly service, and great wines, Le Cafe Moderne is an excellent choice for a casual but memorable meal.
Cafe Moderne, 40 rue Notre Dame des Victoires, 2nd, Tel. 01-53-40-85-10. Metro: Bourse. Open Monday-Saturday. Saturday dinner only. Avg 50 Euros.
Le Jardin d'Ampere, 102 Avenue de Villiers, 17th, Tel. 01-44-29-16-54. Metro: Ternes. Open daily. Average 60 Euros a la carte.
]]>
When I first moved to the city in 1986, there was a good sushi bar in the rue des Ciseaux in the 6th, and a couple of Japanese places in and around the rue Saint Anne, plus a scattering of mediocre and possibly dangerous sushi-and-tempura joints in the Latin Quarter. Now almost every Paris neighborhood has at least one serious Japanese restaurant and sushi has become a common takeout item. The Parisian love of Japanese good is galloping this Fall, too, with a bunch of new openings. My favorite, however, is Shu, which opened a year ago in a tiny backstreet in Saint Germain and has quickly developed an almost cult-like following for the exquisite tasting menus of very talented and charming young chef Osamu Ukai.
A week after I last managed to get through the door--anyone but a dwarf will be bent over almost double getting through the miniature front door that leads down to this cosy and very pretty basement restaurant, I'm still thinking about how delicious the food was an yearning for more. Our meal began with a tiny ball of chopped squid with spinach and mushrooms—a sublime expression of all these ingredients, then some of the best sashimi I’ve ever had (sea bream with lychees); flash-grilled tuna and eggplant in sesame sauce; veal tongue marinated in miso with broccoli; sea bass carmelized in Balsamic vinegar; and finally a wonderful assortment of kushiage, or breaded, deep-fried bites of quail’s egg, chicken, eggplant, shitake mushroom with shrimp, and crab and patty pan squash on bamboo skewers. Japanese desserts usually leave me cold--I find them too sweet, but Ukai's green-tea cheese cake was bliss. The wine list here is extremely well thought out--we drank a white Menetou Salon with our meal, and it flattered every dish, and they also have a great choice of sakes.
Shu, 8 rue Suger, 6th, Tel. 01-46-34-25-88, Metro: Saint-Michel or Odéon. Avg 50 Euros.
-------
Several recent events have made me aware of how lamentably little Paris does to promote itself as the world capital of gastronomy. Attending the first Gastronomare festival in Marseille last weekend, I was impressed by the organization and carefully considered intentions of this event, which seeks to promote a great knowledge and understanding of the culinary culture of the Mediterranean world.
Of particular interest was a colloqium on the state of traditional urban food markets in various Mediterranean destinations, including Turkey, Turin, Provence and Barcelona. Suffice it to say that all of these very different places are undertaking major efforts to protect, promote and modernize their urban food markets. If only the same were true in Paris! To be sure, Paris has several fine food markets, both in covered halls and open-air, but I have no sense that the city prizes its markets as vital components of economically prosperous, socially diverse city neighborhoods. Through the years, Paris has allowed several famous covered markets to die—Les Halles, bien sur, but also La Place du Marche Saint Honore, or sadly wither, the Marche du Saint Germain des Pres. Many other markets are decidedly senile, the Marche de l’Europe in the 8th being a melancholy example of one that’s just fading away. Market streets die out, too—the rue du Buci in the 6th is the saddest example, and the explanation for this situation is the ongoing gentrification of central Paris with the implicit complicity of City Hall. Many of the covered markets that have died out were later reclaimed and redeveloped as expensive retail or office space, and it’s shocking that none of the possible redesign projects for Les Halles include a food market—if only a party of municipal notables would visit Barcelona’s brilliant Santa Caterina or Barceloneta markets to see how a market can play a staring role in animating a city neighborhood.
The other serious problem in Paris is that it’s lost its agricultural hinterland. With the exception of a few farmer producers like Joel Thiebault, agriculture in the Ile de France has almost completely died out, with the result that much of what’s sold in Parisian markets is purchased wholesale at Rungis and then resold at a mark-up the more picturesque settings of Parisian markets. I can’t help thinking, however, that if New York was able to renew its market culture almost from scratch through the city’s green-market program (these markets sell seasonal produce grown almost within the radius of a two-hour drive from Manhattan in any direction), Paris could too. It’s simply a question of supply and demand. So let's be demanding.
]]>
With lunchtime looming on an overcast Monday in Paris, I'm kicking myself for not asking if I could doggy-bag the rest of the first course I had at dinner here on Friday night--a lavish serving of succulent ham smoked in hay to give it a faintly herbaceous perfume. It came to the table with a superb tomato salad dressed in a creamy shallot vinaigrette and homemade celeri remoulade, and with a basket of good bread and a nice bottle of LaRoppe Pinot Noir, I was in heaven. It had been ages, in fact, since I'd eaten such good ham, and it brought back fond memories of a superb traiteur that once existed across the street from an office I once worked in in the now completely gentrified rue du Cambon in Paris. Served with a small ceramic ramekin of creamy, garlicky mayonnaise, this ham was a triumph of simplicity and it was so generously served, I could easily have made a meal of it. Bruno loved his pissenlit (dandelion) salad with chunky lardons, too. Main courses were outstanding, too. I opted for the bouche de la reine, best-known in the English-speaking world as that old ladies-bridge-game-luncheon stand-by chicken a la king. The real McCoy came in a flakey, buttery tasting pastry cylinder that brimmed with fresh mushrooms, shredded chicken and slices of feather-light chicken quenelles and a side of freshly made noodles. Unctuous and delicately flavored with good bouillon, it's the type of dish I could eat every other day. Bruno's baeckoffe, an Alsatian stew of potatoes, beef, lamb and onions simmered in white wine, was delicious, too, and the slice of mirabelle (tiny yellow plums) tart we shared was clearly homemade and truly excellent.
What made our meal at Les Pissenlits particularly joyous is that it offered such happy proof that good simple regional food still abounds in France. And this is why lunch at Nancy's magnificent L'Excelsior brasserie the following day was such a disgrace. This land-marked brasserie with its beautiful interior of elegant plasterwork moldings inspired by ferns is one of the great art nouveau interiors in France. I hadn't been in a longtime and was keen to savor this special spot despite the fact that it's now part of the Brasseries Flo chain. I avoid Brasseries Flo in Paris like the plague--they're overpriced and shamelessly mediocre--but decided to make an exception for L'Excelsior. Just maybe, I hoped, this one in the provinces would hold to a higher standard that such sorry Parisian addresses as Chez Julien, Flo or La Coupole, all part of the chain and all serving industrial catering at eye-popping prices. Alas, our lunch was dreadful. A serving of quiche Lorraine was soggy and without flavor, and every single oyster I ate was laiteuse, or milky. Next, I foolishly ordered scallops with wild mushrooms in a jus de veau. The scallops were the size of large cookies, which immediately made me suspicious--it's a well-known fact that factory fishing boats manufacture scallops by punching them out of fish fillets, and then the mushrooms were soggy and likely frozen and the jus de veau tasted like pureed cat food. For 30 Euros, Bruno's lobster salad was highway robbery--a stingy half of a rather sad-looking lobster served on a bed of overcooked haricots verts with a few ribbons of mango. Even the wine, supposedly a Gustave Lorenz Riesling, tasted sharp and green and quite unlike this very respectable maker's normal vintages.
Since Flo is an expanding international group--they now have restaurants in Beijing, Lisbonne, and Barcelona, and have tragically laid their hands on the once wonderful Aux Armes de Bruxelles in Brussels, I think it's very important that they receive the bluntest possible feedback on their product, which I find heart-breakingly sans ame and an affront to real French cooking.
Les Pissenlits, 25bis rue des Ponts, Nancy, Tel. 03-83-37-43-97, Avg 30 Euros
L'Excelsior, 50 rue Henri Poincare, Nancy, Tel. 03-83-35-24-57, Avg 30 Euros
]]>
Young chef Cedric Tessier trained with Michel Rostang and Alain Dutournier before setting out on his own, but the influences of these maestros are minor in a brief menu that's generous--24 Euros for three courses!--well-conceived and self-effacingly creative. Before you dash off to pick up the phone, though, please understand what this place is all about. It's a simple, low-to-the-ground, first-time-at-bat young chef's table in a former cafe in a quiet corner of the 5th arrondissement. Tessier's charming wife Rebecca waits table and is a master-class eve's dropper (when my friend Judy and I were talking about how we mutually loathe truffle oil, one of the biggest fakes of contemporary cooking, it curiously vanished from an otherwise excellent starter salad of crunchy vegetables and Parmesan shavings).
Judy loved this salad, and both of us enjoyed my mushroom (mousserons, cepes, chaterelles) omelette, a wonderfully retro starter that was perfectly cooked--bronzed exterior, creamy center redolent of the mushrooms, a dish neither of us had seen on a Paris restaurant menu (all cafes serve them) in ages. Next, turbans of sole on a bed of leeks and lemon for Madame, and one of the best risottos I've ever eaten in France for me. Though Tessier didn't use arborio rice, the dish was impeccably seasoned, garnished with runner beans, zucchini chunks and slices of Iberian ham, and it was generously served and absolutely delicious. A lovely mesclun salad with a shallot vinaigrette and two slices of nicely ripened brie and peaches poached in lemon verbena concluded this pleasant, low-key meal, which we enjoyed with a bottle of their excellent Beaujolais vieille vignes at 25 Euros.
Le Tourbillon, 45 rue Claude-Bernard, 5th, Tel. 01-47-07-86-32. Metro: Monge or Censier-Daubenton.
-------------------
What I've been mulling about: French service, which is often disappointing. Consider a very expensive meal that I had a Jacques Decoret in Vichy in August. I was so looking forward to sampling this talented chef's cooking again and also eager to see his new digs--when I went for the first time some five year's ago, he was in a store-front space near the train station. Now he occupies a grand Napoleon III villa that overlooks the genteel park in the heart of this faded but oddly appealing old spa town. Unfortunately, Decoret, previously one of France's wittiest and boldest chefs, has gone Michelin. Consider the following script--when I chatted with the young sommelier about drinking a white Saint Pourcain to start, and then a half bottle of Irancy (it was a very warm night), he told me that Irancy tastes like a white wine and that this was a terrible idea. Next, our first courses arrived before our wine had been opened and served, a real pet peeve, and then every subsequent course was proceeded by a stiffy, fussy sing-song recitation that was a real insult to this previously daring cook's talent. Suspecting the worst, I asked the charmless young waitress if she'd been to a French hotel school, and got a disdainful, bien sur.
Bien sur, indeed. And a few days later, at the lovely Auberge du Paradis in the Beaujolais, the rather arch maitre d'hotel informed us that the tasting menu always lasted three hours. THREE HOURS. Now why was this necessary on a very hot night in an airless and mostly empty dining room. Clearly, the chef was imposing his will in defiance of the preference of any client. We'd driven five hours to get to this meal, and while keen, were tired. So why was it necessary to inflict a 25 minute interval between each course?
In both instances, and others--the meal I carped about a year ago at La Grenouillere (it's still posted in DINER'S JOURNAL)--the real problem in that contemporary French service still often fails due to a misconstrued mission. To wit, the client is NOT there to bow down at the altar of a chef, rather the chef and his staff are there to offer the client as much pleasure as they can.
Too often hidebound and driven by antiquated rites and routines, the service in most French restaurants desperately needs to be revised and modernized.
]]>The reality, however, is that this a great part of town in which to prospect for good, reasonably priced restaurants because my worldly, affluent neighbors know and love good food and also appreciate a good buy.I found out about Corneil, in fact, from my cobbler, whom I overheard recommending it to a customer. “La viande est extra, et c’est pas cher. Il faut prendre la cote de boeuf pour deux—quel Bonheur!” (The meat’s great and it isn’t expensive. You have to have the cote de boeuf for two—what a treat!) But first I had an excellent cold roast tomato soup and Judy a fine slab of homemade terrine de campagne, which was chunky, flavorful and served with a salt-glazed crock of cornichons as it should be. Next, the rib eye, a massive piece of perfectly cooked meat that came to the table sliced on a wooden carving board with sides of green salad and sautéed potatoes. Though succulent and flavorful, we couldn’t eat more than half of it (Judy later reported making a delicious steak sandwich the following day). We finished our bottle of house cotes du Rhone, an excellent buy at 20 Euros, over homemade plum tart, and I’m eagerly looking forward to going back and trying the rest of the menu, which includes rabbit in mustard sauce and cod with a sauce vierge.
Since summer came late to Paris this year, we’re all still a bit greedy for greenry with autumn looming, so a gorgeous weekend was the perfect excuse to decide on a lazy day in the Yonne, the northernmost part of Burgundy and only an hour-and-a-half from the capital by car. I once had a friend who had a beautiful country house here, an old stone mill house on an islet in the middle of the mill run, and during many happy weekends chez elle, I got to know this charming region well.
Though the cathedral in Sens is interesting and Joigny is a lively market town on the Yonne river with several excellent antique shop, the area doesn’t have a wealth of must-see sights, which from my point of view makes it the ideal day out. I would suggest, however, that anyone visiting the area make their way to Irancy to taste the wonderful red wines made there—the best are made by Colliot and have a surprising amount of body for a light red wine. I also love the light cherry and plum notes of Irancy, which is perfect summer drinking.
Friends had told me they’d had a fine meal at Les Bons Enfants, a new restaurant Saint-Julien-du-Sault, one of the prettiest villages in the region, and so off we went for lunch. Arriving, it was heartening to see how much renovation work was going on in this delightful but previous quiet place, and indeed Les Bons Enfants is located in a set of half-timbered houses that have been restored with real art and good taste. It’s a two in one restaurant—there’s a gastronomic restaurant and a bistro, and we chose the bistro and a table under an umbrella in the interior courtyard. What followed was an excellent 28 Euro prix-fixe lunch that began with delicious cold pea soup, followed by roast cod with fork-mashed potatoes, a nice selection of local cheeses, including a locally made goat cheese and some Epoisse, and flakey cooked-to-order tarte fine aux pommes. The meal was so good and the service so charming that I’m already looking forward to sampling the gastronomic restaurant sometime soon, especially since the menu was so appealing.
Corneil, 19 rue Condorcet, 9th, Tel. 01-49-95-92-25. Avg 40 Euros.
Les Bons Enfants, 4 place de la Mairie, 4 place de la Mairie, Saint-Julien-du-Sault Tel. 03-86-91-17-38. Avg 35 Euros (bistro), 70 Euros (gastronomic restaurant).
]]>
So suffice it to say that I am always happy to help rescue the innocent, and with this in mind, I'm glad to suggest a very good restaurant, Firmin Le Barbier, that not only serves simple delicious vieille France (old-fashioned) but also has a handful of sidewalk tables with absolutely stunning views of the Eiffel Tower. The service at this restaurant is also not only charming but English-speaking for anyone who needs help with the changes-daily chalkboard menu, and the dining room itself is a small, handsome, stylish space with sleek Italian suspension lamps, terra-cotta banquettes, and exposed brick and stone walls. We went as four and all of us well. I love my oeufs mayonnaise, two hard-boiled eggs slicked with homemade mayonnaise and served with a small frisee salad, while Laurent's sardines with roasted peppers were excellent, and the other two enjoyed their tuna-and-salmon tartare. Next, a remarkably generous serving of pork tenderloin in a light pepper-cream sauce with sauteed potatoes and fresh vegetables for me and Laurent, and cod in a light wine sauce for Carole and Bruno. The portions were so generous, in fact, that the four of us could only nibble at a slice of excellent tarte citron for dessert. Prices here are moderate, and the short wine list is intelligent and fairly priced. Also useful is the fact that this winning restaurant in open for lunch and dinner on Sundays (and closed on Monday and Tuesday). Firmin Le Barbier, 20 rue Monttessuy, 7th, Tel. 01-45-51-21-55.
----
And for whatever it's worth, I must confess to having developed yet another inappropriate and nearly out-of-hand addiction. Happily, it's not likely to be fatal, but if I keep slathering Creme de Noix on my toast every morning I'm likely to be wearing stetch-waist trousers by Christmas. I found this luscious ground-walnut-and-honey cream at the market in Cazals in Le Lot, bought three jars two weeks ago and am already down to one, so if anyone should happen to be passing through Le Lot anytime soon, please bring back more Creme de Noix. The producer is Apiculteur (bee-keeper) Le Pouget in Saint Germain de Belair.
]]>