BEAUTIFUL RESTAURANTS IN FRANCE
For years we’ve been going to small, delightful little restaurants in France. This year I decided to find out how the other half lives, and go to some of the allegedly most beautiful dining sites in this great restaurant country. My first choice was, naturally, Lucas Carton, where the chef is considered by many to be the king of matching wine with food. In fact, the menu is organized by the wines the chef recommends. After each listing of wine follows a description of the dishes served with that wine. Menus that include prices are given only to the person expected to pay the bill (in France the first male in a row of people entering the restaurant is expected to pay). So the other guests have no way to know the prices of the dishes that they are ordering. Tant pis, as they say in French. The décor is truly beautiful. The room has housed a restaurant for 250 years, and was last decorated in 1903. It is full of carved woods and glass, in Belle Époque style. The restaurant will be closed, redecorated, and reopened as a less expensive “brasserie” next month, so if you want to see it as it is, hurry. For my first dish I chose the dinner to accompany Château-Châlon 1997—Jean Macle, described as an exuberant, yellow wine of a celebrated, noble, yellow grape with notes of fresh nut, spices, and a touch of curry flavor with a mineral finish. With this glass of wine comes morille mushrooms cooked two ways, bits of Spanish ham, hazelnuts, and a demitasse of cream of morel soup with a touch of Madras curry. Among the four of us, only I knew that this little appetizer cost about $150. The mushrooms were truly wonderful—big plump and delicious. The Spanish ham consisted of a few pieces for flavoring, but I never did taste the nuts. The little cup of soup, with a bit of foam (now de rigeur in all expensive restaurants since all the fuss about restaurant El Bulli in Rosas, Spain) was intense in mushroom and cream flavor. The grape from which the wine is made was familiar to me. On our way into France from Switzerland last year we stopped at a small, beautiful little restaurant in the Jura region, and the young man in charge of wine (probably the son of the chef and the lovely lady that seated us) poured me some wines from the region. He identified the local, exotic grapes and I recall the flavor of this savagnin grape. At that restaurant a glass of this wine was about $6. I noticed that one of the wines featured on the menu was the Condrieu Chaillees de l’Enfer by George Vernay, a wine that I import in good years. Another wine on the menu was a Barbera D’Alba, an inexpensive wine I also import. But I chose the most famous dish of the restaurant, the signature duck dish that was paired with the Banyuls 1985-Cave de l’Etoile pour le suprême, described as a natural sweet aromatic wine with notes of orange, caramel, fig, pepper and spices. This was one of two wines served with the duck. This first wine is served with the slices of duck breast in honey sauce. The second wine, a similar wine from the same region, but non-vintage, is served with the duck legs that come as a second plate. Don’t even think about the price. The sliced duck breast and the various purees around it were excellent. But I didn’t need the little crispy sliver of caramel on top of each slice. The second wine, served with the darker meat of the legs, was similar in taste, but stronger in flavor. It was almost like a sherry. These two wines, which come from the region of France that borders with Spain, were not what I would pair with duck. They are much too strong in flavor. They are similar to an Italian amarone, and other wines which are made from grapes dried on racks in the sun before being pressed. This gives the wine a stronger flavor, with the slight taste of raisin or dried fruit. I much prefer a soft pinot noir with duck. Of course even without ordering dessert there were wonderful sweets at the end, including a trio of little tastes in mini-parfait glasses. Many restaurants now serve a lot of courses in threes, again an imitation of chef Ferrand at El Bulli. I saw it at Ortolon, in Los Angeles recently, and at Michael Mina’s in San Francisco—where almost every dish we ordered came cooked three ways on special trio plates. Michael Mina’s is a very special restaurant. While the food preparation at Lucas Carton was first class, I cannot say that the meal was worth the $350 per person they charged. I’m glad I took a client with me and talked business, so that it was a business expense with particularly pleasant company. The biggest failing for me was the wine selection. For that price, I would expect several glasses of really special wine that I wouldn’t be likely to find elsewhere. A great Burgundy and an old Bordeaux might make the meal worth the money. Instead, the wines I was actually served in this historic temple of food and wine pairing can only be described as four hours of mediocre wine. The next night I hurried to the Brasserie Lorraine fearful that my credit card might be cancelled from the bill at Lucas Carton. I had read that this historic brasserie had recently been restored and was now the most beautiful in town. It certainly is striking, in a modern sort of way, but not what I expected in Paris. There’s a lot of glass, mirrors, and metal. And the walls are red and cream colored plaster that look like a modern artist brushed on the colors in a moment of ecstasy. It has a good feel to it, and looks very clean and new without being sterile. Best of all it’s retained the custom of displaying shelves of oysters, crabs and other shellfish around the outside of the restaurant, which I find very appetizing. I think Parisians are finally getting away from the old, last century look in restaurants, but keeping the good parts, and it’s a good thing. We had the special large seafood platter, which consists of too many oysters to count, various kinds of shrimp, crabs, sea snails and clams. With a good bottle of Sancerre and a couple of glasses of Alsatian Riesling, it makes a nice way to pass a couple of hours at lunch. The prices are about the same as at Ocean Avenue seafood in Santa Monica, but the wine list is a lot better. Finally we went to the Côte d’Or of Bernard Loiseau in Burgundy. This charming restored country house offers the perfect way to enjoy a restaurant. A lovely garden for afternoon tea, a large, comfortable open room off the garden for dinner, a comfortable room to stagger to after dinner, and a pleasant breakfast the next morning, again in the garden. The service is impeccable, and the wine list reasonable and extensive. I had the “classic” dinner, (about $200 with tax and tip included), which included the now deceased chef’s four most famous dishes, with a half bottle of local burgundy. Bonnie had the local Charolais steak, which I always find a bit lean and dry for my fat-loving tastes. As usual, Bonnie paired her steak with a Coca Cola, to promote American enterprise.l The old traditional restaurants in France, as well as the new, modern ones all have a place in this ever changing eclectic country. Mlh, Paris June 2005.ADDITIONAL ARTICLES |
A TOUCH OF FRANCE IN HAWAII