Ah, the Restorative Powers... - Wednesday, 26 July

My afternoon “coffee” break (actually more of a restoration break!).  French fries, Belgian beer, American ketchup (those are Heinz packets).  Just call me a citizen of the world!

Another Lesson Learned! - Wednesday, 26 July

So, today I had a reservation for lunch at a new Michelin 1-star, Fleur de Pavé in the 2nd arrondissement.  When I arrived, the only tables that were available were upstairs via a staircase that, frankly, spooked me a bit.  They did have stools at a large bar on the ground floor, but all of them were booked.  So I left.

When you book a reservation at most restos and on most booking services, they ask if you have any special requests.  I have always thought of this relative to allergies, foodstuffs you won’t eat, etc.  Now I realize that one could probably use this feature to specify “ground floor!”  Duh!  I really want to try this resto, so next time….

Fleur de pavé, 5 Rue Paul Lelong, 75002  http://www.fleurdepave.com/  Michelin’s writeup:   https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/ile-de-france/paris/restaurant/fleur-de-pave

First, Apartment-Based Dinners, then Verjus! - Tuesday, 25 July

Restaurant Verjus was a favorite of mine for several years.  Prior to opening the restaurant in 2011, the (American) couple Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian (a native of Saint Paul MN!) hosted regularly scheduled dinners in their apartment for just a few guests under the moniker “Hidden Kitchen.”  I read about this years ago, but it never worked out for me to snag a spot at their table.  Then they decided to open Verjus, which overlooks a lovely courtyard of the Jardin du Palais Royale.  Just before the pandemic they closed for some renovation of their exhaust system, and then, BANG!  So it’s been a few years!  They just re-opened in May.  They grow much of the fruit, veggies, poultry and meat they serve at their farm south of Paris.  Love this!

I learned from one of my servers that there was new management (ownership? kitchen? both? it wasn’t clear).  The food and wine was good, but not quite up to the level of my former visits, nor to the level of the Michelin 1-stars this trip (of course).

They are open only at dinner and offer only a prix fixe menu.  

A bunch of little nibbles were brought for my amuse bouche:

• a slice of Champagne watermelon (just now in season, per my server) - crisp, mild melon flavor, covered with a slightly too-generous sprinkle of mint julienne
• a just-warm soft-boiled eggyolk topped with herbaceous honey
• a chunk of smoked trout wrapped in wilted spinach
• a homemade cracker with an intense creamy saffron-garlic cream
• a delicate cone filled with cauliflower purée and topped with a marigold flower (little cones filled with various purées seem to be all the rage this year!)
• a cornbread “taco” filled with hummus, vegetables and herbs 
• 
  trout eggs and chives on a little slice of potato “pavé” with a lovely cream sauce
• cured salmon with raw onions and a terrific lovage vinaigrette (nice sharpness against the sweet fatty salmon)

With the amuse bouche, an Adrien Berlioz Cellier des Cray “Cuvee Grand Zeph” from the Vin de Savoie appellation of eastern France.  100% Roussanne, medium body, yellow and slightly tropical fruit flavors, a bit of minerality.  It’s hard to find something to accompany the wide range of flavors in these little bites, but it did pretty well!  (Sorry, I somehow failed to snap photos of the wine bottles at this resto.)

The main course was roasted lamb loin in a slightly lemony lamb stock jus, with very fresh and toothsome peas and beans.  On the side, some dark and sweet confit of the leg meat with zucchini and shallots.  Nicely done!  My server told me that a whole lamb had been brought up from the farm, and the chefs had broken it down for the meats, stocks, etc.  Nose-to-tail cooking!

With my main course, a Domaine Le Sang des Cailloux “Cuvée Lopy” from the southern Rhône.  75% Grenache, 25% Syrah.  Beautifully concentrated, tasting of black fruit, stone, parsley, sorrel, honey, tobacco, spice - and a sense of cherry wood exploded with the lamb.  Wow!

For dessert, a vanilla semifreddo (it had a slightly sweetened-condensed-milk quality to it) on a brown sugar biscuit, with a quenelle of strawberry sorbet served over cookie crumbs, and a cream puff filled with blueberry cream and topped with Italian meringue and a strawberry slice.  A good lesson: one should always serve sorbet and ice cream over cookie crumbs!

With dessert, a lovely Domaine des Huards Cremant de Loire “Amiral” (a sparkling Chardonnay) that unfortunately didn’t really do anything to enhance the dessert.  Nice on its own, though!  White fruits, cream, almond, a bit floral.  

Only English spoken within earshot.  One other party-of-one in the place while I was there!  The two steps up into the restaurant are a bit steep, and there’s no railing, but very helpful and muscular servers came to my assistance! 

Give it a try!  I dragged my friends Liz & Michal Sobieski there a few years ago, and they were glad that I did!  Restaurant Verjus.  52, rue de Richelieu, 75001, https://www.verjusparis.com/

She's #1! She's #1! - Monday, 24 July

Today it was another visit to probably the #1 resto on my list, La Dame de Pic, for lunch!  If you’re as crazy as I am, you can read about my prior visits on 27 September 2021, 20 April 2022, 7 October 2022, and 22 January 2023 - just use the navigation pane to the left.  If you’re not that crazy, congratulations and just read this post!

It was as wonderful as ever, but I was shocked that they had only five patrons (myself included) during my 2.5 hour lunch.  Granted, this isn’t something the typical tourist does, and business lunches are probably down due to Parisians’ proclivity to leave town for the whole month of July or August, but yikes!  I read recently that they would be offering a smaller lunch menu that could be served over the course of an hour on weekdays (targeting the business lunch crowd), but I didn’t see any evidence of it today - just the regular 3, 4, 5 and 7 course options!  So I ordered the four-course menu with beverage pairings, and they were kind enough to swap one of the courses from the five-course menu with one of mine - I just had to have the berlingots (more about that below)!

For my apéritif I had a glass of Champagne A.Lamblot.  A balance of Meunier, Chardonnay, and Pinot Noir, it was crisp, complex, with a sense of lemon zest, apple, green walnut and chervil.  Absolutely delightful on its own and with the amuse bouche.

My amuse bouche:  

• A very crisp pastry shell with melon crème, herbs, petals, a chive flower, and topped with a crisp, faintly smokey disk of dehydrated honey.  So many things going on in one little bite!  Brilliant.
• A tiny tart shell filled with Parmesan cream, Parmesan gel and Parmesan shavings, and topped with some toasted hazelnuts.  One thing in so many ways!

• A mound of beet purée, cooked-but-still-toothsome fennel cubes, delightfully sweet onion gel, and rice crispies, covered with a thin disk of beet gel (Cheffe Pic calls it a veil) and dusted with what I think was ground fennel pollen.  Sorry that all you can see is the beet veil and pollen!

Their bread is a wonderful slightly-sourdough individual loaf, partially cut into wedges, brought to the table on a domed plate on which sits a disk of spectacular peppery perfumey butter (containing white Madagascar pepper and tonka nuts per my server).  I would almost come here just for the bread & butter!

For my first course, mackerel from The Vendée, a coastal department in western France.  It was very sweet, just oily enough, grilled at a high temperature so that it was just cooked while giving it a perfect smokiness and crisp skin.  It sat on ribbons of cucumber, was served with braised yellow plum, dots of peppery coffee gel, a pool of gentian and fish stocks, and assorted flowers and herbs.  Gorgeous!

With my first course, the Alsatian Domaine Barmès-Buecher Gewurz 2022, 100% Gewurztraminer.  Tropical and stone fruits, flowers and herbs dominate in this medium-viscosity wine.  With the mackerel the wine went totally licorice and apricot - wow!

Next, the substitute I requested - Cheffe Anne-Sophie Pic’s copyrighted “Berlingots” rather than the eggplant dish offered on my 4-course menu.  These are square pyramidal stuffed pastas (sort of like raviolis but tall and made with a thinner pasta dough), filled today with a warm soft goat cheese and served with confit peppers and tomato concassé, in a just-warm vegetal creamy sauce with yellow tomato, elderberry flower and black currant essences.  Cheffe Pic named these parcels after her favorite childhood treat, berlingots (fruit-flavored pyramidal hard candies).  These are so tender that your server will advise you to eat each one in one gulp so they don’t drip all over you.  They are absolutely wonderful and amusing - you must not miss these!

With the berlingots, a Virgin Bloody Mary (interesting and tasty but not particularly revelatory) and a Domaine Claude Riffault Sancerre “Les Chasseignes” 100% Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire.  It was fresh, minerally, a bit hazelnutty, with hints of white fruit.  It’s traditionally paired with the region’s Crottin de Chavignol goal cheese per my server.  The flavor was fairly neutral compared to the expansiveness of the dish!

Next, chunks of rich dense muscley delicious octopus from Brittany, smoked and grilled on a Japanese barbeque and glazed with something fruity (perhaps a plum purée), served with ribbons of blanched green and yellow zucchini formed into little punctuations and dotted with Vietnamese cilantro pesto, with a pool of cilantro sabayon on the side.  Holy moley.  The mind boggles at the skill, experience and creativity it takes to invent such a plate.

With my octopus, a Greek wine by Haridimos Hatzidakis, “Skitali,” 100% Assyrtiko grape (a new name to me!) native to Santorini, from 200-year-old vines.  It was intense, with essences of lime, cilantro, tomato, and white flowers, with strong acidity and minerality.  Faaaantastic to balance the dense sweetness of the octopus!  

Before dessert, a cocktail made with Chartreuse (the glorious and mysterious liqueur made by Carthusian Monks since 1737, said to include 130 different herbs, plants, flowers, spices and other secret ingredients in a wine-based alcohol) and geranium gin, “on the rocks.”  Holy buckets.  The explosion of flavors while being ice cold - just wow.

For dessert, a Vacherin composed of a dry meringue bowl, red fruits, pickled pine needles, crème Chantilly, Corsican mint sorbet, intense tart berry purée, and a cloud of mint chiffonade.  It was like a party in my mouth!  

With my espresso, a truffle, a Saint-Germain “popsicle” and a raspberry & sabayon tart.  

Satiated!

Save up your nickels and dimes, kids, and get yourself to La Dame de Pic, 20 rue du Louvre in the 1st arrondissement :  https://anne-sophie-pic.com/paris/#damedepic 

Michelin’s writeup (one star):  https://guide.michelin.com/en/ile-de-france/paris/restaurant/la-dame-de-pic369441

Gardening, Paris Apartment Style! - Saturday, 22 July

So, this afternoon I was deadheading and watering the geraniums in my window boxes, and I glanced down to see a tourist gawking up at my building (a common occurrence - it's 14th century, one of the three oldest in Paris, about the same age as Notre Dame).  Then she grabbed a camera and took a picture.  Whoo hoooo!  The caption in her vacation scrapbook will probably read "little old building with quaint old Parisian watering her flowers" - at least I hope so!

Far from the Madding Crowd - Saturday, 22 July

The Place des Vosges is the most gorgeous square in Paris … just ask anyone!  It’s also the oldest planned square, inaugurated in 1612.  Any time of year its perfect geometry, paths, fountain, grass, trees, symmetry, arches, red brick, cream stone, shops and restos lure tourists and residents alike.  

Today I had lunch at Restaurant Anne, which is in the breathtaking courtyard of the Hôtel Pavillon de la Reine at 28, place des Vosges.  It has one Michelin star.  The kitchen is overseen by Mathieu Pacaud, son of Bertrand Pacaud, chef of the three-star L’Ambroisie, also on Place des Vosges.  No wonder the food was so good!  (BTW, I had the enormous good fortune of having my 60th birthday dinner at L’Ambroisie thanks to the generosity of my dear friends Dale Halladay and Mimi Haddad.  Story and photos here:  https://mariellen-musing.blogspot.com/2009/06/big-6-0-birthday-dinner-at-lambroisie.html )

The courtyard setting at Anne is absolutely stunning - ancient stones, hedges, trees, giant potted plants, sculpture (including a giant Calder-esque one), umbrellas, dappled sun, light breeze, muted conversations, silver clinking against porcelain - I could sit here all day (it was actually three hours, not bad!).  

I was going to skip an aperitif, but decided that that would just be foolish, so I went with a glass of Bollinger’s elegant Rosé (Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Meunier) - red fruits, tiny bubbles, wonderful aroma, barely sweet, a touch of spice - perfect with my first courses.

Everything on the menu was so tempting, but when I learned that the chef’s choice prix fixe menu contained most of the things I would have ordered anyway, I went with it!

My amuse bouche:

• A melt-in-your-mouth shortbread with avocado puree and herbed tomato concassé
• A thin brown sugar wafer cone with cauliflower puree and raspberry gel
• Fresh yellow tomato juice with sparkling water

(That white cylinder on the right is actually a piece of compressed cotton onto which my server poured some water, making it unfurl!  You eat the amuse bouche with your fingers, so this was for wiping them when you finished.  Practical and entertaining!)

Next, a terrific sweet prawn fried in tempura batter and served in a pool of just-over-room-temperature green pea and tarragon foam.  Purity of sea and land.

    Then, lobster tail covered with a melon aspic, with tiny croutons and dots of intense melon and watercress oils - wow, what a brilliant pairing of lobster and melon - who wouldda thunk?  With it, the claw meat in a ring of leek gelatin, topped with a razor-thin crouton (I removed it for this photo), and sitting in a pool of slightly cool lobster bisque.  Holy buckets.

With my next courses, a 2019 Château Le Pin Beausoleil (organic) Bordeaux (Merlot, Cab Franc, Cab Sauv) - powerful yet smooth -  blackberry, licorice, chocolate, pepper, a bit of minerality.

Up next, Pollock (a meaty white fish similar to cod) with a bread crust, served in a pool of frothed bouillabaisse.  On the side, saffron sabayon in a potato tube, tomato “caviar” (tiny balls of just the flesh), crispy roasted Pollock skin, and garlic flowers.  OK, I’m running out of adjectives. The way everything balances and enhances everything else is nothing short of genius.

Then, some Baltic black beef sirloin!  The chunks of beef were topped with Kalamata olives, which gave it all the saltiness it needed, then covered with breadcrumbs and broiled.  It sat in a pool of perfect beef demi-glace.  On the side was a really terrific sweet, herbaceous, peppery tomato aspic containing toothsome white beans - just marvelous!

Then, a cheese course before dessert, the height of civilization (in my humble, but outspoken, opinion!). From mild to piquant, from cows, goats, sheep.  The pristine greens barely dressed with a mustard vinaigrette were perfect with the cheeses.  And I got another of their terrific whole wheat seeded rolls.  Pro tip: spread plenty of salted butter on your bread before adding a chunk of cheese.  You will thank me!

Finally, desserts!  

Chunky strawberry and rhubarb compote topped with lemon sorbet and crème pâtissière in a pool of rhubarb, marigold and mint jus.  Refreshing and surprising and elegant!

A dome of raspberry and yuzu “jello!”  White chocolate mousse dribbled with an herby sauce.  A meringue dome containing some raspberry gel on a shortbread cookie.  Whipped cream.  Tuilles.  One perfect raspberry.  All on a pool of intense, very sweet raspberry sauce.  I might have fainted.  

Then, an espresso with a tiny chocolate tart and a lemon cream.  A perfect finale.

The bustle of tourists and locals just outside in the Square is wonderful to see and join, but I felt that I was far from the madding crowd for a few hours with this wonderful food & drink in this wonderful enclave.  What a gift!

Restaurant Anne - 28, place des Vosges https://www.pavillon-de-la-reine.com/restaurant-bar

Michelin’s writeup: https://guide.michelin.com/en/ile-de-france/paris/restaurant/anne

It Was Kind of an Accident, but a Happy One! - Friday, 21 July

Normally I don’t book dinner at a fancy resto for the day I arrive - not only am I very tired in the evening (and these types of dinners tend to go on for two or three hours), but my digestive system is ready for bed and not quite ready to handle the volume and variety of food and drink!  But I had snagged a reservation at a hot new Israeli (and neighboring countries) resto in the Montorgueil district called Shabour, only to find when I re-read the confirmation that I had booked it for the wrong night.  Oopsie!  My calendar was getting pretty full, so I figured, oh, well, let’s see if I can stay awake and functioning digestively!  

There are no tables in Shabour - instead, Chef Assaf Granit has designed a central cooking/plating station surrounded by a granite counter, at which patrons perch on stools on all four sides.  It becomes quite the circus when the all the stools are full and there are half a dozen or more cooks and platers and servers working at the same time, sometimes bumping into each other!  One of their distinctives (or gimmicks, depending on how you look at it) is that they don’t present you a menu ahead of time, they just ask if you have any food allergies or requirements.  It’s a prix fixe arrangement, so you eat what’s set before you!  But in an interesting twist, the cook who prepares each course either serves it to you (along with a sometimes-long story about what its components are, how it’s prepared, where it comes from or what its historical derivation is, etc.) &/or checks in with you after you’ve eaten it to see what you thought and to answer any questions.  The level of English proficiency varies among the cooks, but I was able to understand most of what they were telling me!  Happily, they send you home with a little doggie bag that contains a copy of the night’s menu and a little bag of deeeelicious shortbread cookies.

Oh, ya, Chef Granit also stops by frequently to see how things are going (when he’s not giving orders to the cooks, of course, to which they answer in impressive unison, “oui, Chef!”).  Apparently he has several restos in Jerusalem and London, and is quite the celebrity.  Seemed like a nice guy, though.  I said to him, “so, you’re the boss around here, hey?” and he responded that he was actually the dishwasher (a practiced response, I’m sure).  But I also talked with him about the resto’s design, why he chose it, etc.  He claimed that he wanted his guests to understand that restos are not about one “creative genius celebrity chef” but rather about the hard work and collaboration of the staff (which you can see right in front of you), and that sometimes things go wrong and need to be quickly corrected.    

So, then, it was:

Three amuse bouche:

• A lemon calisson (a traditional canoe-shaped almond pastry or candy) with Zaatar spice
• Smoked eel in a sumac mayonnaise (wow!)
• Finely diced swordfish and cabbage in a wrapper that tasted like Jerusalem artichoke?  Daikon? 

Then a summery take on chakchouka crossed with ile flottante - a green puree (I believe spinach and garlic) on which floated a burnt meringue, feta sorbet, calamari cooked in vanilla, and caviar.  Yummers!

Then a wonderfully peppery langoustine on a pool of yogurt with spectacularly sweet onion puree, pine nuts, Wakame kelp, drops of fantastic nigella oil, and a brilliant fennel “cracker” (very thinly sliced and dehydrated - perhaps my favorite single element of the whole evening!).

Next, an egg that had been soft-boiled in tea, served on some bottarga, covered with a mound of tahini foam, and topped with trout eggs and dried herbs.  It was served with a Challah bread roll baked in a brioche mold. 

Up to this point I had been drinking just sparkling water to keep myself alert, but I decided to add a glass of a very nice 2019 Domaine Zind Humbrecht Pinot Gris Roche Calcaire - it had a bit of sweetness to it, but because the grapes are grown on limestone-y ground, there’s a terrific cleanness and minerality to it as well (or so the sommelier told me!).  All I can say is that I loved it!

Then, monkfish with its smoked liver (presented on smoking herbs & sticks in a closed canister which was dramatically opened for aroma and effect!), parsnips two ways (cooked chunks and puréed), a tuille, black garlic, and some preserved lemon.  Sorry that I only have photos of the cook with his tray of elements to plate, and my plate showing the after-effects - I dug right in before taking a shot of the plated dish!

Finally, some absolutely wonderful pigeon.  The cook told me that the breast meat was marinated and half-roasted, then aged for two days, then finished on the grill just before serving.  It was beautifully intense and not at all grainy (which it can be if roasted/cooked just a tish too long).  The leg meat was confit.  It was served with a block of preserved tomato, fresh cherries, cherry gastrique, and an amazing green coffee bean and cardamom purée.  Those gorgeous herbs are peppery dill flowers.  Masterful!

Dessert was a riff on bouquet garni - a tube of semolina cake sitting on a thin rosemary praline base, soaked with bay leaf simple syrup, garnished with thyme cream and lemon gel and draped with a dried leek leaf.  Very clever!

After dessert, fresh cherries and apricots, and some pistachios.  I would have loved to eat more than one of each, but I was too stuffed.  

I wish I had gone later in the week so that I could have appreciated each course even more (and could have partaken in the wine pairings!).  But I’m glad that I fit it in.  

Shabour.  19 rue Saint-Saveur in the 2nd arrondissement.  https://www.restaurantshabour.com/home-en 

One Michelin star; here’s their writeup:   https://guide.michelin.com/en/ile-de-france/paris/restaurant/shabour