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