Thursday, March 13, 2025
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Cheering Up a Chilly and Soggy Afternoon! - Wednesday, 12 March
On this slightly chilly and soggy afternoon, a “coffee break” with a view of some school kids in their red safety vests taking a little walk past the twice-weekly open market at Place Baudoyer was just the ticket!
Tuesday, March 11, 2025
Monday, March 10, 2025
Saturday, March 8, 2025
Landscape? Mural? Disappointment? - Saturday, 8 March
The scene outside my front door: an artist starting to paint what appears to be a cityscape or mural on some panels, accompanied by a couple of rappers! Must keep an eye on his work from my window.
OK, so not a cityscape! An ad for a "spectacle" (show, concert, cabaret, whatever). Sigh....
Friday, March 7, 2025
Chef "Sauces" and his 50-year-old Cognac! - Friday, 7 March
Éric Trochon, chef-owner of the charming little Solstice in the 5th, is a 2011 Meilleur Ouvrier de France (“Best Craftsman of France,” a highly prestigious award given every four years since 1924 to the top practitioners in a variety of fields) and is a professor at École Ferrandi (which graduates many of the top chefs in France). He has opened and managed restaurants in France, Japan, Korea and elsewhere. Along with his Korean wife and sommelière Mi-Jin Ryu, they serve French cuisine with a bit of a Korean touch.
He also wrote the book on sauces. Literally! My apéritif of Champagne Déhu Pere et Fils 2015 (mostly Pinot Meunier) was beautifully floral with a sense of honey and yellow plum.
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Using a pipette to transfer some of the glorious nectar of the gods to a glass for me! |
Restaurant Solstice, 45 rue Claude Bernard in the 5th arrondissement. One Michelin star. https://solsticeparis.com/
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Michelin Calls Datil "Restaurant of the Future" - Thursday, 6 March
https://guide.michelin.com/en/article/travel/datil-paris-the-restaurant-of-the-future-is-here
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The view from my table |
mushroom custard topped with roasted cauliflower and a cooled version of the cabbage broth;
and a cabbage fritter sitting on top of a drop of slightly sour blueberry gel (wowzer!). How did I fail to get a photo of it?!?
There was just enough acidity in the Champagne to balance the bit of grease in the fritter – stunning!
Next: scallops tartare, scallop roe, and a kumquat, topped with raw carrot shavings and a drizzle of dashi demi-glace; pickled carrot strings on a bed of roasted carrot and chickpea purée; a little bun made with chickpea and rice flour and sprinkled with some seaweed dust which gave it a lovely zing! “Charming” is the word that comes to mind for this course! And, of course, "deeeeelicious!"With it, Habibi Cherri 100% Gewürztraminer by Anaïs Fanti. Pure and vibrant, with a sense of pineapple and parsley, beautiful viscosity and fabulous legs! The wine became caramelly and almondy with this set of dishes. The winemaker inherited the vineyard from her grandmother; it’s organic - no chemicals have every been used there.![]() |
As delivered to the table |
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After I dug into it |
So, yup, you gotta try it - for the food, for the wine, for the ethics, for the ethos! Just go! Restaurant Datil, 13 rue des Gravilliers in the 3rd arrondissement. https://www.datil-restaurant.fr/en-us One Michelin star.
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Your contented correspondent after lunch! |
Wednesday, March 5, 2025
The Magic (and Truffles!) of Pierre Gagnaire - Wednesday, 5 March
Today was my first “fancy meal” of this trip, i.e. one accompanied by Michelin stars! The rest of the fancy ones will be at one-star restos, but today was lunch at the three-star Pierre Gagnaire. He is one of writer-teacher-chef Patricia Wells’ (with whom I studied in 2001) top heroes. I’ve been wanting to eat his food for years, but the evening offerings are just too dear. They recently (I think) started a lunch service, so I took the plunge!
The room is elegant and understated. Mostly grey and taupe with touches of color, clean lines, simple vases of fresh flowers, white porcelain, fine but unadorned crystal, substantial but not overly heavy flatware, bold and graphic prints on the walls. Very “zen” I guess! I did have to manage some steps down into the dining room and then up to my section, but the staff was right at my elbow to make sure it went well! And they were well-staffed - it seemed like there was one greeter or waiter or sommelier or bus-person for every-other guest! [Note: you can click on any image in this blog to see a larger version.]My amuse bouche consisted of eight elements (left to right): an extremely thin pastry ball with black garlic puree; a thin slice of cooked beet formed into a cylinder and filled with sweet potato; spicy lentil cream topped with lardo di Colonnata and a slice of tuber Melanosporum (Périgord black truffle); a leaf of spun sugar with garlic and pepper (partially hidden); soupy orange gel with bonito purée (spectacular!); homemade tofu with sesame cream and sesame seeds; a parmesan sablé-style cracker; a beet and tomato feuilleté breadstick. Spectacular tastes, perfect execution of each element; distinct and harmonious full flavors (without being salty) that enhanced each other and that moved from buttery to spicy to vegetal to earthy to oceanic to acidic without clashing along the way. My mouth was absolutely amused!A server brought over their box of huge tuber Melanosporum to show off (or maybe to tempt me to add one to my lunch order, which apparently one can do…not sure how they prepare it!). They typically cost $1,000/lb retail. These truffles are credited with producing euphoria, and not just because of the price!
For my first course:
Stunning sea bream carpaccio with sweet sweet smoky scallops, baby spinach, tiny cauliflower buds, spinach/watercress purée, cranberry jam, black garlic, and a slightly acidic (lemon zest?) creamy sauce made with Jerusalem artichokes. Oh, the harmony! Every bite was just a bit different than the last.
Up next:
Deeply roasted sole - sweet and smoky - with corne d’abondance mushrooms (“horn of plenty,” but also called trompette des morts or “trumpet of death” although they’re not poisonous – go figure!), slightly gelatinous cockles (they’re the tiny shellfish with a little yellow claw in this photo), and smoky figatellu (pork liver sausage), with a shellfish lemon thyme sauce.Then:
Squid stuffed with tiny mirepoix and a zesty lemon purée (the squid is hard to see in this photo), with Paris mushrooms and sea snails, in a sea urchin bisque.Then my final main course:
Roasted breast of Culoiseau chicken, dramatically served under a smoke-filled glass dome! Very tasty and juicy. It was served on parsnip paste and topped with a clementine gel veil (loved this!) and shreds of radicchio and leek, and then topped with a foie gras sauce.Then, on to my five pre desserts! From the left: a lovely shatteringly crisp pastry (maybe graham flour); a thin chocolate cylinder with lavender cream; a tiny spun sugar “bowl” with a licorice-y gel and black olive; almondy cream in a tiny crêpe; a chocolate cylinder with pistachio cream and nuts.
And finally, my nine desserts, served in three sets of three!
Lemon crème with pears and pomegranate seeds topped with a crispy meringue disc; fabulously sweet chunks of mango in a slightly citrusy sauce with a gently flavored rose gel candy cube and vanilla-rose Chantilly; hazelnuts and baby figs with a salsify jelly.
Apple poached in beet juice on a pastry nest with a chocolate “stem” and meringue “leaf” (clever!); roasted pineapple with black garlic and a sable cookie; poached pear with fig cream and Chantilly, and two meringue discs joined with fig compote and hanging on the rim of the bowl.
Citrus sorbet with coconut ice and crisps, tiny meringue kisses, and Cognac; chocolate ice cream and sauce with toasted almonds, covered with a transparent disk of spun sugar and black sesame (clever!); hazelnut cake with currant conserves and Chantilly, topped with a crispy spun sugar bow.
With the desserts, a Prosecco DOCG Valdobbiadene “Superior di Cartizze” Le Colture. 100% Glera grapes. Stone fruits, a bit of honey. Nice balance for the wide range of flavors in the nine desserts!All of this took only three hours (all those servers were very efficient!)! Quite the memorable experience. Not something I’ll do every trip, but I can see why Patricia Wells is enchanted with Gagnier’s ethos and talent and ability to create magic from common (and some quite uncommon) ingredients.
Restaurant Pierre Gagnaire – 6 rue Balzac in the 8th arrondissement. Three Michelin stars. https://pierregagnaire.com/en