Visiting Mom in Lyon: La Mere Brazier, A-

If reviving any classic restaurant runs the risk of cliché and pastiche, the challenge was magnified when it came to Lyon’s La Mere Brazier, one of the most famous restaurants in France. “I knew it was going to be a challenge,” says Lyonnais Matthieu Viannay, 42, the restaurant’s new chef-owner. “Lots of people wanted the restaurant to remain exactly the way that it had always been, and so they weren’t going to like even small changes, while younger people who’d never known the original could find the menu too old-fashioned. What I had to do was find a personal balance between the classical French cooking that La Mere Brazier originally served and my own style.”

   When Viannay, one of the most accomplished of Lyon’s new generation of chefs, decided to revive La Mere Brazier, closed since 2004, he first immersed himself in the history of the restaurant, which was founded by one of Lyon’s famous “Meres” (female chefs) in 1921, and then sought the consul of a cook who’d been an apprentice to Eugenie Brazier in 1945—Paul Bocuse. 

    “Keep your cooking simple and be sure to master the sauces,” was Bocuse’s advice to Viannay, and so he did, with winning results—La Mere Brazier just won two stars. Viannay’s take on la volaille de Bresse en demi-deuil (poached Bresse chicken with black truffles under its skin) offers a perfect example of how he’s shrewdly reworked the classics. Tradition obligee, he serves the chicken with baby vegetables, a garnish of pickled sour cherries, and a voluptuous  velouté de volaille monté à la crème, one of the ultimate French sauces. Where Viannay goes his own way, is that the bird is served as two courses—first, the breasts, succulent and white as alabaster, and then the legs and thighs, which are grilled and garnished with a small salad of herbs.

   Ultimately, many of Viannay’s subtle revisions of Eugenie Brazier’s famous dishes come off as surprisingly modern. “I think traditional French cooking, the cooking of Escoffier and the religion of sauces, has actually become modern again,” says Viannay. “After the aberrancies of molecular cooking, we’re craving food that’s delicious, wholesome and reassuring.”

    Not everything on the menu is an heirloom recipe. Two dishes that Viannay considers to be signatures of his own cooking include a starter fricassee of escargots garnished with grilled calves’ ears and a main course of very thinly sliced ormeaux (a rare conch like crustacean fished of the Channel Islands) served with wild mushrooms and grilled pine nuts. Offering a subtle but delectable contrast between oceanic and earthy tastes and a brilliant combination of textures (ormeaux is pleasantly chewy, the mushrooms fleshy), the latter is a great dish.

   To be sure, simplicity alone isn’t always a perfect compass; scallops in their shells garnished with slivers of candied lime peel and green peppercorns were pleasant, but the only way this dish would have been really memorable is if the scallops were best quality and cooked just to that moment when they become pellucid.

   Aside from Viannay’s terrific cooking, including the grand finale of a perfectly made Grand Marnier soufflé, the well-drilled young service, an excellent and fairly priced list of Cote du Rhone valley wines, and a choice of two differently decorated dining rooms—the ones upstairs are done up in art-deco vintage Sarreguemines tiles, while downstairs is gunmetal gray, mean La Mere Brazier is once again pulling le tout Lyon, so reservations are essential.

La Mère Brazier, 12 rue Royale, 69001 Lyon. Tél. : 04-78-23-17-20.

A Sweet Moment in Paris: La Chocolaterie

  The sweetest secret in Paris recently came to end with the opening of La Chocolaterie, a striking new boutique in the trendy northern Marais. Before the only way to sample the deliciously confidential wares of chocolatier and patissier Jacques Genin was at Alain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, Pierre Gagnaire, Yves Camdeborde’s Le Comptoir du Relais or one of the other select restaurants and hotels in Paris that carry his handmade chocolates and pastries or by prizing the his address out of someone and knocking on the door of his tiny atelier deep in the 15^th arrondissement and asking if he’d sell you some directly (a nice guy, he usually did).

  Now, as word spreads about Genin creations, among them his caramel éclair, cassis (black currant) and mimosa pate de fruits and Szechuan pepper ganache, an ever growing throng of intensely curious chocolate and pastry-loving Parisians are flocking to Genin’s bright, airy 200 square meter boutique in a 17^th building at 133 rue de Turenne. What they all want to know is who is Jacques Genin, and how did he manage to stay under the radar of the French capital’s thousands of avid chocolate lovers for so long.

   Designed by architect Guillaume Leclercq, who previously did several Louis Vuitton boutiques, La Chocolaterie is an elegant airy space where the precious and perishable sweets (Genin’s chocolates have a ten-day life expectancy) are kept in glass cases on top of ivory colored counters and there’s a warm, inviting salon with exposed stone walls, oak parquet floors, low lighting, and mocha and chocolate leather chairs by French designer Christian Liagre. A dramatic raw steel circular stair case leads upstairs to the immaculate 200 square meter atelier where Genin works with a team of eight.

  From the Vosges region of eastern France, the genial Genin, 50, found his métier after a variety of odd jobs (maitre d’hotel, self-taught chef) that culimated with the improbable good luck of becoming chef patissier at Paris’s famous Maison du Chocolat (he’d never baked so much as a single éclair, but learned fast). After four years of acclaim, he chucked it all again, and set up shop as a chocolatier in a 23 meter atelier.

   Using the best available fruit, herbs, spices, nuts, dairy produce and Valrhona chocolate, Genin taught himself the art of chocolate-making and started making the killer good   bons-bons that left the greatest chefs of France speechless.

   “I already have the tastes in my mouth when I start to invent a new recipe,” Genin tells me over tea from Paris’s exclusive Maison des Trois Thes. “Here, try this,” he says, placing a pate de fruit on a saucer. If I can identity the banana, I don’t immediately find the other flavor of this playful but potent treat. “It’s geranium. French cemeteries are filled with geraniums, so they’re the smell of old age. Children love bananas. The idea is a little edible sketch of life,” Genin explains. 

  I ask the ever-animated Genin why be became a chocolatier. “I love giving people pleasure,” he says. “I also like the way the danger of my work—creating caramel by subjecting sugar to carbon and oxygen, for example, yields a sensual product. To give someone a small intense moment of pleasure in life, that’s a lot.”

 La Chocolaterie, 133 rue de Turenne, Tel. 33-1-45-77-29-01

Brilliant Italian and a Good Buy: Caffe dei Cioppi et Le Petit Benoit

Despairing of ever finding really good Italian food, this tiny little restaurant in a passage off the busy rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine hit me like a thunderbolt. The Caffe dei Cioppi is a tiny space with maybe five table, plus two seats at the counter that allow you to watch the chef at work. In its layout, its sort of like an American diner, but amber lighting gives the space a cosy feel compared to the fluorescent common to that Yankee genre. We went as five and after sharing an excellent bottle of white Sardinian Vermentino as an aperitif, we got busy with the short and very gently priced menu. Everything appealed, though I loved the idea of a frittata (Italian omelette) seasoned with fresh mint and peas, I can never resist freshly made mozzarella, which here came with an almost invisible drizzle of sublime Sardinian olive oil and perfect grilled vegetables--aubergine, baby onions, zucchini and a sun-dried tomato. A superb plate of food, and the only one of us who didn't have the mozarella crowed over his plate of freshly sliced Italian prosciutto and salami. Next, I chose thepolpette (flattened meat balls) with over roasted potatoes seasoned with rosemary and sea salt. Made with bread soaked in milk, grated Parmesan and onion, they were still soft inside, which set up a wonderful contrast with the crunchy potatoes. All of the other dishes I tasted--homemade ravioli filled with ricotta, linguine with a sauce of sea bass and tomatoes, and penne in broccoli sauce, were superb, too. Though desserts are never the high point of an Italian meal, the melted chocolate cake and apple tart here were terrific. My only regret as we went off into the night after a truly fine feed was that this place isn't in my neighborhood. If it was, I would very happily eat there once a day.

"Alec, it couldn't possibly be any good. It's just down the street from the Cafe de Flore in heart of tourist Paris," said my friend from London when we arrived at Le Petit Saint Benoit. She and her husband were in town doing a story for an Australian magazine and had asked me to chose a inexpensive restaurant within walking distance of their hotel. Also a place where they serve on an outdoor terrace if possible, since Pete would walk a mile for a Camel. 

The overhead heat lamps on the terrace decided the meal, though, and we settled in with a 5 Euro glass of Champagne and looked at the menu. I vaguely regretted that we weren't eating inside, because the snug old-fashioned dining room reminds of what Paris looked like when I first saw the city in 1972--cracked tile floor, vanilla-colored walls, banquettes, etc. But had we been sitting inside we'd have missed the dramatic performance of the reed-thin Ukrainian model from Berlin at the table in front of us. Dressed all in black, which made her perfect skin look like wax, she was wearing stiletto heels, a belted fur robe of coat, and carrying a big portfolio which she balanced on a chair before firing up the first of a good dozen cigarettes and taking the first of a good dozen calls in at least five different languages. She did give me a good idea, though--she ordered thehachis parmentier, a dish I love and hadn't had for years.

So after a decent plate of marinated leeks, I broke the cheese crust that capped the mound of potatoes and ground beef on my hachis parmentier, dug in, and was quietly surprised by how good it was. Le Petit Benoit is one of Paris's best-known budget restaurants, and though I'd eaten here often enough to hope it might still be half-decent, I hadn't been in a while. The Londoners loved their foie gras and terrine de campagne to start, and then a perfectly cooked bavette with shallot sauce and coq au vin. The cheapest cotes du Rhone was also surprisingly pleasant, and the quality of the trio of cheese we shared at the end of the meal--Roquefort, cabecou and brie--was excellent. The moral of the story? Yes, even in glittery Saint Germain des Pres, you can still find a good Gallic feed for a very fair price. 

Caffe dei Cioppi, 159 rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine, 11th, Tel. 01-43-46-10-14. Metro: Ledru-Rollin. Mon-Tues 11.30pm to 7pm, Wed-Fri 11.30pm-10.30pm. 

Le Petit Saint Benoit, 4 rue Saint-Benoit, 6th, Tel. 01-42-60-27-92. Metro: Saint-Germain-des-Pres. Closed Sunday. 

Paris a la Mode: Relais Plaza and Le Cristal Room

For me, one of the most endearing qualities of the French is their willingness to be contrarian. This same trait has infuriated successive American governments, and is often used by crack-pot Stateside radio commentators to whip up anti-French feeling, but I think it's very useful. France is often the only country that doesn't bleatingly go along with American wishes, and this tendency to ride the brake is useful, because it allows for some reflection. Further, the only way to be sure that you're right is to listen carefully and seriously to an opposing point of view.

Sometimes this contrarian pose is just cantankerousness for pleasure of being contrary, however, which is what I've witnessed in Paris during the last week or so as several usually very reliable French food critics have not only rallied to the defense of the new Costes brothers restaurant La Societe in Saint Germain des Pres, but claim they actually like it. Maybe they do, but from the perch of someone who not only passionately loves good food but also has a huge respect for the back-breaking work of running a small independent restaurant, I'd only say that it couldn't be for the food. Let's be clear. The Costes brothers run a chain of some two dozen fashion driven restaurants with identikit menus that have made it acceptable to go to a restaurant for reasons that have nothing to do with eating good food. Instead you go to Costes restaurants because Paris nightlife is so wilted and because you like to eat in pretty surroundings served by pretty people. You also go to Costes restaurants as an act of conspicuous consumption, because they're expensive relative to the quality and effort involved in creating what they serve. You go to Costes restaurants because you're more interested in "fashion" than you are in food. But you don't go to to them to have a good or interesting meal.

Fortunately, they're fashion-oriented restaurants in Paris that actually serve good food. One perfect example is the Relais Plaza, the art-deco brasserie of the Hotel Plaza Athenee on the Avenue Montaigne. It's a lush golden space that's been run by Austrian born maitre d'hotel Werner Kuchler with charm and elegance for some thirty-five years. To be sure, you're not going to find a lounge music soundtrack in this dining room, but what you will find is great people watching (designers, clothes horses, fashion execs and avid shoppers) and, with the introduction of a new 50 Euro menu, a good buy. Or at least a good buy in the context of a very elegant restaurant on one of the world's great luxury thoroughfares. This new menu, which changes regularly, includes a starter, main course and dessert, and based on lunch last week--an avocado cocktail with Alaska king crab, grilled lamb chops with provencale vegetables, chocolate tart, you get a very good and carefully cooked meal made with first-rate produce for less money than you're like to spend in any of the Costes restaurants. So if fashion is your passion as much as food, pack up your troubles in an old kit bag and treat yourself to lunch (dinner is quieter) and a slice of la vie en rose at the Relais Plaza.

Another excellent option is Le Cristal Room, the stunningly chic restaurant in the beautiful headquarters building of Baccarat crystal in the 16th arrondissement. If I've always loved the Philippe Starck designed dining room of huge crystal chandeliers, mirrors, gorgeous ceiling and wall moldings, and incongruously but shrewdly exposed brick walls (the bare brick creates a perfect foil for all of that opulence), the food had never been better than ordinary and was very expensive. Now, with the arrival of young chef Thomas L'Herisson, who formerly cooked with Thierry Marx, Eric Frechon (the Bristol) and Guy Martin at the Grand Vefour (Martin is now consulting chef for the Cristal Room), it's also become a wonderful choice for a really good meal. From the Spring menu, they're two stand-out starters--Breton lobster poached with wasabi and radish leaves and served on a bed of quinoa and tiny peas and fava beans, and cubed Ratte potatoes garnished with a foam spiked with preserved Moroccan style lemon and Aquitaine caviar. Both dishes were impeccable and perfectly announced the style of the kitchen, which to do playful but intelligent riffs on classic French cooking. Next, my veal chop was a perfectly cooked piece of delicious meat and came garnished with pureed peas and tiny cubes of Chorizo sausage and baked Ratte potatoes. My friend Margaret's plump filet of John Dory was flattered by a smoked tomato sauce and garnished with breaded oysters, salad leaves and bulots (sea snails) poached with lime, an excellent dish. Desserts, including a strawberry tart brilliant spiked with microscopic pieces of candied ginger and bitter chocolate souffle with rhubarb compote and tarragon-chervil mousse, were exquisite, too. Though this place is expensive, it's worth it for the excellent cooking and magical setting. Note that they also do a very good value 55 Euro lunch menu. Lunch or dinner, Le Cristal Room offers an admirable template for the perfect Paris fashion restaurant, or a place where the food is every bit as good as the atmosphere or the people watching.

Le Cristal Room, 11 Place des Etats Unis, 16th, Tel. 01-40-22-11-10. Metro: Iena or Boissiere 

Le Relais Plaza, 21 avenue Montaigne, 8th, Tel. 01-53-67-64-00. Metro: Alma-Marceau

Two Hits and a Miss: Cafe Cartouche, Shan Gout and La Societe

Allow me to get La Societe out of the way so that I can get on to two new places that are really worth your reading time. As anyone who has read HUNGRY FOR PARIS will know, I take a very dim view of the impact that the two dozen or so restaurants of the Freres Costes have had on the Paris dining landscape. To wit, they serve an almost identical menu of easily assembled dishes that require very little actual cooking, and unfortunately they've succeeded in seducing a big tranche of affluent young and older Parisians (who regret that they're no longer young by aping the tastes and habits of youth) who care more about decor and seeing and being scene than they do good food. To each their own, you might say, except that the success of the Costes has spawned a wilting number of imitators, and this mass of restaurants where you don't really go to eat competes with restaurants where the chef cooks his or her heart out everyday. 

I went to La Societe, the new Costes place on the Place Saint Germain, out of a certain morbid curiosity, but also because I admire the talent of interior designer Christian Liagre, who created a wonderfully louche Asia-in-the-thirties look for this place, and, rather wistfully, because I was quietly attending yet another memorial service for the Left Bank as I once knew it. Suffice to say that with the exception of the Eglise de Saint Germain des Pres and the Cafe Bonaparte, this whole vital crossroads of what was once one of the world's great brain trusts has now been given over to conspicuous consumption. Armani got the ball rolling when he bought out Le Drugstore, a giant Ralph Lauren boutique is looming, and now with La Societe, food as conspicuous consumption arrives on the scene. I personally don't see any reason to pay 14 Euros for an avocado vinaigrette, but perhaps you do?

As as been the case for the last few years in Paris, it's rare that an honestly good restaurant opens in one of the city's best-known tourist neighborhoods (it can happen, however, as the wonderful L'Epigramme proves). Why? The rents are too high for chefs going out on their own. This is why I traveled deep into the 12th arrondissement several times this week with no regrets and very delicious results.

Credit where credit's due, Shan Gout, my first discovery, came from reading a highly enthusiastic review by French food critic Francois Simon. Since I'm mad for Chinese food, I was perfectly happy to go out of the way for any that had won such high praise from someone whom I almost unfailingly agree with. Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood behind the Gare de Lyon, this shop front space has the immediate winsomeness of a proud and serious young chef who has gone out on his own with limited resources. He cooks behind a counter in the dining room (if you can avoid it, don't wear anything that has to be dry-cleaned to a meal here; you will come away smelling like what you just ate), and the room is devoid of any real decor save the miniature red Chinese lanterns hanging overhead.

As soon as you taste the food, however, the homeliness of the surroundings won't matter a jot. The young chef here cooked at many of the best Chinese restaurants in Paris before deciding to go out on his own, and his most Szechuan dishes are so fine, flavorful and precise, or light years from most of the Chinese restaurants in Paris, that you immediately want to order more (portions are dainty). From the short menu--everything is cooked to order by the chef himself, we started with a gorgeous dishes of homemade noodles in a light, spicy peanut sauce with a garnish of sliced red cabbage and some of the best grilled pork dumplings I've ever eaten, then sampled the feather-light and very delicate shrimp cooked in egg white and an excellent Szechuan chicken redolent of green onions and garlic. With a bottle of Provencale rose, this was a light and very pleasant meal, and I'm very much looking forward to my next meal there. 

In a very different register the following night--that of good old Gaul, I was back in the 12th at the new Cafe Cartouche, which is being touted as the annex of chef Rodolphe Paquin of Le Repaire de Cartouche. What Paquin's actually doing here is backing his head waiter of ten years, Benoit, and helping the kitchen to source well and settle in, and based on what we ate the other night, this is going to be a welcome address in a part of the city that lacks good affordable bistro. 

The cafe is a simple place, with a long bar in front of a row of tables, and its well-chosen wines, many of which serve by the glass, mean that its popular with locals who want to stretch their legs and stop by for a sip and a chat. Unfortunately their "Carte de la Crise" (Recession Menu) at 14 Euros is only served at lunch, so we ordered a la carte from the chalkboard menu and ate a very good, simple French meal. Both of the terrines we sampled--lamb and fig and duck with pistachio--were excellent, and a main course duckling breast was perfectly cooked and absolutely delicious. I loved my faux-filet with an avalanche of freshly made frites and a sauceboat of bearnaise, and the 16 Euro vin du Pays de l'Ardeche, a Gamay, was perfectly pleasant drinking for a very fair price. While this place isn't worth crossing town for, it's a very good choice if you're shopping the Viaduc des Arts or catching a film in the multiplex in the Bercy neighborhood's Cours Saint Emilion.

Café Cartouche : 4 rue de Bercy, 12th, Tel. 01-40-19-09-95. Metro: Cour Saint-Emilion or Dugommier. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday.

La Societe: 4 Place Saint Germain des Pres, 6^th, 01.53.63.60.60. Metro: Saint Germain des Pres. Open daily. 

Shan Gout: 22 rue Hector Malot, 12th, Tel. 01-43-40-62-14. Metro: Gare de Lyon. Closed Monday.