Chez Ernie, or La Closerie des Lilas

  As a rule of thumb, restaurants that make too much of their illustrious past patrons tend to be a disappointment. Though it may be vaguely interesting to know that Colette or Ernest Hemingway appreciated a given Paris table, viewing a restaurant through a scrim of nostalgia is an often perilous distraction from what really matters, which is the quality of the food right now.

 Last Saturday night, however, a small group of us wanted oysters and steak tartare in an animated, open-late setting, and it occurred to me that we might try La Closerie des Lilas, the famous old bar-brasserie-restaurant in Montparnasse. This inspiration came mostly from my desire to avoid La Coupole, which so often brings to mind one of those sprawling Soviet Union vintage restaurants with dreadful service and food that used to be just about all you could find in Moscow. 

  So we showed up around 9.30, and since you can't book tables at the brasserie, we had a drink in the bar, where little brass plaques on every table refer to a famous past client, everyone from Max Jacob to Man Ray. Our tab for four (good) Bloody Marys and a little cutting board of really awful SPanish ham--dessicated, rancid, just terrible--was 92 Euros, which left me in a foul frame of mind as we were finally ushered into the brasserie (which is adjacent to the bar and has a different menu from the "gastronomic" restaurant). On a holiday weekend, the crowd in the bar was tres Parisien, however, and there was a wonderful atmosphere created by the fact that this little piece of turf is a sort of public clubhouse for politicans and media and show biz types.

  The waiter was amiable, the lighting was lovely (red shades on the art-deco wall sconces affixed to the marble walls), and though not cheap, the prices were a peg below what La Coupole charges. So we ordered a big groaning tray of oysters--Gillardeau and plein de mer Bretagnes--and a bottle of inexpensive Muscadet. Served with delicious freshly baked rye bread and good butter, the oysters were superb, the wine just fine. Next, one of us went for the smoked salmon, which was like oceanic velvet (smooth and suave), and the rest popped for the steak tartare, which was excellent. It came as a generous pattie of first-rate beef, perfectly seasoned, and accompanied by truly delicious freshly made frites and a wonderful little mesclun salad dressed with grape-seed oil and Xeres vinegar. We drank an inexpensive bottle of Chinon with the tartare, and finished up with two perfectly ripened Saint Marcellins. This excellent little feast wasn't exactly cheap, but it was less expensive than most Paris brasseries these days, especially for the quality of what we were served. 

  Enjoying the stark, black pollarded trees against a honey colored night sky in the allee that leads down to the Jardins de Luxembourg after dinner, I couldn't help but think that old Ernie Hemingway would be awfully happy to know that one of his favorite Paris canteens is well and truly thriving at the beginning of a new century. Open daily, the brasserie at La Closerie will definitely be seeing me again soon.

171 boulevard de Montparnasse, 14th, 01.40.51.34.50, Metro: Vavin or RER Porte Royale 

A New Season at Le V, Four Seasons George V

Though I suspect the clientele for meals in Paris that run at least $200 a head has dramatically diminished during the last few months, the arrival of a chef at the Four Seasons George V is still major gastronomic news and the 85 Euro lunch menu here is one of the best buys in Paris right now. Former chef Philippe Legendre, ex-Taillevant, put Le V on the map as one of the great tables in Paris after he won three Michelin stars, and then, talented though he may be, seemed to wobble when he lost one.

   Whatever transpired between Legendre and the hotel remains confidential, but suffice to say he left a few months back and was replaced by Eric Briffard. Who? Well, Eric Briffard, who came from the two star Les Elysees Vernet at the Hotel Vernet, which is where he’d taken refuge after having been unceremoniously swept out of the his post as chef at the Plaza Athenee some ten years ago to make room for Alain Ducasse.

   Though he’s prodigiously talented, Briffard, who trained with Joel Robuchon, has always been one of the most conspicuous quiet men of the Paris food scene. While Jean-Francois Piege at the Crillon has made a reputation for his edible wit, Eric Frechon at the Bristol does brilliant haute cuisine riffs on French soul food like pig’s trotters, and Alain Ducasse and Joel Robuchon are the Mercedes and the Lexus of the haute scene, Briffard has never forged a strong identity. I ate his food at the Plaza Athenee, where he won two stars, several times and then again at the stuffy Les Elysees du Vernet, and while I always enjoyed, it left me with no enduring memory a week later.

   So I was curious to see what Briffard would get up to at the plush dining room of the Four Seasons. And since summer is perhaps the most challenging season to cook haute cuisine—no one’s all that hungry and the season’s bounty is timid compared to autumn and winter (wild mushrooms, game, truffles, oysters, etc.)—this season seemed perfect for a debut meal.

Suffice to say that on a beautiful warm Sunday afternoon when both Bruno and I would probably have been much happier barbecuing with friends in the country or eating falafel in the Marais, we were extremely impressed by our meal. We ate a sublime dish of grilled rougets (red mullet) grilled with dried fennel stalks to give it a delicate anise flavor and its brilliant garnish of braised zucchini flowers with curry and fresh almonds; braised pigeon with five-spice powder, a luscious foie gras pastille and sumptuous chutney of cherries and celery; and Provencal goat cheese with wild-mint (nepita) oil and black-olive preserves. The only off note in our 135 Euro prix-fixe was a truly awful dessert—strawberries with mojito granite, a violent ending, in terms of taste and temperature, to an otherwise excellent meal.

   Service was surprisingly sloppy and disinterested, too, and I’ll never understand a sommelier who takes umbrage when a client knows exactly what wine he or she wants instead of asking for advice (our Culleron Condrieu was perfect with this meal), but Briffard is off to a truly brilliant start in one of the world’s favorite Paris dining rooms. And after this meal, I finally came away with a clear idea of his cooking style: Briffard cooks like a Swiss watchmaker, with such an exultant precision that his occasional creative cautiousness is veiled by a dazzling perfection.

Le V, Four Seasons George V Hotel, 31 avenue George V, 8^th, 01.49.52.70.00. Metro: George V

Memere Paulette: A la Rechere du Temps Perdu, B-

A crisp October day and a brisk walk down the rue du Faubourg Montmartre, one of my favorite streets in Paris for its being so guilessly eclectic. This ancient rue presents a classic Parisian cityscape before gentrification and luxury brand names disrupted so much urban turf. First, the wonderfully gemutlich windows of A la Mere de Famille, a first-rate confiserie, or candy and sweets shop that first hung out a shingle in 1761 and which sells the best marrons glace in the world, and then Les Pates Vivantes, a wonderful Chinese noodle shop. I notice a HALAL crepe maker—now there’s some fusion food for you—and stop to read the chalkboard menu at a very good wine bar, le Zinc des Cavistes at No. 5. This street, which always makes me think of New York with its density and vitality, offers up a lot of great eating.

Finally I reach the rue Paul Lelong (a name that would be perfect for a detective or a marathoner) and Memere Paulette, the tiny bistro where I’m meeting a friend for lunch.

John is already a table and quite sensibly enjoying a nice milky glass of pastis when I arrive, so I join him, and take in the setting. Our table is covered with a sheet of that old-fashioned oil cloth that once graced many French kitchen tables and used to be cut from a long roll in quicailleries (hardware stores). The fanciful design of perfect apples, pears and plums on a red background sends me traveling back a good thirty years. With its wooden chairs, cruet set, old-enameled stove, pretty waitress with a strong jawbone like those you see in Toulouse Lautrec drawings, and an advertisement for L’Alsacienne beer (a young, blonde Alsacienne woman in a lace cap and flashing her comely pink buttocks), Memere Paulette immediately reminded me of the type of restaurant I used to go to when I’d visit Paris from London as a seriously pecunious student.

In these economically anxious times, 23 Euros for a three-course meal is appealing all over again, and best of all, the food here is not only served in nearly impossible abundance but is also very good (I’m also always very happy to find any restaurant with a large assortment of good wines on its list for less than 20 Euros).

So we ordered, and we ate. And ate. And ate. John started with an excellent salade de museu de boeuf—fine slices of beef muzzle in a light vinaigrette, and I had a hefty chunk of pate de campagne served with a delicious mustard of lightly crushed mustard seeds marinated in mout de vin (unfermented grape juice). Next, braised oxtail with sautéed potatoes for John, and a fondue de vacherin (a whole Mont d’Or cheese baked in its round pine box) with three slices of delicious jambon de Paris and a massive mound of grenaille potatoes for me, a mad choice at lunch, perhaps, but absolutely delicious. Somehow we also managed dessert—an excellent lemon-meringue tartlette and a massive baba au rhum, and given the monumental quantities of this feed, I was very glad of a long, slow walk home. With its low prices, friendly service and good quality for enormous quantities of food, Memere Paulette is a recession era address par excellence.

 Memere Paulette, 3 rue Paul Lelong, 2nd, Tel. 01.40.26.12.36. Metro: Grand Boulevards or Sentier. Closed Saturday and Sunday.

Chardenoux's New Incarnation

  For many years, Chardenoux was one of my favorite restaurants in Paris. This stunningly beautiful bistro in the 11th was opened by an Auvergnat couple of the same name at the turn of the last century, and they went all out on the decor with some of the most magnificent wedding cake moldings to be found anywhere in France, a dining room divided in half by a handsome beveled glass partition, and a long zinc bar posed on a stand of polychrome marble.

During what I now consider to be the restaurant’s hay day, chef Bernard Passavant was in the kitchen, and his superb market cooking pre-saged a major renewal of the bistro idiom as indicated by the one dish that I still desperately miss at his table: gigot de sept heures, or lamb cooked for seven hours until it fell off the bone, served with aligot, or that sublime Auvergnat elixir of potatoes whipped with Cantal cheese curds and garlic.

I don’t know what became of Passavant, an excellent cook in the same vein as Jean-Yves Bath, whom I first discovered in Clermont Ferrand, and who later came to Paris to open an eponymous restaurant, before this Michelin-starred business table in the 8th went belly-up and he re-emerged with a wonderful casual and very clever bistro in the 17th called Bath’s.

Chardenoux went through a couple of other chef-owners, and then the lights went out. This place was much missed by long-term Americans in Paris like myself. Why? It was beautiful, un-fussy, affordable, and served delicious market-driven cooking.

So hark, hark. Chardenoux has just reopened under the auspices of Cyril Lignac, a young man who is one of France’s television chef celebrities along the lines of Rachel Ray or Rocco di Spirito in the United States.

On rainy Tuesday night, I went to dinner at the “new” Chardenoux with Judy, one of my best friends in Paris and one of the city’s best palettes. We’ve dined together so often that we can guess what the other will like blind-folded, and this is why she’s the perfect partner for the new Chardenoux. She loves good food, a good night out, and Paris, and she, too, loved Chardenoux.

I arrived before Judy, gave her surname as our reservation, and one of the staff behind the long bar instantly responded to me in English. Merde. Okay, I’ll always have an American accent but is there anything more deflating than this linguistic experience of being on a ladder that’s pushed backwards? If I thought that this was a linguistic courtesy, I wouldn’t have minded, but it couldn’t have been on the basis on a single sentence. The man had no idea as to whether or not I spoke French decently—he just instantly heard an accent and decided to coopt our conversation by making me a foreigner. Why did I mind? France spends millions of dollars a year to propagate the use of the French language in the world, so why are the natives so unwelcoming to foreigners who make the effort?

Seated, I sipped a mediocre glass of white burgundy and perused the menu, which is expensive. On the way to dinner, I come down the wonderous rue Paul Bert, home to the superb Ecailler du Bistrot, one of the best seafood places in Paris, and the brilliant Bistrot Paul Bert, where the 34 Euro chalkboard menu was offering up Erquy scallops without a supplement. In fact there were so many tempting things on the Paul Bert’s menu that I wished we were going there.

Chardenoux’s short and much more expensive menu appealed with a boxed list of different daily plat du jour, but was otherwise just about as classic a bistro menu as I’ve seen in a very longtime. Things got off to a good start—Judy’s terrine de campagne was excellent and pleasantly garnished with a small salad of Bibb lettuce and marinated mushrooms in an excellent Xeres vinegar dressing, and my poelee de cepes (sautee of cepes) was sublime but a bit stingy, especially since these delicious autumnal mushrooms had been posed on a bed of spinach, which was surely there to bulk up the plate.

Our mains were excellent, too—cabillaud (cod) with sweet potato puree and a shellfish sauce for Judy, and a superb navarin d’agneau for me.

We split a very good Paris-Brest and finished up the rest of our Domaine Richaud Cairanne, one of my favorite wines, over coffee. Walking down the rue Paul Bert to the Metro later, I asked Judy if she’d go back. “Probably not—the food’s good, but it’s a little expensive and not much fun.” I agreed, adding that if the kitchen turns-out cookbook perfect food, it’s oddly lacking in the lusty passion of truly great bistro cooking, which is what Chardenoux used to serve. I’d definitely give this place a second chance, however, since Lignac is a very able and sincere cook and so maybe things will get gutsier here, and I’d also bear this place in mind as a good choice for Sunday night dinner, when so very few bistros are open.

 1 rue Jules Valles, 11th, Tel. 01-43-71-48-52. Metro: Faideherbe-Chaligny. Open daily.

Ozu: Good Food but Bad Vocabulary

Having come across several glowing reports of chef Thierry Marx's new menu at Ozu, a Japanese restaurant tucked away in the aquarium at the Jardins du Trocadero, I went to dinner on Saturday with the blessedly indefatigible Bruno. For those who don't know Marx, he's the chef at Cordeillan Bages in Paulliac just north of Bordeaux, and he has two stars as one of the stars of the portentously and pretentiously named "molecular" cooking espoused by Ferran Adria, the grand priest of the movement. Oh--and what is molecular cooking? A lot of things, but mostly a cooking style that explores and highlights the chemical reactions that take place when food is cooked, which, of course, sounds more like NASA than Escoffier.

I hadn't eaten Marx's food for several years, and so was keen to encounter him again, because there are aspects of his work that I very much appreciate. Marx is besotted with Japanese cooking and the Japanese aesthetic, and at his best, he creates some really brilliant and very beautiful hybrid Franco-Japanese dishes. The low-ceilinged blonde-wood diningroom had an airport lounge feel, however, and the aquarium wall cast a sad blue light on the room and disappointed with its sparse fish.

Studying the menu, my guard went up immediately because  of the preponderance of surely misappropriated Italian culinary terms, specifically "ravioli" and "risotto." These words, along with cannelloni, have been so wantonly abused by Parisian chefs that not only do they no longer have any real meaning, they almost invariably guarantee a disppointment of some kind. "Ravioli" is taken to mean anything layered, "cannelloni," anything round and/or stuffed, and "risotto"--well, the only common link in the various interpretation of this sublime Italian dish seem to mean something cooked in liquid.

My first course of a slow-cooked egg posed on a slice of turnip was meant to be an umami grand-slam, but left me decidedly bored, while Bruno's sea-eel ravioli was a mess of pasta ribbons with almost none of promised eel. Carmelized squid served to fill a long wait between starter and main course came with the best moment of the meal, a sublime smoked potato puree. When they finally came, main courses were superb. Soy lacquered duck breast was impeccably cooked (rare) and served with turnips and citrus honey, plus a side of vegetables cooked in a sphere of Saran wrap in a microwave oven--a goofy idea that made for a bit of table-side theater when the waiter snipped open the sphere with a tiny pair of scissors and poured it into a bowl. My scallop "risotto" was sublime, but why on earth had Marx called it a risotto? A layer of succulent scallops were capped with a wafer of black sesame nougatine and posed on a soy milk soup that contained tiny chunks of scallop and soy bean sprouts--very tasty but absolutely nothing to do with a risotto.

Desserts brought to mind another of my current bete noire--deconstruction. Young chefs in Paris lovely parsing out a classic dish into its individual elements. So my poire belle Helene was served as a bar of carmelized pear, a tiny pile of grilled almonds, a smear of hot chocolate, a dot of whipped cream and a small ball of ice cream. Similarly, Bruno's "Granny Smith Structure et Destructure," was a twee riff on a Granny Smith apple. Both desserts were tasty couldn't, but maybe because we'd spent much of the afternoon cooking--blanquette de veau au citron confit and apple-and-pear tart--for a mid-week dinner party, I could help but wondering at the persisting attraction of culinary deconstruction, when real construction, i.e. cooking, requires so much loving effort and hard work.

So my verdict on this place is go for lunch--it's definitely not a dinner restaurant, and come armed with a sense of humor to appreciate those flashes of brilliance that signal what a great chef Thierry Marx could become.

Ozu, 5 avenue Albert de Mun, 16th, 01.40.69.23.90. Metro: Trocadero