PHILIPPE EXCOFFIER--A Diplomatic Success in the Kitchen, B-

   

  After a first visit to Restaurant Philippe Excoffier, I was underwhelmed by the cooking of the chef who ran the kitchens of the American Embassy in Paris for many years and who recently published a book of recipes of the dishes he cooked there for Dorothy Stapleton, the wife of the man George W. Bush sent to France as his ambassador. That early summer night, the dishes that Bruno and I ate with old friends from Los Angeles left us diffident at best. Charles and Kato were off to Switzerland to see her father early in the morning, though, and the three of us had most recently shared an exceptionally good meal at El Faro in Cadiz a few weeks earlier. So I later wondered if perhaps there wasn't something disjointed about the casting of this evening, which might have been unfair to the chef? 

 

  Ever since I almost jumped out of my shoes at the deep intimacy implied between my nationality and the man I consider to be the worst president in American history conveyed by the table loads of silver-framed Bush family photographs I spotted while wandering through the public reception rooms at the U.S. Embassy in Paris during those dark years, I'll admit I've harbored a certain a piori hostility towards anyone who might even have remotely abetted this destructive and wrong-footed presidency. With the distance of several weeks, however, I realized that the prejudice I brought to dinner that night was as unfair as any prejudice always is, since a prejudice is a prejudgment in advance of rational facts or meditated and learned experience. 

  

 

  So when a recently divorced friend from Philadelphia whom I hadn't seen in years cast up in town the other night and invited me to join her at this restaurant around the corner from her hotel--Main Line ladies seem to be genetically wired to love the rue Saint Dominique and environs, I accepted with alacrity. To be sure, I had doubted my own first reaction to Excoffier enough to have remained silent about that meal in print, but as more time passed, I was actually a bit embarrassed that I should have so muddled food and politics, and very much felt that this particular chef deserved a fairer assessment than what I might have meted out the first time round.

  

  On the way to dinner, I wondered what condition I might find Cynthia in, since she's a mother of four, and she'd been married for thirty years. Well, I almost didn't recognize the svelte and very young looking blonde at a table by the door as my old pal when I walked in--she'd always been a bit zaftig, so I guess we've swopped rolls, and she was in fine fettle, having just moved into Center City Philadelphia from the suburbs to launch a new handbag business.

  

  I asked her why she'd chosen this restaurant, and she said she wanted something "dressier" and better than a bistro but not too expensive or stuffy, and that this place had been suggested by French friends. As we sipped a glass of Champagne while studying the menu, three little amuse bouche arrived--a delicious red pepper cake, two melon balls and a basil leaf on a tiny wooden spear--very 'embassy,' that; and a miniature canoe filled with very processed eggplant cream, and it occurred to me that her Gallic pals had hit the nail on the head in sending her here, since this place ticked all of the required boxes--nicely lit and decorated room with a long banquette for the ladies, 37 Euro prix-fixe menu and reasonable wine list, and an atmosphere that was formal (a little too much so for my tastes, actually) but relaxed.

  

   

  Our zealously well-mannered first courses--there was nary a flavor or a texture in either dish that could possibly have offended or displeased anyone, were beautifully cooked and plated, and I could just imagine them in the light of a silver candelabra on a broad backdrop of embassy damask embroidered with American eagles. I was surprised that my goat-cheese stuffed ravioli were served room temperature, but with a pleasant garnish of rehydrated chopped dried fruit and a persillade, it was great Indian summer eating. My only editing here would be to eliminate the squirt-bottle baroque flourish, because it always reads as both eighties and institutional to my eyes. Cynthia was delighted with her gently lime spritzed sea-bream-and-avocado tartare, too.

   

  "You know what, though--I might have added a little pimenton to this dish," Cynthia paried after our plates were cleared, and I could tell she was wondering if I knew what it was. "But why would you put hair pomade in a fish tartare?" "No! No, it's not a hair pomade, Alec, it's--" "Smoked paprika, and a pinch would have been a nice idea in that dish." "We have some brilliant Spanish restaurants in Philadephia these days, which is how I know about pimenton--isn't it funny, for years and years, anything special in Philly was French, but now we've become completely promiscuous." "Have you?" "No! Oh, no! I'm talking about restaurants."

  

  Our main courses were gorgeous haute bourgeoise dinner party dishes, too. As much as I adore old-fashioned bistro cooking, I've also been missing the type of haute bourgeoise cooking you used to find at restaurants like Le Recamier, Le Mercure Galant, Pierre au Palais Royal and all of those grown-up and worldly restaurants that used to form the middle-aged gut of the Paris food tree. In fact, I think a lot of people miss this cooking, which is why it's quietly coming back and Excoffier's restaurant is likely to become a solid word-of-mouth success over the next few months.

  

  

  My veal sweetbreads could have been crispier but the pool of Port sauce that surrounded them on their mirepoix island was superb--lush with a distant velvet of Port and politely primal from a base of deeply reduced veal stock, and Cynthia was delighted with a thick slice of pearly wild seabass with cocoa beans and a corsage of finely sliced fennel bulb. 

   

 

  Our desserts--roasted figs for me, a pistachio millefeuille for Cynthia, were charming for being both delicious and so firmly in the firmament of embassy row cum cuisine bourgeoise classics. Cynthia was spot on, too, when she said, "This food reminds me of what you used to get at the old Le Bec Fin," the city of Brotherly Love's long-time temple to Gallic gastronomy, which closed, and then re-opened this past June. According to her, the new Le Bec Fin is very good and doing quite well, which makes me think that people all over the world are hungry again for the kind of black silk stocking cooking that Excoffier serves at his nice little restaurant.

 

  Since I enjoyed 'Last Tango in Paris' a lot more than 'The Sound of Music' (although I liked them both), I don't know that I'd go here often, but I'm very glad that this restaurant exists--it'll be perfect for dinners like the one I had here with Cynthia and also for business dining. Excoffier is a consummate culinary professional, too, and as it turns out from a long chat when he made his rounds at the end of the evening, a really nice guy, so I'll never think of him as a Bush baby again. He's much too good a cook for that.

  

18 rue de l'Exposition, 7th, Tel.01-45-51-78-08. Metro: Ecole Militaire. Closed Sunday and Monday. Prix-fixe menu 37 Euros, average a la carte 40 Euros. www.philippe-excoffier.fr (on-line reservations on website, too) 

GUY MARTIN ITALIA, C- : Giving Pasta the Boot on the Left Bank

Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Or something, at Guy Martin Italia

 

  On the eve of la rentree (fall season) in Paris, they're several new restaurants in the wings that are deadringers for major media shout-outs. La Cocotte, Philippe Stark's new high-concept bistro at the Porte de Clignacourt flea-market, is a perfect definition of media catnip, while Aussie chef James Henry's new on-his-own table and terrific restaurateur Pierre Jancou's Vivant Table, a reboot of his beautiful Vivant bistrot a vins, will be tasty fodder for seriously food-loving bloggers and websites. Then there are places like Guy Martin Italia, Guy Martin's expensive, high-production-values new Italian restaurant. With a serious PR budget being deployed by a very well-known chef--Martin is chef at Le Grand Vefour, you can be sure you'll see this place everywhere, and that it will be the recipient of polite and rather sheepishly toothless reviews in most major French gastronomic publications and magazines and newspapers with food and/or restaurant columns.

   

  With an exception or two--I love the Caffe dei Cioppi, for example, I've long since given up on eating Italian food in Paris, because it's always under-seasoned, over-sophisticated and much too expensive for what it is. Still, hope springs eternal when you love it as much as I do, and so looking for a nice place for a reunion dinner with our friends Laurent and Carole on a Sunday night, I stumbled across Guy Martin Italia, studied the menu on the website, and decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, despite the fact that I'd never liked Le Sensing, the rather forced high-concept contemporary French place it replaces.  

 

  Arriving, there was an alarming fastness in the dining room, which set off alarm bells right away, but Laurent and Carole were already seated, so we stepped inside to meet our fate. This semi-hushed very formal service style from a young serving team who took themselves seriously immediately drained off a lot of joy, however, and it also served notice that we were not meant to relax and enjoy this meal, but rather try to live up to it. That said, the bread, served warm, was good, and the short tight bouquet of summer flowers on the attractively dressed table were real.

   

  Though stiffly priced, the menu was appealing enough on paper, too, and I was somewhat heartened to know that there was an Italian born chef in the kitchen, the amiable Fabrizio La Mantia from Mantua. So each of us ordered a different anti-pasto, with me settling on the  the beef carpaccio "Cipriani" (the reference to the famous Venetian hotel should have warned me off) for 12 Euros; Carole, a mixed antipasti assortment at 18 Euros; Laurent, some Italian charcuterie for 18 Euros; and Bruno, a plate of prosciutto and burrata at 16 Euros.

  

   

  Bruno did best, since he generously received two soft white little purses of delicious Puglian curds and whey and a nosegay of San Daniele ham. Carole was basically robbed, since the stingy portion of dried tomatoes, olives, capers and braesola that came her way was just plain dull, while Laurent liked his charcuterie, but complained that he'd be so ungenerously served for what he was paying.  

 

  And me? I suddenly found myself eating business-class on Alitalia, with a flaccid flannel of flesh under a clumsy grid of yellow squirt-bottle mayonnaise, a few shards of waxy cheese and a scattering of arugula leaves that gave this dish its only flavor. So now at least I knew where I was--to wit, Martin is gunning for the same Gauche Caviar crowd (establishment power types on expense accounts) who frequent Le Dome and La Rotonde nearby and also rulers-of-the-universe foreigners who dine at Le Grand Vefour, his home crib, but prefer to bed down on the Left Bank. 

  

  Will it work? On the basis of our main courses, I don't think so. Spaghetti alle vongole is an Italian comfort-food classic with an international reputation, but based on the cool-operator service and airport-lounge decor of this place, some questions were in order. But what can really ask under these circumstances? Is it good? The waiter swooned, "Oh, yes! It's wonderful!" So Bruno and Laurent went for the spaghetti with baby clams, I fell for the gnochetti, which were actually one of my favorite Italian pastas, malloreddus, or little ribbed durum wheat shells from Sardinia. It was inaccurately translated on the menu--the Italian description mentioned squid, while the French referred only to capers and olives. Neither mentioned the tasteless cubes of cottony hot-house tomato that finally gave this dish its primary flavor. Oh, and poor Carole ended up with some spongy cubes of swordfish with a rather anonymous garnish of aubergines.

  

 

 

  The real high-speed Neapolitan car-wreck here, however, was that the spaghetti alle vongole came with shelled clams! Madonna! Shelled clams! No Italian I know would ever have accepted this dish, since the shells are a warrant of freshness and contain the salty juices that make it so good. So I inquired. "Oh, er, yes, our customers always tell us that they're very happy not to have to deal with the shells," the waiter who recommended the dish said rather briskly. So the worst of effete Parisianisme struck again.

 

  And then there was my dish, with more of those suspiciously micro-fine food-service parsley flecks, tasteless olives, the offending tomatoes, and catch-of-the-week calamari rings. The pasta was cooked correctly, however, and the sauce was nicely emulsified, the problem was that it delivered no flavor. And Carole's kitchen-sponge swordfish warrants neither comment nor photo.

 

  So we arrived at dessert, which Bruno, Laurent and I scrubbed, while Carole succumbed to the mango and vanilla panna cotta. I didn't taste it, but I did observe its firm gelatinous flanks and fussy decor.

  

 

  In the meantime, however, the po-faced waitress had assiduously poured us through two bottles of shreikingly overpriced Vermentino di San Gimignano (you can find it in supermarkets in Italy for about 4 Euros, here at 32 Euros, or some such) and two bottles of Chateldon. Clearly, up-sell is a major part of staff training at Guy Martin italia, which is one of the most calculating restaurants I've been to in a longtime. 

   

  In fact, this place could serve as a Harvard Business School case history to illustrate why it's not always a good idea for a chef to expand beyond the kitchen where he actually works. I doubt it will still be open in a year's time, or at least not in the same format--maybe Martin will try his hand at a Texan style barbecue restaurant next time round? In the meantime, it'll be oddly fascinating to watch the inevitably cautious and very polite reviews roll in.

 

  19 rue de Bréa, 6th, Tél. 01-43-27-08-80, Metro: Vavin or Montparnasse. Open daily. Lunch menu 50 Euros, Dinner menus 75 Euros, 95 Euros, Average a la carte 70 Euros.  

LE TEMPS DES CERISES, B : A Very Sweet Little Bistro in the Marais

   

    I have to admit that my immediate reaction when I first laid eyes on Le Temps des Cerises in the rue de la Cerisaie in the Marais was wariness. There was just no way any restaurant with a setting as winsomely pretty and well-preserved as this little 18th century house with geraniums in its second-story windboxes and a picture-perfect mosaic facade could possibly be anything but an egregious tourist trap. Except that it isn't. Indeed, my opinion changed from the moment I stepped inside and charming young owner Grégory Detouy welcomed us and promptly brought us an excellent carafe of Rhone valley Viognier, along with some crunchy radishes and a shotglass of salt to dip them in, always a good sign. 

   

  My doubts revived, however, when we studied the menu, because the prices were so reasonable. Again, if this place existed in the sad mad mode of a prima-donna tourist hell-hole like Chartier, it struck me as extremely unlikely that the food could be very good. I kept all of this to myself, though--Bruno had been wanting to try this place, and decided there was some very real consolation in the beauty of the snug old-fashioned dining room with a zinc topped bar just inside the front door, tawny walls, bare wood tables with bent-wood chairs, and a beautiful art-nouveau framed chalkboard on the wall. The appealingly diverse crowd was also almost entirely Parisian, too, and the small packed room radiated an atmosphere of bona-fide bonheur.

  

   

   Detouy returned again to see if we had any questions about the menu. I asked about the specialities of the restaurant and he cited the escargots, boudin noir facon Parmentier (shepherd's pie made with blood pudding) and steak Paname, an entrecote garnished with a vinaigrette of shallots, garlic and fresh herbs. He also told us that he was a chef by training but had fall in love with the idea of running a real old-fashioned bistro while working at Chez Janou, and had decided to take the leap and become an owner when this place became available two years ago. Our curiosity encouraged by several glasses of the good white wine, we continued asking questions and learned that the small charming house was originally built during the Middle Ages, had once been an annex to a Celestine convent and first became a bistro in 1830. To his credit, he also never once let on that he might be impatient or alarmed by these two garulous and slightly bibulous men, Bruno and me.

  

 

 

  Since I've spent so much of the summer traveling outside of France, I was aching for my first course, a grandly Gallic warm salad of Morteau sausage and potatoes, and it was superb--the smoky sausage from the Jura was obviously of good quality, it came with a nice little nosegay of fresh herbs and salad leaves and was very generously served. Bruno liked his seared sliced tuna on eggplant caviar, too, and the contrast between these two dishes well-expressed chef Pascal Brebant's smart menu. Brebant, who trained with Marc Veyrat, offers a run of bistro classics side-by-side with modern dishes like lamb marinated in lime juice with spices and the salmon steak with sage and a Porto vinegar spiked cream sauce that Bruno enjoyed as his main course.

  

   

  I decided to have the Steak Paname (Paname is French slang for Paris) when Detouy told me that it came with freshly cut and fried frites, which are regrettably rare in Paris these days. Thin and often rather leathery, entrecote is not one of my favorite French cuts of beef, especially since it's inevitably overcooked. So it was a terrific surprise when this steak arrived rare and juicy as ordered, with a pile of frites so good I almost had to drive my knife into Bruno's hand to keep him away from them. The shallot-garlic-and-herb vinaigrette that sauced the meat was excellent, too, and was also the detail that made me realize that this an absolutely perfect bistro to send foreigners to. Why?

  

   During the 26 years I've lived in Paris, I've noticed that visitors are often letdown when I take them to a real bistro. This is because many people from big cities all over the world are accustomed to food that's lighter and brighter (in terms of seasonings and garnishes) than what you usually find in an old-time French bistro. The modern palate likes herbs and vivid spices, favors fish and vegetables, and exhibits a preference for briefer cooking times. So Detouy, a shrewd restaurateur, and Brebant, an experienced and talented cook, have pulled off the nifty hat trick of creating their two strut menu and also preserving the warmth and conviviality of a traditional pre-war bistro without creating a pastiche. To be sure, the red-fruit sable we shared for dessert was dull and the bread here could be better, but this is a delightful little bistro, and a place that's instantly won a place on my to-go list, especially since it's open on Sunday nights and is so reasonably priced.

  

31 rue de la Cerisaie, 4th, Tel. 01-42-72-08-63. Métro: Saint Paul. Open daily 8am-2am. Lunch menu 13 Euros, Sunday brunch 22 Euros, Average dinner a la carte 30 Euros.

  

   

CHIPOTLE, Paris, C- And if You Think This is a Burrito, Then I'm the Mad Empress Carlotta

 

  I'm not sure exactly why, but while I was perched on a stool in front of a window overlooking the boulevard at the new Chipotle, I found myself thinking of poor old Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and his wife, the Belgian born Princess Charlotte whose slippery grip on sanity later in life led her to be known as the 'Mad Carlotta.' Don't worry if Max doesn't ring a bell right away either, since the paper-punch of historical confetti that had an Austrian aristocrat and naval officer briefly installed (1864-67) as the emperor of Mexico with the benediction and patronage of Emperor Napoleon III of France isn't well known these days. Maybe it struck a chord with me, however, as an historical footnote on a much earlier failed attempt at globalization? 

 

  In any event, the dog days of August and the fact that we're momentarily gypsies since--surprise, surprise!--the renovation work being done in our flat is taking twice as long as planned, offered a perfect pretext for me to nip around the corner and lose my Chipotle virginity yesterday at lunchtime. To be sure, I've spotted branches of this hugely successful American 'Mexican' fast-food chain in various U.S. cities, but if I'm in New York or Boston or Philadelphia or, or, or ... the last thing in the world I'd ever do is eat at a fast-food place, even one that's copped a pretty good reputation. I mean can you imagine eating at an Olive Garden in Rome or a Red Lobster in Boston? My curiosity had also been piqued and primed by the fact that such estimable Gallic guardians of good grub as Le Fooding and L'Express Styles have actually given this first French outpost of the U.S. chain good reviews. I mean, Le Fooding giving a thumbs up to an American fast-food chain is sort of like a priest admitting that he doesn't believe in God or Julia Child confessing that Twinkies are her favorite pastry. 

   

  So I ducked around the corner from my current temporary digs late in the afternoon after the lunch rush, and was immediately surprised by the friendliness of Chipotle's staff, who rather poignantly seemed to have realized the only interesting thing about their work is that it offers them a chance to practice their English, since only two of the ten people who went down the rails before me were confirmed Francophones. And these nice young kids speak English really well, too. Anway, with jet-lag firing up my always red-hot appetite for Mexican food, the first thing that kind of let me down was that there weren't enough side dish possibilities. Okay, chips and guacamole, fine, but what if you wanted to be a total slob and get a side of rice and beans? No can do. The beverage selection didn't set my hair on fire either, since I think you have to have been born below the Mason-Dixon line to like Dr. Pepper and drinking nothing but water with a meal always strikes me as self-flagellantly monastic. Why not create some fabulous faux Mexican non-alcoholic drink with sparkling water and lime cordial? Unlike most fast food chains, Chipotle doesn't try hard enough to up-sell. No cactus-paddle confit tart for dessert, no nothing.

  

 

   The site of those little molded red-plastic baskets that used to be all over the place in more up-market American fast food places like Howard Johnson's or Friendlys gave me a happy twinge, though, and after a lot of hemming and hawing I decided on the daily special, which was their 'lime-marinated' barbecued chicken burrito. So my server slapped a big flappy burrito on the grill and attended to the serious fillings--I went with the two different offered types of beans, black and pinto cooked with bacon, rice and chicken, and then it was on to the sauce lady with her three degrees of hot sauce, grated cheese, tasteless sour cream, and maybe a few other things. Dosed with what hoped would be seriously hot chile sauce, this nice young woman wrapped up my big load, nestled it into a paper lined red basket, and away I went, my pockets lighter by 11.50 Euros.

  

 

  A lot has been made about Chipotle's commitment to well-sourced produce, so I bit into my meal papoose with a lot less reluctance than I've ever felt before unknown fast food before. Immediate problem: my entire Mexican-American food pod was lukewarm to cold. And then the flavors seemed out of balance, with several shaded tones of acidity floating on a nobly caliente scrim of chile sauce. Not bad, but not good either. But I kept going, because I was there, and I'd paid for it, and I was hungry.

    

 

  Then something odd happened. I looked down at my basket and realized I'd been so distracted by the fun of the weirdo people watching provided by les Grands Boulevards that I'd ignored my food pod for a good five minutes, which in my book is the equivalent of being in the middle having sex with someone and suddenly saying, "You know what? Let's just watch TV instead." Oh, I finished my burrito, and it was sufficiently better than any other American fast-food I've ever eaten to mean that Chipotle will score on my radar in airport terminals and places like that, but it's not a place that's going to be seeing me again anytime soon. 

 

  Walking home, I found myself thinking that the most interesting thing about lunch was that it showcased how good Americans are at inventing highly rationalized production systems. The problem is that they're almost inevitably deployed towards mediocrity than quality. Now that I'm on a franchised food roll (sic) (sick?), the next time I go to the U.S., however, nothing's going to keep me away from an Olive Garden or a Red Lobster. I just need to know.  

  

20 boulevard Montmartre, 9th, No public phone, Metro: Richelieu - Drouot, Le Peletier or

Grands Boulevards. Open daily. Average 12 Euros.  

PORTA GAIG, Barcelona, B+, and Why the Sad Ongoing Gastronomic Turbulence at Paris Airports?

 

  To be sure, Aeroports de Paris, the organization charged with running Paris’s airports, seems to regularly announce (much-needed) improvements, and recent renovations of several of the older terminals at Charles de Gaulle are indeed an improvement over the crowded faded seventies spaces they replaced. Ditto recent refurbishing at Orly, Paris’s other airport.

 

  Unfortunately, however, Paris airports still regularly rate a ‘D’ (poor), at best, when it comes to feeding travelers. And I, for one—many colleagues, including my pal David Lebovitz, have publicly moaned over this state of affairs for a longtime. 

  

  It absolutely mystifies me, too, since you’d think that in the post 9/11 era, when most of us inevitably end up with more time than we need on the other side of security because prudence has us guessing our timing conservatively, ADP would recognize that there’s a gastronomic goldmine to made from feeding people who decide to offer themselves a really nice meal before boarding their flight. You’d also think that some higher power that be in France, which is, after all, the world’s leading tourist destination, would have long since recognized that Parisian airports represent a vital opportunity to showcase the vaunted gastronomic reputation of France. Millions of people who’ve never set foot in Gaul have a vague idea that it’s associated with great grub and elegance, so why not pour it on if their only experience of the country is a couple of hours behind customs between flights?

 

  Instead, even in the newer terminals, what you end up with is some weird, gimmicky and expensive-for-what-it-is outlet from chef Guy Martin, at best, or similarly over-priced and just plain dull faux health-food at AKKI, a “healthy” eating chain. Things are so lousy in terms of anything edible at Paris airports that the arrival of a PAUL (industrial bakery) at Orly struck me as a major game changer.

 

  Nothing could possibly cast Paris’s pre-flight mediocrity into a sorrier and more vividly unappetizing light than the superb lunch I recently enjoyed at Barcelona airport’s magnificent Terminal 1 at Porta Gaig, a really excellent restaurant that was opened there last November by Barcelona chef Carles Gaig, who trained under Juan-Mari Arzak and owns two outstanding restaurants in the city. 

  

Porta Gaig, Terminal 1, Barcelona Airport

    Finding ourselves at the airport rather early at the end of a wonderful seaside Catalan holiday, Bruno and I read the very appealing menu posted outside of this place and decided this sleek dining room paneled with pale beech wood and furnished with comfortable vanilla-colored modern leather armchairs at white linen dressed tables would be just the ticket to lift spirits dampened by a sudden severing from the sea, sun and Spanish warmth.

  

   

   What followed was a really excellent meal. Bruno was delighted with a starter of anchovies on pa amb tomàquet, or fleshy pink Cantabrian anchovies on toasted bread dressed in classic Catalan style with garlic, crushed tomato and olive oil, and my canelons, cannelloni stuffed with hashed roast veal and served gratinated in a light Bechamel sauce and a Gaig classic, were sublime. Bruno, who, in his love of salads, is probably almost the more American of our pair, loved the elegant Caesar salad he had as a main course, and my baby squid with artichokes in a ruddy almost funky sauce of chorizo drippings and roasted tomato puree were delicious. The little squid contained that wonderful milky juice you find only in the freshest of these cephalopods, and the carefully turned artichoke hearts were clearly fresh. I thought that the deconstructed crème Catalane that Bruno ordered for dessert would be gimmicky, but was proven wrong—it was a pleasantly light dessert with strong flavors of caramelized sugar and eggy custard.

  

   

  If the food was terrific, the other glory of this table was that the wine list allowed me to finally snag a rare bottle of the white Priorat that I’d been assiduously hunting down all week long to no avail (2007 Mas d’en Compte, FYI). Bref, this was a superb and very reasonably priced meal that left us not only profoundly well-fed but with a freshly budding desire to return to Catalunya again as soon as possible. And surely this is exactly what Paris airport eateries should be aspiring to—promote both Paris and France.  So hey, how’s about a branch of Benoit at 2E or 2F at Charles de Gaulle—Alain Ducasse is such a consummate pro he could pull this off to great advantage, and hell, maybe a couple of Frenchie’s wine bars or Le Verre Vole’s here and there? Why on earth doesn’t France care more about its gastronomic image, and don’t even get me started about the food in the French train stations or on French trains.

  

Barcelona Airport Terminal 1, Tel. 34-93-259-6210, Open noon-5pm. Average two-course meal 30€.