In Hebrew, the word ‘Tekés’ means ceremony, with the implication of a celebration. In Paris, the word now has two meanings–the original Hebrew one, and a second one as the name of Tekés, a very popular new restaurant, which is also a cause for rejoicing, because it has brought modern Israeli vegetarian cooking to a city that’s long been lamentably well-known for its indifference to vegetables.

The long running exception to this generalization has been chef Alain Passard’s shudderingly expensive Michelin three-star restaurant Arpege, but now people who love good food and eat plant-based diets are finally getting a lot more choice in Paris. And many of these new places, including Tekés, are so good that even people who aren’t vegetarian will enjoy eating at them.

Tekés is tucked away in the Sentier, or Paris’s old garment district, which has now become a popular nightlife zone for younger Parisians with lots of bars, cafes and restaurants (Paris-lovers will note that this zone has replaced the superannuated rue de Soif in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, as this once delightful neighborhood has been drained of life by an infestation of identikit luxury brand-name boutiques and expensive pied-a-terre apartments). I liked this warm lively place immediately when I went there to meet a friend there for dinner. It’s run by the same Israeli team led by talented chef Assaf Granit that launched the hugely popular Shabour and Balagan, along with the just-opened Jerusalem street-food restaurant Shosh.

Led by chefs Cécile Levy, who formerly cooked at the Norman Hotel in Tel Aviv, and Dan Yosha, Tekés’s busy open kitchen privileges cooking over charcoal and embers, and it puts on a great show while producing stunningly delicious dishes like grilled zucchini with cinnamon labneh and flambéed eggplant.

The menu leads off with some outstanding breads, including a beautifully fluffy crown-shaped challah for sharing and a buttery sage-leaf garnished galette to tear apart and dip in labneh, and then runs to a suite of Vegan and vegetarian dishes, which are also meant to be shared. These are followed by a regularly evolving roster of Israeli comfort food dishes from different Jewish culinary traditions, which are also meant to be shared, another reason that a meal here ends up being such a good time.

I loved my beet-root chachlik, which came with feta cream and watercress and was every bit as satisfying in terms of taste and texture as any version made with meat, and my friend was delighted by her “The Silk Road,” a dish composed of celeriac, clementine, ginger and shushka. We were also intrigued by the vegetarian chicken liver, which is a composition of mixed mushrooms served with a soft-boiled egg, dates and pine nuts. All of these ingredients arrive table side and are then blended with a mezzaluna before being served. The unguent umami-rich hash actually does have distant echoes of chopped chicken liver, but it’s lighter and fresher than any version made with the fowl. Gnocchi (below) were absolutely delicious, too.

Desserts are intriguing, too, including a brilliant airy mushroom mousse with chocolate granola, a perfect grand finale to the healthy joyous cooking of this very good restaurant.

And walking home after dinner, I couldn’t help but feeling quietly ecstatic that a growing number of talented young chefs are finding ways to create dishes that are not only healthy and environmentally friendly but offer a full flush of gastronomic pleasure as well.

N.B. Tekés has one of the best and most interesting wine lists in Paris, with an especially strong selection of outstanding wines from Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Tekés, 4bis rue Saint Saveur, 2nd Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 07 81 42 54 74, Metro: Open for dinner only Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday. Average dinner 45 Euros. http://www.tekesrestaurant.com

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Ever since I’ve had teeth, few foods have more reliably made me happy than pizza, and this is why the pizza at pizzaïoulo Giuseppe Cutraro new Peppe Pizzeria in the 20th Arrondissement not far from the Père Lachaise Cemetery made me ecstatic last weekend. With my appetite honed by the recent weeks of being locked up in my Paris flat, I was yearning for some really really really good pizza, because most of what was available through Paris food-delivery apps was pretty mediocre. And the inexplicable international popularity of several huge American pizza chains notwithstanding, there are few things sadder than mediocre pizza.

When I think about it, I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like pizza, because not liking pizza would be as life-threatening and pleasure-killing as saying you didn’t like flowers or kisses. But as a native of southwestern Connecticut, the original home of great pizza in the United States (I expect some cat calls and blow back for this assertion, but it’s true), I’m grew up as a pizza connoisseur, and that was long before I finally made it to Naples and had a first head-spinning experience of the real McCoy, the sultry and stunningly delicious Margherita–just dough topped with crushed tomatoes, mozzarella di buffalo, and a fresh basil leaf of two before a turn in the blister-inducing inferno of a Napolitan beehive pizza oven.

I’d been reading about this place in just before le confinement (quarantine) shut down almost every restaurant in Paris, and I’d decided I’d be willing to travel halfway across Paris to taste the pizza that had won Giuseppe Cutraro, aka Peppe, the “World Champion of Contemporary Napolitan Pizza 2019-2020.” (“The Art of the Napolitan Pizzaïoulo” has figured on UNESCO’s World Heritage list since 2017). To be perfectly honest, it sounded, well, strange. To wit, this pie was sauced with yellow Sicilian tomatoes, topped with mozarella di buffala and provolone, Tuscan ham aged for 36 months, almond slivers and fig jam. But before you conclude that I’m a hidebound purist, I’d quickly tell you that one of my all-time pizzas was and is the one served at Frank Pepe Pizzeria in New Haven, Connecticut, which is topped with little-neck clams from Rhode Island and is just stunningly good.

So “Hawaian  pizza” topped with ham and pineapple and pizzas topped with salad, any kind of salad–absolutely not, but if you respect the pizza as a sort of brilliant blank canvas awaiting the humble new gustatory brush strokes of a real artist, sometimes pizza innovation works out spectacularly well. Like Frank Pepe’s clam pizzas or Giuseppe Cutraro astonishing delicious ‘World Champion Pizza.” The reason this pizza is so good is the same reason that any dish anywhere in the world succeeds, which is that it offers such an exquisitely subtle but still legible compilation of tastes that unite in perfect harmony. The almonds Texture. The yellow tomato sauce Low-acidity to balance the sweetness of the sparingly applied fig jam. The two cheeses Different textures and salinities. Try it, you’ll like it is all I can say.

The other thing that makes Peppe Pizzeria’s pizzas so good is that they allow the dough, which is made from flour imported from Naples, to ferment before kneading it and slapping it around, so that the rolled crust is filled with air pockets and the base is exceptionally light and thin.

Peppe did a stint at Keste on Bleecker Street in New York City’s West Village and also worked in Switzerland before he came to Paris to work as a pizza-maker for the Big Mamma Group in Paris, which has seven Italian restaurants in the capital, one each in Lille and Lyon, and two in London. Peppe wanted his own place, though, so he opened at the end of January, and the restaurant had been packed at lunch and dinner until the lockdown came in mid-March.

Fortunately, however, it was easy to continue working on a takeout basis, so the place has thrived even during the challenging last few months. When we arrived to collect our two pizzas, an order of carpaccio with arugula and a tiramisu the other night there was a huge line of people waiting to collect their pizzas. So we bought two deliciously yeasty Napolitan beers and enjoyed the fresh air of a mild May evening until our order came up and we bolted back across Paris to tuck into our pizzas.

Ever since I ate the lone remaining slice of our Margherita for breakfast the following morning, I have been permanently craving this pizza and ruing the fact that Peppe Pizzeria doesn’t deliver. One way or another, I’ll be back again soon, and maybe next time I’ll try the truffle pizza, which is topped with “truffle cream” (hmmm….), sautéed mushrooms, fresh stracciatella from Puglia, crushed hazelnuts and freshly shaved Italian truffle. The ‘Piccante”–tomatoes from Puglia, mozzarella di buffalo di Campania, Calabrian spianata (spicy salami), pickled onion and shavings of Pecorino Romano DOP speaks to me, too. And a friend who lived nearby says that the gnocchi alla Sorrentina are outstanding, too.

I look forward to the day that we can dine in Peppe Pizzeria’s spacious dining room, too, but in the meantime, the friendly crew behind the tiled open kitchen should get used to seeing my pizza-loving face.

Peppe Pizzeria, 2 Place Saint-Blaise, 20th Arrondissement, Tel. 01-45-35-59-13. Metro: Gambetta or Porte de Bagnolet. Open Tues-Sun for lunch and dinner. Closed Monday. Average 30 Euros. www.peppepizzeria.fr

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With the opening of Pavyllon, chef Yannick Alleno has created a convivial new casual restaurant that aims to make his cooking available to a broader public than the one that can afford his Michelin three-star table upstairs at the lovely Pavillon Ledoyen in the gardens of the Champs Elysees. “Pavyllon is sort of my laboratory,” says Alleno, who seems to inherently understand that French haute cuisine is searching for relevance in a new century. Pavyllon occupies a sunny pretty room overlooking the gardens at the same address.

Why Haute cuisine dining, the traditional pinnacle of the French food chain, has not only become exorbitantly expensive but seems sidelined in a city where they’re so many brilliant young chefs serving spectacularly good and much more affordable food in relaxed and charming restaurants like Septime or the recently opened Maison pat Sota Atsumi.

To wit, I don’t go to Paris haute cuisine restaurants very often anymore, but having been to six or seven of them recently as part of a magazine assignment, I couldn’t help but thinking that I could have eaten just as well–if not better, at a variety of restaurants that would have cost a quarter of what any of these exalted meals did. There was a time when an haute cuisine meal was sort of like going up in a hot-air balloon, or a rare, extravagant and thrilling expedition that offered an enlightening Olympian view of the dining landscape below by dint of serving meals that were so much more head spinningly special, refined, sensual and original than anything you’d probably eaten anywhere else for a very longtime. With a few exceptions, I don’t find that to be true anymore, and I also think that the tight formal formatting of the haute cuisine meal is something that rarely delivers much joy anymore.

These three-star tables are under a huge amount of financial pressure not only because of their exorbitant labor costs, but also because the clientele that can afford Paris haute cuisine dining these days has changed so much. The old-school mix of French clients and foreigners from the U.S., the U.K. and other European countries has diminished at the same time that more and more haute cuisine diners are Asian, Russian, Middle Eastern and hailing from other places with booming economies and very different dining habits and palates. And many customers are also health conscious and environmentally aware in ways that are challenging a concept of luxury dining defined by such foods as foie gras, caviar, sea bass, and other haute cuisine standards.

Clearly, Alleno had all of this in mind when he opened Pavyllon, which serves dishes like beets with chocolate nibs, black olive pistou and ricotta for 21 Euros. He also decided on a counter-service only format, which isn’t new–Joel Robuchon got there first with his L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon, originally in Paris, and now in many other cities, including New York. Perched on a powder-blue velvet-upholstered stool at Pavyllon, you watch your meal being made in the open kitchen on the other side of a wide stone counter, and service is amiable and complicit, a sharp contrast to the drilled, cool and relentlessly calibrated service at many haute cuisine restaurants. “The idea of this place is for people to have a good time,” says Alleno, a remark that sort of underlines how this goal has become so muddled elsewhere.

This restiveness about the future of French haute cuisine is not new–the estimable food critic Francois Simon often complained that haute-cuisine meals were too long when he wrote for Le Figaro and Le Monde, and other chefs, like Pascal Barbot, have wondered about its rote rituals, but it’s become more general. Barbot, for example, serves fresh fruit at the end of a meal at his three-star restaurant L’Astrance, because as he once told me, all of the mignardises and chocolates are just too much. “And does anyone really want a pre-dessert#8221; he once asked me, referring to the appetiser dessert that proceeds the main one at many haute cuisine tables. “It’s all just too much,” he said.

As is true of any laboratory, some experiments are better than others. At a recent meal at Pavyllon, I loved the tart spinach soup with a tiny knob of scamorza and burned nutmeg and the oyster beignet with smoked pike perch eggs, but found the pike perch mousse lined with brioche crusts and celeriac extract a bit timid.

I’ve known Yannick Alleno’s cooking ever since he cooked at the Hotel Scribe many years ago and have always admired his talent, which continues to evolve in interesting ways. So it was interesting to see him riffing on his fascination with Asian cooking via a small plates format at Pavyllon. Some dishes are angelic to the point of being a little plain, like turbot with vegetable ‘pearls’ and salicorne with an herbal jus, while others are succulent and deeply satisfying, including a luscious stroganoff of Wagyu beef under a thatch of celeriac matchsticks and potato straws. The perfect pour with the stroganoff is a glass of the superb Saint Joseph that Alleno is now making with Michel Chapoutier.

Pithiviers of duck and foie gras by chef Sota Atsumi at Maison par Sota Atsumi

On another visit–and there will be one, I’d love to try the boudin noir (black pudding) with suckling pig chops and the Pithiviers of marinated hare with a jus royal, because these pastry tourtes, which are happily very fashionable in Paris this Fall, can be ecstatically good; the best one I’ve had recently was the magnificent duck, foie gras and spinach filled tourte served with quince puree at Maison par Sota Atsumi. I’d also be curious to sample Alleno’s pumpkin-stuffed tortellini and his gluten-free tagliatelle with corn extraction, caviar and crispy chicken skin.

Desserts are excellent, too, including caramel ice cream with Amarena cherries and candied hazelnuts. The wine list is outstanding, too, and they pour a great selection of wines by the glass. Service is eager and charming, too. Usefully, this restaurant is open daily for lunch and dinner, too, and you can book online, which makes it a great option for solo dining. As a laboratory for the future of French haute cuisine, Pavyllon is an interesting and appealing restaurant with some imaginative and technically impressive cooking.

Pavyllon, Carré des Champs-Elysées, avenue Dutuit Metro: Champs-Elysées-Clemenceau, Tel. (33) 01-53-05-10-10, www.yannick-alleno.com/fr/restaurants-reservation/pavyllon Open daily for lunch and dinner. Lunch menu 68 Euros, Prix-fixe menus 145 Euros, 235 Euros, Average a la carte 150 Euros.

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Heading for dinner at Virtus on a rainy Saturday night, I couldn’t help but thinking about how this address in the 12th Arrondissement has always been sort of a cradle for the gastronomic ambitions of foreign chefs in Paris. The first time I went here, I discovered the wonderful cooking of the young Swedish born Petter Nilsson. After he returned to Sweden, there was a brief moment when Italian chef Luigi Nastri took over this kitchen. He was followed by the excellent Sardinian native Simone Tondo, who’s now cooking some superb Italian food at Racines in the Passage des Panoramas. So I hoped the new foreign-born duo who recently moved their restaurant to these premises would live up to the storied past of a restaurant once known as La Gazzetta and now called Virtus.

Coming through the door, I immediately liked the new decor by Argentine interior designer Marcelo Joulia. He’s created a warm and attractive atmosphere with a witty retro under-toe conveyed by antique suspension lamps and flea market ceramics. Tables are generously spaced here, too–a luxury these days, when so many Paris restaurants seem crowded and noisy.

While a friend and I settled in over a glass of very good Chenin Blanc, the eager young waitress implored us to order the seven-course tasting menu. She advised that it would be the best way for us to discover the cooking of the  Japanese born Chiho Kanzaki and Argentine Marcelo di Giacomo, both of whom trained at Mauro Colagreco’s restaurant Le Mirazur in Menton. I replied that we needed more time before ordering. The discussion that followed was a mutual expression of how both of us are weary of tasting menus, which almost always end up lasting too long, overfeeding you and finally leaving you with a muddled  impression of a chef’s cooking.

This is mostly because there’s something too prim and schoolmarmish about the idea that the purpose of a meal is to submit to a demonstration of a chef’s talent. I think most people go out to have a good time and a good meal, which might include a delighted discovery of a new chef’s talent, but on their own terms. Also, for me a good part of the pleasure of going to a restaurant is choosing what I want to eat, especially because I often have an idea or two as to what I might want.

All of that being said, I’d also admit that I’m not a great audience for tasting menus anymore for the simple reason that I’ve probably done too many of them as a food writer. As my friend rightly pointed out, “Maybe if you didn’t go out as often as you do, Alec, a tasting menu might still have a sort of exciting, magical quality to it.” In the end, however, we agreed to the tasting menu, with the caveat that portions should be modest.

As soon as our first course arrived, however, I was very glad we’d signed on for the multi-tiered meal. Accompanied by a spectacularly good and very beautiful brioche roll, scallop ceviche with three different colors of cauliflower and coins of Granny Smith apple was winsomely pretty, thrillingly fresh and beautifully seasoned by a gently acidulated pool of marinade with a subtle bracing dash of lemon verbena. “This is just lovely,” my friend said, and I agreed–the dish was radiant with earnestness and a bashful desire to please.

Bonito with Chinese cabbage, hazelnuts and Pimenton was a superbly conceived dish, too, with a range of textures and palate of flavors that never overwhelmed the taste of the fish, which had been briefly grilled to leave it appetisingly rare. Silently, I concluded that the waitress had been absolutely right–the tasting menu is in fact the best way to experience the sincere, tender, almost angelic cooking of Kanzaki and di Giacomo.

Lotte (monkfish) with daikon and anchovy sauce was a charming dish, too. “You know, I’m actually really enjoying this meal,” my friend remarked. “The portions are perfect, the timing is excellent, service is delightful, and every dish has sort of a shy Faberge like elegance that’s very understated.”

Duck breast with baked pumpkin was a appealing, too, since the barnyard richness of the fowl paired perfectly with the earthy Cucurbita and a scattering of its toasted seeds. And in this dish as in all of those that proceeded it, the near reverence the two young chefs have for the produce they work with created an appealing frame of humility.

Two excellent desserts concluded the meal: a poached pear with rosemary cream and yogurt ice cream and a composition of coffee pudding with coconut and pistachio. This meal was a wonderful experience of light, fresh, healthy and intelligently original cooking, which is why it’s a place I’d happily return. It’s also a terrific choice for anyone looking to celebrate a special occasion in Paris without spending an exorbitant amount of money.

My only suggestion would be that aside from the interesting and well-chosen selections of wines by the glass that accompanied our menu, it would be good to propose a single bottle that might accompany the menu for those who don’t want to flit from one wine to another.

29 rue Cotte, 12th Arrondissement, Tel. 09-80-66-08-08. Metro: Ledru-Rollin. Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch and dinner. Lunch menu 35 Euros. Prix-fixe tasting menu 64.50 Euros, average a la carte 70 Euros. www.virtus-paris.com

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Pickles

On a warm summer night, Le Rigmarole turned out to be a perfect choice for dinner, because Franco-American chef Robert Compagnon’s small plates menu of yakitori, pastas, and tempura was light, bright, fresh and full of flavor. I’d been wanting to get to this place ever since it opened in October 2017, but frequent travel and the long hideouts needed to work on my latest book meant that this took some time. Well, the long wait was more than worth it.

I hugely enjoyed every single one of the nine dishes Bruno and I shared the other night, especially given the fact that our appetites were heat-wilted and balky. In fact, it was almost as though Compagnon had designed a menu that was especially intended to tantalise languid taste buds, since what’s on offer here is comfort food of the highest and most inventive order, and this is why I’ll be eagerly looking forward to eating here again very soon after a much needed summer vacation.

Robert Compagnon became obsessed by cooking with Japanese Bichotan charcoal while working at the famous Yakitori Tori Shin in New York City and decided to return to Paris and open a Yakitori bar of his own. What makes Le Rigmarole very different from the Japanese places that inspired it is that he cooks with superb French produce and is also serious pasta-lover. Also, co-owner Jessica Yang is a very talented pastry chef who formerly worked for Guy Savoy in Paris and at Rebelle and Per Se in New York City, and the delightful Crislaine Medina who runs the front of the house, has helped the owners put together a really excellent wine list, including the lush biodynamic Buteo Gruner Veltliner from Austria that we chose to accompany our meal.

And a quick note here for anyone who might be unfamiliar with Bichotan charcoal. It’s an exceptionally high quality charcoal made from oak and chefs prize it because it burns at a lower temperature than ordinary charcoal for a longer period of time and it doesn’t release any odors, which means that the char on foods cooked over it is strictly the natural flavor of that particular food. This creates a much cleaner finer taste than traditional charcoal.

The menu at Le Rigmarole runs to some twenty small plate dishes meant for sharing, including fish, poultry, meat, vegetables and pastas. You can also order a chef’s tasting menu, but since I’ve become very weary of this gastronomic trope, which is a fixture of young Paris Master Chef type chefs and la bistronomie, or the modern bistro movement, we decided to order a la carte. After all, I know what I feel like eating of a given meal and choice is one of the pleasures of going to a restaurant.

So we chose nine different dishes, and our meal began with a pleasant assortment of pickles–radishes, carrots and turnips, and then a baby red-onion tempura that was one of the best things I’ve eaten all year. I’ll come right out with it–even after over thirty years in Paris, I still have an atavistic love of certain low-brow American comfort foods, like onion rings, for example. I love onion rings, and well, these were onion-ring nirvana–such light tempura batter on quarters of tender sweet baby onions with a sprinkling of salt and red pepper brought on bliss. Next, a perfect chunk of salmon yakitori in a dipping sauce of herbed yogurt with a dribble of olive oil, another excellent dish, because the dominant flavor here was that of the firm and very fresh fish.

It was sort of interesting to try and decipher the logic with which the dishes we’d ordered came out, because there definitely was one, and ultimately it shaded from quieter flavors to more assertive ones and then sometimes back again, like a nice little melody After the frank taste of the salmon, for example, the homemade spaghetti with cockles and sea urchin sauce that followed with luscious and umami rich to make it one of the best pastas I’ve ever eaten in Paris.

Next, a pause–skewers of chicken breast with basil leaves and chopped pickled lemon, a brilliant cameo of a dish where every element retained its gustative integrity but played in a charming little skit of different tastes that winsomely flattered each other–the barnyard succulence of the chicken was gently awakened by the heat dimmed basil and flattered by the lemon. This was a brilliant little miniature.

Roasted round zucchini with charred skin and a half a lobster with spingoli pasta followed, and then curls of pork breast cooked on bamboo skewers yakitori style. All three dishes were excellent, especially the lobster, where the flesh of crustacean from Chausey in the English Channel was just pearled, or cooked enough so that it wasn’t raw but was still incredibly succulent and almost crunchy. Our last dish–pork polpette (meatballs) had great base notes that came from the pig’s liver and was politely feral.

Blissfully well fed, we couldn’t manage dessert this time round, but I’m eager to discover Yang’s talent the next time I come here.

An just FYI, Le Rigmarole is open until August 12, and the closes for the summer holiday from Augsut 13-September 11, during which time the team will travel to Taiwan and Tuscany in search of new inspiration.

10 Rue du Grand Prieuré, 11th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-71-24-58-44, www.lerigmarole.com Open for dinner only from Wednesday to Sunday. Average a la carte 50 Euros, chef’s tasting menu 49 Euros.

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Chef Tomy Gousett @Pierre Lucet Penato

Savoury pancake with guanciale, Peconio, arugula @ Alexander Lobrano

Chef Tomy Gousset’s friendly new restaurant Hugo & Co is exactly the the type of place the Latin Quarter in Paris has been wanting for a longtime, because it’s such a delicious reflection of the neighborhood itself. To wit, this lively little place serves up a cosmopolitan menu of affordably priced small-plates comfort food that are made for sharing, service is young and good-natured, and there’s a great wine list. So it was no surprise then that it was packed with a mixture of academics, creative professionals, students and travelers when I went for dinner the other night. “We already have lots of clients who come several times a week,” our smart and outgoing waiter told us once we’d settled in at one of the tables that faces the caramel-colored leather banquette which lines one wall of the room and ordered a glass of wine.

It had been a while since I’d come to this part of town, the 5th Arrondissement, for a meal, too, since as the neighborhood has gentrified, it’s become too expensive for most students. Today, the 11th and 10th Arrondissements have become the youngest and liveliest districts of the city. The reason for this is their more affordable rents, both for apartments and commercial spaces, which explains why these arrondissements are also now where most young chefs going out on their own set up shop.

My first apartment in Paris was on the rue de la Sorbonne in the 5th Arrondissement, and back in those days several decades ago, the neighborhood brimmed with great inexpensive foreign tables like Au Coin des Gourmets, a reliable Vietnamese place in the rue Dante; a couple of good bistros– the late lamented Moissonier and Au Moulin a Vent, for example; and, for meals with visiting friends from out of town, the Brasserie Balzar, which had decent food, great people watching and a charming atmosphere created by its natty tweedy professorial clientele, long-serving waiters, cantilevered mirrors that encouraged flirting, and the wonderfully ugly art-nouveau vase of flowers on the bar (N.B. I stopped going to the Balzar ages ago, since the food has declined and the atmosphere had been dented during a period of corporate, penny-pinching ownership; now, though, it has a new owner, so I’m hoping for a renaissance at this long-running Left Bank address, a place for which I once had so much affection).

Crostini with avocado, red radish and Parmesan @ Pierre Lucet Penato

With the exception of the Balzar, though, which inexplicably became popular with fashion people in the eighties and early nineties, the 5th Arrondissement was, with the exception of La Tour d’Argent, never a destination arrondissement for seriously gastronomic eating.

Looking at the menu at Hugo & Co, however, my first thought was that this might change, since what’s on offer is so alluring while avoiding the dulling cliches of la bistronomie, or modern French cooking. We decided to share three starters–a savoury pancake with guanciale, Pecorino and arugula; marinated salmon with passionfruit sauce, hashed beets and toasted rice; and some strachiatella with ramps, gomasio, and black olives. If all of them were excellent, the pancake was the real stand out, since it was exactly the kind of dish you known you’ll end up permanently craving, a nicely crusted pancake topped with crispy curls of guanciale, grated Pecorino and a scattering of arugula leaves. The strachiatella was delicious scooped up with the good bread served here, and though quieter and less original, the salmon was pleasant, too. What we really liked in all three of these dishes was the way they skated across a variety of different cultures and palates to create something original that had a flawlessly appetising logic.

Over dinner, I told Bruno about my first apartment, a one-bedroom that had padded coral-fabric covered walls, a ratty little kitchen with a double hot plate, and a bathroom with bubble-gum pink fixtures. Suffice it to say that it was the best I could come up with during a one-day hunt with a lupine real-estate agent. I rented it furnished, and it only became just slightly habitable after I’d put all of the lady dermatologist owner’s china figurines and dusty plastic flowers in a coat closet and hung a couple of paper globe lamps that I bought for a few francs from a Chinese notions store nearby. But it was right across the street from La Sorbonne, and it used to fascinate me to peer into the class rooms across the street and see the professors lecturing to orderly rows of students sitting upright at their desks. And even in a bower afflicted by such dubious taste, it was thrilling to slowly but surely hatch a new life for myself in Paris. Little did I know at the time that the roots of this fledgling attachment to my new city would grow so deep that I would end up living here for over half of my life. I’m very lucky.

Next, I tucked into a Tonkatsu style breaded pork cutlet topped with a fried egg in a pool of hoisin sauce with a garnish of pickled red cabbage and black rice, and Bruno enjoyed braised beef cheeks with grilled asparagus and panisses (fried chickpea-flour bars). While we were eating, chef Tomy Gousset did a round in the dining room, stopping to chat amiably at almost every table.

I’ve known the Cambodian born Gousset’s superb cooking every since he returned to France after a stint cooking at Daniel Boulud’s restaurant Restaurant Daniel in New York City and took over the kitchen at Pirouette in Les Halles. I’ve also admired his food at his eponymous table Tomy, which he opened in the 7th Arrondissement when he left Pirouette, but I didn’t know that he’d gone to the Ecole Ferrandi and then cooked with Alain Solivérès at Taillevent and Yannick Alleno at the Hotel Meurice.

“New York was so important for me. I really loved it, the kitchens of so many different countries intersecting, the whole idea of the laid-back no-limits urban bistro. I learned so much there,” Gousset told us, adding, “Hugo & Co is all about having a good time.” That’s a pretty perfect way of summing this place up, too.

We finished off our excellent bottle of white Dao while sharing an order of warm madeleines with lemon zest and a light lemon custard dipping sauce, a charming dessert, and stepped out into a rainy Spring night knowing we’d come back here again soon, too.

48 Rue Monge, 5th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 09-53-92-62-77, Metro: Cardinal Le Moine or Place Monge. Open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Average 35 Euros. www.tomygousset.com

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With a striking redesign by British designer Tom Dixon and a tempting new menu by three-star chef Eric Frechon, the legendary Le Drugstore at the top of the Champs-Élysées once again offers a good reason to stroll up the most famous avenue in Paris.

This is good news, too, since with one or two exceptions, the Champs-Élysées has long been a gastronomic wasteland from one end to the other. A case in point: the Pizza Pino restaurant where I ate my first meal in Paris in 1972 is still there, and still serving the same sad pizzas, including those with sunny-side up eggs that made us laugh out loud when we saw them. These were what we we ate on the hot August night my father overruled the reservation my mother had made at La Tour d’Argent.

My two brothers and I had been traveling on our own for over six wonderful weeks (Rome, Pompeii, Perugia, Florence, Sienna, Venice, Vienna, Switzerland, a cruise on the Rhine) when we met my father and sister, who’d just flown in from New York, at a hotel in the rue Marignan. The reunion was fraught in a variety of ways, which is why we ended up at Pizza Pino instead of La Tour d’Argent (my father thought it would be a waste of money to take children to such an expensive restaurant; my mother, who had decided to spend an unexpected inheritance in an uncharacteristic act of well-moderated extravagance, wanted us to enjoy the views of Notre Dame by night and have an experience of real French haute cuisine). The saving grace of Pizza Pino, however, were those egg garnishes, which brought the relief of mirth to a table of people who hailed from one of the world’s great pizza belts, coastal Connecticut from Norwalk to New Haven. I mean, who in their right mind would put an egg on a pizza?!?! Clams, mushrooms, sausage, bacon (oh, bacon!), meatballs, yes, but an egg?

Le Drugstore originally opened in 1958 when French advertising maestro Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet, founder of the Publicis agency, returned to Paris after a stint working on Madison Avenue in its “Mad Men” heyday as the center of the advertising industry in the United States. Impressed by the 24/7 life of New York City, Bleustein-Blanchet decided to create a multi-faceted address that would cater to a full-spectrum of consumer self-indulgence on what was then one of the world’s most storied boulevards, the Champs-Élysées. So Le Drugstore became a pulse-point where you get everything from a bottle of Champagne to the latest records, along with a well-made Martini and a then decidedly exotic bite to eat like a cheeseburger, since the restaurant’s D.N.A. was always avowedly American, a reflection of an era when post-war America exemplified modernity and technological innovation.

The concept was a huge hit, and there were once two other Drugstores in Paris, one in Saint-Germain-des-Prés across the street from the Cafe des Deux Magots on the boulevard Saint Germain, and the other at the Rond Point des Champs-Élysées. They thrived during the sixties, seventies and into the early eighties, when Paris nightlife guttered out, never to really recover again. To the horror of local residents, the Saint-Germain-des-Prés Le Drugstore became an Emporio Armani some twenty years ago, and then the one at the Rond Point des Champs-Élysées went belly up, too.

Le Drugstore @ Yann Deret

If the Champs Élysées Le Drugstore survived, it was mainly due to tourist traffic, because Parisians themselves became disaffected with the avenue a longtime ago. Recently, there have been several attempts made to revive Le Drugstore, including an unfortunate Frank Gehry like renovation of the building by Michele Saee in 2004, which happened at the same time that Alain Ducasse was brought in to reboot the restaurant. Neither Saee’s redesign, nor the Ducasse concept went over very well, so fast forward to the new makeover.

What Dixon instinctively understood was that architect Pierre Dufau’s original design should be the compass for his renovation, since its mid-century mannerisms have become stylish all over again. To this end, Dixon used rich materials like marble and brass and sensual ones like glove leather to channel the once giddy glamour of the original design, albeit seen with the bemused but respectful critical distance of sixty years.

Le Drugstore – the bar @Yann Deret

Staying true to Le Drugstore’s original vocation of spontaneity, there are a variety of settings in which to eat and drink here, from a sidewalk terrace, to a glamorous bar, leather banquettes, wing chairs at tables, and more conventional sit-up-straight tables with chairs. You can also sit on stool at a white-marble counter and watch the action in the open kitchen.

Le Drugstore – Finger Food @Nathalie Carnet

Chef Eric Frechon’s job was to create a menu would read as sophisticated modern comfort food to both Parisians and the international foot traffic the Champs-Elysées attracts most heavily from April to October. This meant offering an array of foods that would also respect a detailed variety of dietary restrictions, both religious and medical, and proposing dishes that instantly read as pleasure to several dozen different nationalities.  Oh, and the owners also wanted a wink or two at Le Drugstore’s original ground-breaking American influenced menu. Faced with a tall order, Frechon pulled it off rather brilliantly.

Le Drugstore – Beef tartare @Nathalie Carnet

Stopping by for dinner recently, I knew we’d be in for some fun when I first eyeballed Dixon’s striking dining room, spotted a whole section on Frechon’s menu entitled ‘finger food,’ and surveyed the dining room. Here, a pair of Russian blondes with the animation brought on by Andean snow were flirting with the good-looking Lebanese brothers at the table next to them, there three Japanese women were intently examining one another’s brand new Louis Vuitton handbags, and everywhere else, dozens of interesting, poignant and often amusing cameo performances were taking place with a similarly international cast.

To accompany well-mixed cocktails, we started with some corn tempura with tandoori salt and accras (deep-fried) beignets of salt cod and tiny gray prawns served with aioli sauce. The nibbles were delicious, and it immediately struck me that the food here was now good enough and interesting enough again to tempt Parisians back to a place most hadn’t set foot in for years.

Roasted cauliflower meuniere with curry oil @Nathalie Carnet

Next, we skated by the section of dishes that are available all day, including cheeseburgers, croque Monsieurs, and Cesar salads, to the main menu, which is divided between sections entitled “Le Cru” (The Raw) and Le Cuit (The Cooked). This may sound gimmicky but isn’t, since raw means modishly popular tartares, carpaccios and salads, while cooked ranges from roasted cauliflower with curry oil to grilled red tuna marinated with citrus and ginger. Again, the short take here is seriously well-made international comfort food.

I started with a beautifully composed salad of fresh blue crab, avocado, pink grapefruit, green apple, tomato and butter lettuce in a honey vinaigrette, and Bruno chose the beef carpaccio, which came garnished with a tangle of finely grated daikon, spring onions, coriander and a soy vinaigrette. Both dishes were well-sourced, attractively plated contemporary cosmopolitan classics.

If my main course–a shrimp burger with green onions, coriander and ginger, was rather underwhelming–the ‘burger’ was too small, the ratio between shrimp and bread crumb was off, and the bun it road too sweet, Bruno was very happy with his cod. Steamed and then lightly seared, it was sprinkled with plankton powder, the super food du jour in Paris right now, and briny samphire seaweed, a crunchy iodine-rich sea vegetable that’s a natural pairing with Atlantic fish. A scattering of shell-like gnocchi surrounded the fish and were accented with a gentle garlic foam.

Notable among other choices here is the Japanese Wagyu beef, a sirloin for two that goes for a spritely 195 Euros.

Pineapple carpaccio @Nathalie Carnet

Desserts are excellent at Le Drugstore, and so they should be, since they’re an important part of the culinary bait here. To wit, the whole point of this place is to walk through the door off the cuff and decide to eat and drink something that spoils you. This might mean a pineapple carpaccio flamed with aged rum or a nice raspberry financier with passionfruit sorbet.

So Le Drugstore is what I would call a successful situational restaurant, or a place that’s very handy should you find yourself in this part of Paris and wanting a meal outside normal meal times, or a comfortable place to dine on your own, or an address that’s open on Saturday, Sunday and every other day of the year but which is worth going to for reasons beyond that convenience.

Framed another way, Le Drugstore is a good new incarnation of the emerging new-style 21st century Parisian brasserie and a lot of fun to boot.

133 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-44-43-79-00.
Métro: Charles de Gaulle-Etoile or George V. Open daily: Monday – Friday 8am-2am; Saturday, Sunday and holidays, 10am-2am. Average 45 Euros. https://restaurantledrugstore.com/en/ledrugstore

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With a menu of artisanally made pastas napped with vibrant Asian inspired sauces and a sidewalk terrace on the quieter end of Boulevard Saint Germain in the 5th Arrondissement, chef William Ledeuil’s restaurant Kitchen Ter(re) is the best new restaurant in Paris this summer. Ledeuil, one of the most consistently amiable and innovative chefs in Paris, already has two excellent Left Bank tables–Ze Kitchen Galerie, his first one, and KGB (Kitchen Galerie Bis), Ze Kitchen’s Galerie’s more casual and less expensive little brother, both of which are on the rue des Grands Augustins in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Coquillette pasta with green curry and basil

Ledeuil’s new place was born from a chance meeting arranged through one of his suppliers, Michel Bachès. Bachès, whose farm is located in Eus near Perpignan, supplies Ledeuil with the citrus fruits that are a key ingredient in his cooking, and he was the one who introduced him to Roland Feuillas, a miller and baker in Cucugnan in twenty miles northwest of Perpignan. “I was immediately fascinated by Roland’s work,” says Ledeuil. “He makes his own flour from heirloom grains that he grows himself and then he grinds them with an old stone millstone. The quality of the flour is exceptional, but it was when I tried his pasta (Dentelles de Cucugnan) that I had the idea of creating a new Paris table that would serve Feuillas’s original pasta and some new ones that we invented together.” What drew Ledeuil to Feuillas’s pasta is that it’s made without eggs, just stone-ground flour from ancient grain varieties and water, and so has an exceptional capacity to absorb the flavors of the bouillons and sauces that have made his reputation. “It has an exceptional texture when cooked and a suave nutty taste,” the chef added.

Ledeuil has long been intrigued by Asian herbs and cooking techniques, especially those of Thailand, and they’ve come to define his inventive, bright, flavorful cooking ever since he left his post at Les Bouqinistes and opened his own restaurant next door in 2001. Among his favorite ingredients are galangal, basil, ginger, Japanese seaweed, lemongrass, coconut milk, and coriander, and he also uses a variety of typically southeast Asian cooking techniques, including steaming, bouillons, marinades and juxtapositions of raw and cooked ingredients in the same dish to create a contrast of textures. Long before the now rather worn out term ‘fusion’ began to be batted around, Ledeuil was deeply involved in inventing his own hybrid kitchen, and the surprise is that his cooking is still as intriguingly vivid and refreshing as it was when I first tasted it nearly twenty years ago.

The menu at Kitchen Ter(re) is short, seasonal and exceptionally vegetarian friendly. Executed by chef Bruno Laporte, it’s also piquantly cosmopolitan, because Ledeuil’s culinary imagination and very personal gastronomic logic roves the world in search of inspiration. Spain, Morocco and Korea have all inspired dishes at Kitchen Ter(re).

Some dishes involve new spices, herbs and products, largely from Asia; some feature different and unexpected juxtapositions of products, textures and preparations –raw and cooked, for example, and and some involve different cooking techniques, including steaming, poaching in aromatic bouillons, and marinades. But all of them reflect Ledeuil’s savvy gastronomic logic in creating intriguing new dishes for the 21st century.   

Stopping by for dinner with Bruno on a breezy summer night, the windows of the enclosed terrace were open and tables had been set out on the sidewalk. Aside from his superb cooking, I was immediately reminded of two other reasons I’ve always liked his restaurants–service is exceptionally friendly and well-trained, and the dining room was light, clean and modern, with well-spaced terrazzo topped tables with steel chairs, good lighting and a stylish but low-key decor that takes its cues from local art galleries.

Since both of us were eager for a lighter starter that night, we chose the gaspacho and the steak tartare as our starters. Both are wonderful dishes, but only Ledeuil could have produced a gaspacho with such a deep vibrant depth of flavor, since this lush poppy-colored soup had ringing tones of varying acidity and was brilliantly revivifying on a warm night. The steak tartare was excellent quality hand-chopped beef with a dressing of mostarda, or Italian mustard syrup, dabs of soft Pimenton spiked Sobressada, a soft pork sausage from Mallorca. It came under a thatch of fresh herbs that included shiso, Thai basil, and Italian basil, plus a scattering of chopped green onion and crushed hazelnuts. All of these garnishes flattered the beef, and this dish was so good I later suggested to Ledeuil that he also offer it as a main course.

Among the five pastas, all of which are identified according to the grain they were made from, I had my eyes on the Dentrelle de Cucugnan with cuttlefish, tomato and Galanga, while Bruno was eye-balling the Coquillette with green curry and basil. My frilled pasta came with tender pieces of cuttlefish, Nori, and a tangy sauce that probably included piquillo peppers, tomatoes and pickled lemon. Ultimately, it was Ledeuil’s very own mash on the fact that pasta is loved and eaten in many different cultures around the world in different shapes and with different garnishes, and it was excellent. Bruno’s coquilllettes had been cooked in Thai bouillon and also had a fascinating depth of flavor. What both of us liked was the ‘mache,’ or toothsomeness of this pasta, which was cooked al dente and had a quiet but appealing taste of the grain from which it was made.

A really good dessert always does that best of things, which makes you glad you ordered it in spite of a certain diffidence about eating too much and calories. And this is exactly what Ledeuil’s sublime summer concoction of Strawberry and kefir ice cream with melon and white peaches in verbena broth accomplished for me. To wit, I didn’t thinkI wanted it, but was hugely glad I’d caved after it came to the table, since the mixture of fruity tastes and textures backdropped by the verbena was one of the best summertime desserts I’ve had in a longtime. What I loved about it is that it was simple–with resonances of those fruits I loved best during childhood summers, but complex and racy at the same time.

Bruno loved his pandanus-flavoured coconut milk soup with raspberry coulis, too. Pandanus had nothing to do with my childhood summers, or Bruno’s either for that matter, since he’s from Valenciennes on the Franco-Belgian border. Instead this curiously flavored fruit that has a taste that’s at once resinous and then softened by notes of banana and strawberry is is native to Malasia, eastern Australia, and the Pacific Islands. The raspberry coulis cut the base notes of sweetness in this dish with a welcome acidity and also made familiar.

“Pandanus! Goodness! Sounds like something from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (the short story from The Jungle Book from Rudyard Kipling) might have eaten,” said my mother in New England, when I got home and returned the three messages that she’d left while we were out for dinner. Well, yes, and that’s just the point. They’re almost no boundaries in the kitchen anymore thanks to chefs like William Ledeuil, and this makes the beginning of the 21st century in Paris a particularly exciting place to eat.

26 boulevard Saint Germain, 5th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-42-39-47-48. Metro: Maubert-Mutualite. Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday and Monday. Average 50 Euros. www.zekitchengalerie.fr

https://www.facebook.com/Kitchen-Terre-254725888344694/ 

N.B. As of this writing, Kitchen Ter(re) will be open almost all summer long, closing only from August 15-19.

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Tasting Plate @Romain Villot

Just in time for spring, Tavline, a new Israeli restaurant, brings cooking with an invigorating herbaceousness to the Marais, the 4th Arrondissement in Paris. In doing so, it resets the culinary offer of an historically Jewish neighborhood in the French capital for the 21st century, too, since Israeli cooking, as popularised by London based chef Yotam Ottolenghi, bespeaks the earthy, vegetable-loving, umami-rich allure of this exceptionally appealing modern kitchen, an immigrant mash of dishes from Eastern Europe, North Africa, and the Arab countries, plus ancient dishes that issue from the Sephardic diaspora, or the Spanish and Portuguese Jewry expelled all over the world in 1492.

Tavline, which means ‘herb’ in Hebrew, is the brainchild of a delightful and very talented young couple, Keren Benichou and her husband chef Kobi Villot Malka. Both of them have Moroccan-Israeli origins, but Villlot Malka worked for Alain Ducasse for five years after studying at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, which explains the suaveness of his cooking. What he proposes at Tavline is Israeli comfort food, but with a certain finesse in terms of its flavors, technique and plating.

Karen Benichou and Kobi Villot Malka @Romain Villot

Stepping into this casual dining room on the rue du Roi de Sicile, you leave Paris behind for Haifa or Tel Aviv, since the atmosphere here recalls the casual restaurants and cafes that have made both of these cities seriously good food destinations. The Israeli background of the owners notwithstanding, the crowd on a recent rainy night was decidedly cosmopolitan when Bruno and I arrived for dinner. To my right, four ladies from Denmark, to our left, a French Jewish and Palestinian couple, and at least five languages other than French could be heard in the room. This diversity was immediately bracing in a world that’s so fraught today over issues of identity, religion and ethnicity, too. To wit, we were all happy to share the same space and enjoy some delicious food in a place that is radiant with warm hospitality, a love of good cooking, and a respectful and very deep appreciation of human variety. As Tavline rather guilelessly shows, restaurants can have a big impact on a neighborhood or a city in terms of affirming those humanist values that invariably govern any happy well-run kitchen.

As a longtime Parisian and someone who loves the Marais for its history, architecture and magnificent mixture of different cultures–if the neighborhood’s essential DNA is Jewish, it’s also long been Paris’s gay neighborhood and a place of refuge for those who are unconventional, off-beat, or just plain different, it gladdens the heart to see a new restaurant opening here instead of another cold anonymous luxury boutique. For anyone who’s not in the know, after colonizing and damaging such storied Paris neighborhoods as Saint-Germain-des-Pres, global luxury retailers are now making big eyes at the Marais, a part of the city with the kind of affluent, style-conscious foot traffic they crave. Their arrival has been predictably disruptive, since rents are climbing, which threatens the brilliantly eclectic variety of small businesses in this ancient, loved and very settled part of the city.

Tavline dining room @Romain Villot

This particular night, we were both really hungry, since we’ve often been deprived of our cuisine during a period of exile from home created by a nightmare of leaking water pipes, so we sat down and eyed the menu eagerly.

So I immediately wanted everything on this menu, which is why Keren Benichou brightly suggested we share the ‘assiette degustation’ (tasting plate) of starters, which included roasted beets with labnah, roasted cauliflower with a tangy pistou sauce and a vinaigrette of tomato pulp, charred eggplant with a coulis of tomates and pimentos, and roasted sweet potatoes with tahina. Every dish was vivid with flavors and textures that invoked an oriental sensuality that was a long way from Paris on a rainy night, and my only regret is that the sardines marinated with spices and served with orange salad, fennel and grilled peppers had sold out before we arrived.

Shaksouka, or eggs coddled in a ruddy puree of tomatoes and peppers, must be one of the most delicious and consoling dishes ever invented, and they offered a lot of comfort to my bruted nerves, although I could easily have eaten a portion twice or even thrice the size of the one served here as a main course. Bruno, whose been the point man with the feckless plumbers, chose the memoulaim, or onions stuffed with lamb on a bed of barley in a ruddy sauce of roasted lamb juice brightened, I think, by sumac and maybe some pomegranate molasses, and I had trouble getting a fork into this dish, which was intriguingly pastoral and unexpectedly delicate.

On a next visit–and there will be one, I want to try the ksisot, or grilled fish balls sauced with yogurt on a bed of lentil and preserved lemon. Oh, and the sardines.

For dessert, we shared a delicious lemon cream with a crumble crust, and it was wonderfully tart and satisfying at the end of a meal of food that was so clearly cooked from the heart. Tavline is terrific little restaurant.

Tavline, 25 rue du Roi de Sicile, 4th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 09-86-55-65-65, Metro: Hotel de Ville or Saint Paul. https://www.facebook.com/TAVLINE/ Closed Sunday and Monday. Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Average 30 Euros.

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Silver and gold: ‘It’s lovely, but where should we go for lunch#8217;

In the rather unlikely event you haven’t noticed, Alain Ducasse is a very shrewd man. With the opening of Ore, the new cafe-restaurant he conceived and staffed at the chateau de Versailles, he’s not only equipped the opulent chateau with a French restaurant that’s worthy of such a prestigious setting, but offered an intriguing solution to what has previously been a mystifying French failure. To wit, given their spectacular Gallic gift for gastronomy, it’s unfathomable the French have most recently been so unsuccessful at creating restaurant concepts that enable large numbers of people to eat good French food at reasonable prices.

What makes me say this Well, examine the gastronomic offer at any French airport, train station or highway rest stop, and you’ll most often come away crestfallen by having found nothing but a gauntlet of international fast-food outlets and franchise restaurants run by big industrial restaurant groups. We’re talking the usual culprits, Burger King and Pizza Hut, etc. If there’s lately been a sort of half-hearted feint at offering healthier options with the appearance here and there of the EKKI chain, or even the proliferation of PAUL, which peddles an industrial but just acceptable French take on the quick eats sold by bakeries—sandwiches, quiches, salads, there’s basically no proper place for a real meal at any airport and very few at train stations save an historical oddity like Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon in Paris (N.B. This particular restaurant is recommended primarily for its spectacular Belle Epoque décor, with the kitchen running a very distant second, so order simply). It’s even more puzzling, too, when you remember that the brasserie, that sexy restaurant idiom that incarnates urban glamour and also traditionally assured a prompt feed at a fair price, was originally a French invention.

Ore, Dining room @ Pierre Monetta

Surely there had to be some modern way of conjugating French cooking that would be successful in both commercial and culinary terms. Well, as Ducasse has freshly proven at Ore, it turns out there is, and it’s pretty wonderful. To wit, this restaurant on the first floor of the Pavilion Dufour just inside the gates of Versailles serves very good freshly cooked high-quality relatively affordable Gallic grub. It’s also open non-stop from 8am to 6.30pm, so that you have breakfast before you tackle the chateau, reward yourself with a really good lunch after many fascinating but foot-sore hours ogling the opulence, duck in for tea with sandwiches or stop by for a pastry or a Croque Monsieur later in the afternoon.

The menu has also been designed to cater as broadly as possible to all comers, so they’re good options for vegetarians, children, and people coming from culinary cultures very different from those of France. But the lede idea, of course, is to showcase a certain idea of French gastronomy that references both its glorious history and its thriving and innovative present, and Ore does this very well.

Discovering this table during a recent Saturday lunch with Bruno a few days after it opened in September, I was immediately surprised by the monastic minimalism of the décor by interior architect Dominique Perrault and impressed by how warm, welcoming and well-briefed the dining room staff are. What makes this especially important here is that many people emerging from the elevator exhibited a certain wary shyness, because perhaps they’d heard that Alain Ducasse is a famous chef with an international empire of restaurants, but had never been to any of them and didn’t know what to expect restaurants.

Their two big fears That they’d be patronized, and it would be too expensive. Instead, everyone is warmly welcomed.

Over a glass of Champagne served in broad shallow hollow-stemmed antique flutes the waiter told us Ducasse himself had scored at a flea-market left nameless (where does he find the time?!), we warmed to the austere elegance of the space as well. The solid oak floors, bare oak tables and brass wainscoting were doubtless deliberately chosen not to compete with the palace next door. Instead, these dining rooms offer an oasis of visual serenity after a good dose of head-spinning grandeur.

We fenced back and forth about who’d have what, but finally reached a perfect peace as we always do at the table. So we began with three starters, each of which represented a different declension of gastronomic temptation. Ducasse likes to pull people’s legs with an occasional nod at the eternal pleasures of certain childhood favorites, and so it was easy to succumb to the elbow macaroni with cubes of Prince de Paris ham, grated black truffles and soft savory rivers of melted Compte cheese. I mean, it’s just impossible to believe that a dish like this wouldn’t make anyone weak in the knees. Then an indulgent but pleasantly light salad of shelled lobster and heirloom tomatoes with an appropriately gentle vinaigrette that quietly back dropped the succulent natural tastes of these two products, and an impeccably made pate en croute with pickled vegetables.

Next, choosing from the list of dishes that are only served from 11.30am to 2.30pm, I decided to test the tantalizing extravagance promised by the steamed turbot with truffled Hollandaise sauce. This generous cut of fish arrived in a pale yellow robe of airy and very gently acidulated Hollandaise sauce that was speckled with fine black blazes of truffle and escorted by wonderfully waxy baby potatoes and wilted spinach. Despite the luxuriousness of the sauce, there was something earnestly healthy and tonifying about this dish, which made it an intellectual pleasure as well as a gustatory one.

Meanwhile, across the table, Bruno was tucking into a classic tournedo Rossini, or a beef filet with seared duck foie gras on a canapé and a magnificent mahogany sauce redolent of truffles and wine. A wedge of buttery pommes Anna (finely sliced potatoes baked with lashings of butter) gilded the lily of this go for broke indulgence, and again the cooking was flawless.

These two dishes actually brought to mind a conversation I’d recently had with Alain Ducasse during he reminisced about how a now long vanished moment in the gastronomic geography of the Ile de France, the region that contains and surrounds Paris, when there was a branch of Maxim’s at Orly airport. As he recalled, the food was actually very good there, and it was a particular pleasure to enjoy some foie gras and a steak there with a glass or two of good Bordeaux before boarding your plane. “I think we need to revive the availability of really good food in such settings,” the chef observed. While we were waiting for our desserts at the end of an excellent lunch, I couldn’t help but thinking that the menu at Ore could serve as a sort of sublime boilerplate for what could be possible once again at train stations, airports, and why not even onboard trains, in France. And knowing Monsieur Ducasse, I won’t be surprised if this is already in the works.

Desserts were, well, fit for a king or a queen. In fact I was really impressed by the quality of the pastry here, since the choux pastry of my La Religieuse was immaculate, the pastry cream was light but delivered a fine taste of freshly caramelised sugar, and the little caramel cape draped on the bottom orb was regally rich. Bruno’s gateau au fromage blanc, agrumes confits was a decidedly elegant French rendition of the idiom of desserts made with fresh cheese and was further brightened and lightened by lime zest, tiny chunks of candied orange peel, and a collar of citrus puree with cubes of candied grapefruit.

Ore is a very good restaurant, and also one that I fervently hope will serve as the new model for dining in institutional settings in France. Oh, and just in case you’re a big spender, Ore can be reserved for private dinners that feed anywhere from 2 to 120 guests.

Ore, Château de Versailles, Place d’Armes, Pavillon Dufour – 1st floor, Versailles, Tel. (33) 01-30-84-12-96, Open Tuesday to Sunday from 8am to 6.30pm. Closed Monday. Average lunch 35 Euros. www.ducasse-chateauversailles.com 

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