Racines, Paris | A Delightful Bistrot a Vins Gets a New Chef, B+

In taking over the kitchen at Racines, a charming bistrots a vins ( a bistro that specializes in wines) in the Passage des Panoramas, talented chef Simone Tondo returns to his roots in more ways than one. Just after arriving in Paris, Tondo worked alongside chef Sven Chartier when the latter ran the kitchen here, so this new chapter in his career is a homecoming of sorts. And then there’s the chalkboard menu, which offers a brilliant market-driven selection of mostly Italian dishes, including several from Tondo’s native Sardinia (many of the wines are Italian, too).

Happily, these dishes display the same earnest, endearing, elegantly earthy style of suave comfort-food cooking that is Tondo at his best. In fact at lunch there the other day, I found his food to be more confident and more assured than ever, which makes for a change from the last time I sampled his cuisine. To wit, Tondo recently had an eponymous restaurant in the 12th Arrondissement where I found his bistronomique (modern French bistro cooking) cuisine too complicated and lacking the imprint of his personality to be really convincing. To be sure, the food he cooked there was good, because he’s an excellent cook, but I missed the sheer charm and amiability of the dishes I ate the first time I discovered his cooking some six years ago.

Grilled langoustines @ Alexander Lobrano

After working in a variety of kitchens, including Cracco in Milan, Mirazur in Menton and with Giovanni Passerini at Rino in Paris, Tondo first really came on the Paris dining scene in 2012 when he launched an excellent restaurant, Roseval, deep in the 20th Arrondissement with British chef Michael Greenwold (today it’s called Dilia). Dining there with friends on an early summer night, we were dazzled by the excellent produce, imaginative culinary constellations of taste and texture, and the stunningly precise cooking times this pair managed to achieve in a tiny  galley kitchen. The dish that stopped the conversation that evening was one I still crave–a gossamer puree of smoked potatoes with sautéed onions, baby clams and a crunchy veil of buttered bread crumbs. The crustaceans’ juices spiked the potato and the crumbs added some provocative texture to a dish that was apparently angelic, but stealthily quite sensual. Sliced sirloin with anchovy cream and riced and pureed cauliflower and a scattering of fresh tarragon leaves strewn across the plate was outstanding, too, as was pork with smoked eggplant, pomelo, fingerling potatoes and dill.

I ate often at Roseval until the pair of chefs went their own ways and sold up, with Tondo eventually opening his own place in the space formerly occupied by Gazetta, the contemporary bistro of chef Peter Nilsson in the 12th. And now following that adventure, it was a pleasure to find Tondo in this charming new setting with the delightful Stephanie Rockford running the dining room.

While we were settling in over very good glasses of Chenin Blanc, Tondo sent us a pair of grilled langoustines to nibble on, and they were superb–napped with excellent olive oil, perfectly cooked, delicately perfumed with rosemary. And so we ended up sampling all of the first courses on the menu that day, including a gorgeous Mozzarella, treviso with speck and a superb plate of Italian charcuterie, including some of finocchiona, or fennel-seed seasoned salami, that’s reason alone to buy a plane ticket to Italy. Not pictured: the best polpette (meatballs) I’ve ever eaten.

While we were enjoying these starters, it occurred to me that Tondo has picked up exactly where Pierre Jancou, the trend-setting founder of Racines, left off when he sold the place. To wit, the kitchen here is based on excellent seasonal produce prepared in such a way as to enhance its natural tastes. The brute goodness of nature was the axis of Jancou’s cooking here, and Tondo has revived this gastronomic orientation, with the additional skill of having a native’s knowledge of the Italian produce he serves and prepares.

And it was while tucking into Tondo homemade pasta with a stunningly good tomato-sausage sauce that I found myself thinking that we’re hungry for real food again. Not chef’s food, not swirls and pearls and powders and fronds, but the type of food that’s cooked with love in family kitchens. That’s what Tondo is offering here, and it’s quite wonderful. My more calorically cautious pal enjoyed her seared scallops with mesclun, too.

Lavishly well fed by the end of his meal, because Tondo is such a reflexively generous cook and host, we decided to share a single dessert. And because my friend probably knows more about dessert than anyone else I’ve ever met, I let her chose one for us.

Truth be told, I wasn’t that excited when she went for the tiramisu, probably because I’ve had so many mediocre ones along the way. But she hit real bull’s eye with this one, because she said, “This is really exceptional. It’s so light, and it shows that a dessert which has become a stereotype can be wonderful again if it’s made with great produce and care.” The great produce in this case is a special marscapone that Tondo imports from Italy himself, and he whipped it into such an airy lactic cloud that it might have blown right off the plate if a stiff breeze had come along. Dusted with good cocoa, it was delicious.

With a terrific list of natural and organic wines, and Stephanie Crockford’s lovely service style and great sense of humor, Racines is just the kind of place where it would be easy to become a regular. So bravo to Simone Tondo, who is cooking better than ever.

8 Passage des Panoramas, 2nd Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01-40-13-06-41. Metro: Bourse or Richelieu-Drouot . Open for lunch and dinner from Monday to Friday. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Average meal 35 Euros. www.racinesparis.com