In 1974, David Glass went to France to study art history but no sooner had he arrived than his interest forked off into the heart of modern French gastronomy. In place of an education at the Sorbonne and the Louvre, he entered into yearlong apprenticeships at two three-star Michelin restaurants that were leading the movement of Nouvelle Cuisine: first with Alain Senderens at l’Archestrate in Paris, then with Jean and Pierre Troisgros at Troisgros in Roanne, 56 miles northwest of Lyon. Upon his return to the United States, David started a catering business in Connecticut based on nouvelle cuisine, but it was a recipe for chocolate truffle cake that he had learned in France that would bring him culinary success as he morphed into a master of cakes and chocolates. He now lives in Vermont, where he operates David Glass Chocolates. Forty-five years removed from his culinary and cultural education in France, David pays tribute here to Jean and Pierre Troisgros. Jean passed away in 1983 and Pierre in 2020.

By David Glass

In September 1974, at the age of 26, several days after arriving in Paris to study art history at the Sorbonne, I ate a meal that changed my life. I had made a reservation at l’Archestrate on the recommendation of an acquaintance without knowing what to expect, and little did I know that my first exposure to French gastronomy would take place at a restaurant on the forefront of a type of cuisine that was on its way to conquering the world. Since I didn’t know anyone in Paris, I dined alone that evening. The meal began with a mussel soufflé, followed by sea bass with beurre rouge, tournedos Rossini, an ample selection of the ripest of cheeses, and an ethereal strawberry soufflé. The experience caused me to abandon art history and to devote myself to learning how to cook. I asked Alain Senderens, the chef and owner of l’Archestrate, if I could spend a few days in his kitchen. He said yes. I stayed for a year. (Senderens, who passed away in 2017, had earned his second star in the Michelin guide in 1974 and would receive his third in 1978.)

During my year in Paris, I seized the opportunity to take a road trip with friends to Roanne, a town northwest of Lyon, for a meal at Troisgros. The explosive flavors and exquisite lightness of that meal were the equal of my first encounter with high new gastronomy at l’Archestrate. Immediately I knew where I wanted to spend a second year of apprenticeship.

Thanks to Alain Senderens’ letter of recommendation, I was accepted as an apprentice at Troisgros in 1976. The French dining guide Gault & Millau had named Troisgros the best restaurant in the world in 1968, the same year that it received its third Michelin star. In 1973, the term “nouvelle cuisine” appeared Gault & Millau, referring to a type of cooking whose leaders were Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Alain Senderens, Paul Bocuse, and other chefs. The main tenets of their cooking were lighter sauces, fish that was barely cooked at its center, use of only the freshest ingredients, an emphasis on finding the very best method to cook each ingredient, and using fruits and vegetables that were sourced locally. After a year of developing skills and knowledge with Senderens, I was literally salivating at the prospect of pursuing my culinary education with the Troisgros brothers, while also expanding my sense of France by leaving the capital for a part of the country that few Americans had ever passed through other than those on a long drive toward the Riviera.

The uninformed visitor would never have suspected that a restaurant of Troisgros’s reputation would be found in Roanne. Unceremoniously described as “en face de la gare” (across the street from the train station) in the restaurant’s literature, Troisgros was housed in a building that was less than stunning. Yet I was immediately welcomed with warmth and friendliness as I arrived by train from Paris, and that feeling would remain with me until I left a year later.

I lived in the hotel above the restaurant, so even though I only worked the lunch shift, I was in the building from opening until closing. More than at l’Archestrate, I now had a sense of the full scope of the working day at a restaurant of such caliber. My work day started at 7AM and was over when the last lunch customers set aside their napkins and left, usually around 2PM. As busy and tiring as my own shift was, I could only imagine the extent of the mission of running a restaurant that aimed for 3-star perfection through two full shifts, day in, day out. When I eventually compiled a list of everything that had to get done each day, I felt the true weight of the task. From putting together veal bones, vegetables, herbs and other components of veal stock in the early morning to delivering the final dessert of the evening around 11 PM, the work was non-stop. There was actually no definitive end to the work day. Johnny Hallyday, France’s most famous rocker, dined with friends one evening and stayed until 4 AM.

Staff meals and the 3-star hamburger

Despite the pressure that we all felt to contribute to the Troisgros brothers’ (and Michelin’s) highest standards, there were some truly relaxing moments at the restaurant. Staff meals were a quiet moment between a busy morning of preparation and the hectic lunch or dinner service. For the most part we didn’t eat what was featured on the menu. Instead, I remember eating a lot of beef heart, gratin potatoes, green salads, chicken, less expensive cuts of veal and beef, seasonal vegetables, and occasional sweets. All of us, from the chefs to the apprentices, helped prepare these meals. Since the preparation of the gratin potatoes was part of my job, I would always watch the faces of my fellow cooks and the chefs to see if they liked them. If they didn’t, I was in trouble because this dish was also served to our customers. But they always loved the potatoes. On the other hand, the beef hearts, which were cheap, tough, and definitely not on the menu, were eaten with resigned silence.

We ate our staff meals at a large table in the kitchen, where Jean and Pierre were often joking about something. The rest of us were equally animated, probably as a way to release a final bit of tension before the customers arrived. Sometimes, one of the brothers would discuss the finer points of a particular menu item so that we would understand the reason for preparing a meat or fish a certain way, the combination of ingredients in the sauce, or why the various items on the plate were paired together. I remember a particular discussion about the poached bone marrow that accompanied the giant beef rib in bordelaise sauce and the reason it was included in this dish. We opined on the best way to eat it, with a piece of meat or on a slice of bread with fleur de sel. Since the marrow was served removed from its bone, customers would make the decisions for themselves. (I preferred it with a few grains of salt, letting it melt in my mouth so that it became coated with liquid fat.)

The kitchen staff that year consisted of cooks and apprentices from Holland, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and various regions of France. I was the sole representative of the United States. We took turns leading the preparation for staff meals. When it was their turn, the apprentices from France would typically prepare a dish from their region, thereby introducing us to a cuisine that others, particularly myself and the other foreigners, didn’t know. Everyone was respectful as they tried dishes. Though the French can be snobbish about their country’s or region’s cuisine, at Troisgros, in spite of its fame and notoriety, everybody, from the chefs to the apprentices, appeared interested and fully engaged when sampling a dish that was new to them.

Every once in a while, with no schedule or warning, Jean would issue a proclamation that it was International Day and one of the foreigners among the kitchen staff would be tasked with planning and preparing the staff meal based on his national or regional traditions. In view of all of the various traditions that were presented through the year, I was stumped when it came to planning an all-American meal. My colleagues gave some inappropriate suggestions: pancakes and maple syrup (but there was no Vermont maple syrup available, and who eats pancakes in the afternoon?); fried chicken (I didn’t know how to make fried chicken); hotdogs (NO!!); and a clambake (the ingredients were not available in Roanne). We settled on hamburgers, even though I never ate them and had never cooked one. As unusual as it may sound, the only bite of hamburger I’d ever had in the United States was so grey, so overcooked, and so vile that I spit it into my napkin and threw it away.

Jean had traveled to the United States to give cooking demonstrations, so he knew far more about our cuisine than I did, including about “le hamburger.” When I hesitated, Jean and Pierre immediately took the reins and gave suggestions. First, we were to gather all of the beef scraps. Troisgros’ beef scraps consisted of the “chain” of the filet, which was removed before it was cut into steaks, pieces of the rib steak, and ends of the entrecôte. These were not ordinary cuts that usually comprise a hamburger. Everything was hand-chopped using large knives. Because these were not the fatty cuts of beef normally used to make hamburgers, Pierre added a little kidney fat, and Jean added finely chopped shallots. The burgers were formed thick, so that they wouldn’t overcook. They were covered with cracked peppercorns, like a steak au poivre, and cooked rare. There were no buns, but there was one of the most delicious sauces I have ever tasted: Troisgros’ reduced veal stock, heavy cream and Port. At the first bite, the hamburger was spicy from the peppercorns. Then there was the taste of the rare ground beef, unlike anything ever served in the United States. Because of the high quality of the meat, the hamburger had the flavor of a perfectly cooked steak. The fact that it was ground resulted in more surfaces in the mouth than a slice of steak, and every ground bit exploded with flavor. In another part of the kitchen, one of the cooks made French fries, the French way: twice cooked so that they were crisp on the outside and meltingly soft inside. It was a perfect American meal, re-invented in a Michelin three-star kitchen by two of France’s most famous chefs.

The Apprentice System

The apprentice system in France required young cooks, many starting at the age of 15, to work in a kitchen for two years. They often worked for free or for very little payment, living at home, if they were local, or in a rented apartment or room. My situation was the exception as I was the only one who lived above the restaurant. I received no salary, but my room and board were free. At the end of their apprentice period, the other apprentices would take an exam called the C.A.P. (Certificat d’Aptitude Professionelle), which tested them on everything they learned in the kitchen. Passing this provided a degree that allowed them to advance, so that they could eventually become commis, chef de partie, chef saucier, and eventually chef de cuisine. The younger apprentices were tasked with some of the dirtiest jobs in the restaurant, such as scrubbing grease out the drains or plucking the feathers off huge bags full of frozen thrush. I never drew the worst jobs, probably because I was taller than everyone else and a few years older than the average apprentice.

There was always experimentation going on in the kitchen. Sometimes, the chefs and apprentices were encouraged to contribute ideas. One of my suggestions, a mixture of crumbled fresh goat cheese, finely chopped tomatoes and fresh thyme leaves, shaped into a small dome and presented in a miniature soufflé dish, was added to the amuses gueules (hors d’oeuvres) for a brief time. At the suggestion of a Japanese cook, cured salmon eggs were also adopted for a time. Previously, the eggs had always been discarded, and the Troisgros brothers seemed genuinely amazed when they learned the technique and tasted the cured eggs. My Japanese colleague also showed them how to make tempura batter with a fork instead of a whisk. Jean exclaimed, “Did you see how he made that with a fork?” (The French use a whisk for just about every kind of batter they make.) Novel ideas were always swirling around, and the brothers were always snatching them out of our brains.

Basketball

But all was not cuisine and work at Troisgros. Jean, with his impeccably trimmed grey beard adorning his classically handsome face, was quick to joke with clients. He was a tennis player and in superb condition, though he eventually died on the court at the age of 56, in 1983. Pierre sported a black, bristly mustache and was a bit more serious than Jean, though they could be equally raucous with friends. Pierre was also a bit rotund, although he moved just as quickly as Jean, both in the kitchen and on the basketball court.

One of my fondest memories was the weekly basketball game, which we played in a local gym, with Pierre, Jean, and anyone else who wanted to join. There was nothing so exciting as getting out of the kitchen after a stressful lunch service, changing into a tee shirt and shorts, and playing a no-holds barred game of basketball. I had the double advantage of being an American who grew up with the game and being the tallest member of the staff, an advantage that Pierre tried to deny me by unashamedly grabbing me from behind as I was attempting to make a layup. Meanwhile, Andre, the pastry chef and second tallest, was always waving his hands in my face. Rather than teach them some of the finer points of the game and convince Pierre not to cheat, I used my height and weight to knock into everyone on my way to the basket.

Meals in the dining room

Because I wasn’t paid for my work at the restaurant, Jean and Pierre allowed me to eat free of charge several times in the dining room. Among them was a memorable meal with my friend Reiko, a Japanese student I’d met earlier in my stay in France when she was touring the country. She was charming, so I invited her to visit me in Roanne and have a meal at Troisgros.

Consulting with Pierre about the food and Jean about wine, and keeping in mind Reiko’s love of fish, I decided to have an all-fish dinner. Since Troisgros’ menu depended upon what was available at the market that day, or what a local fisherman showed up with, I requested the day’s arrivals: St. Pierre (no relation to Pierre Troisgros and called John Dory in English) and sea bass. We would forego silverware and eat the entire meal with chopsticks. For the wine, Jean suggested a Bienvenue Batard Montrachet, the best white Burgundy I have ever tasted.

There is nothing so exciting as discussing an upcoming meal at a Michelin 3-star restaurant with the chef himself. By this time, I had learned a lot about the finest cuisine in France, and I wanted to make sure that our meal was going to be memorable. Pierre took his time with me, as if he had nothing more important in the world to do, and gave his suggestions. The St. Pierre would be seasoned with salt and pepper and then grilled. The sea bass would be roasted and served with a classic beurre blanc. I mentioned that Reiko was a small girl and that she was used to eating light meals, as was the custom in Japan. A typical French dinner would probably fill her up before she got to the main course. He suggested that all of the other courses would be very small so that she would have no trouble finishing her dinner. I, on the other hand, was welcome to go into the kitchen and make myself a sandwich if I got hungry afterward. (I did eventually have my standard sandwich that night. It was one that I occasionally made at night while everyone but the night watchman was asleep: a few thick slices of ham, gruyere cheese, and slices of tomato on rustic French bread. All traces were cleaned up before I went to bed.)

Toward the end of my year-long apprenticeship, I was given permission to have a final meal in the dining room, free of charge. I ate alone that evening, but I felt as though I were dining with the entire kitchen and wait staff. Jean, Pierre, and I put together a menu of fish and meat with red and white wines to accompany each dish, and the reason I am not listing the courses is because all was rendered moot as I sat down at the table. The maitre d’hotel came over to say that the chef wanted to offer me a wild woodcock (bécasse), which a hunter had just delivered to the restaurant. He actually leaned in and whispered this to me because at that time it was illegal to serve woodcock, an endangered species, at a restaurant. Nevertheless, with its extra-long beak, the bird was readily identifiable to most people in that part of the country. I was instructed not to say anything to anyone, or exclaim how good it was in a loud voice, or suck the brains out of the head unless I was hiding its beak in my hand.

This wasn’t my first woodcock, but it was the best one I had ever tasted. It was cooked, as all game birds should be, à la goutte de sang (approximately medium rare). The flavor was gamy, the flesh was tender, and the internal organs were mashed up with foie gras and spread on a thin slice of baguette. I had a wickedly tasty red Burgundy, chosen for the occasion by Jean Troisgros, that not only complemented the woodcock but also helped make the meal into something greater than the sum of its parts. It doesn’t happen all the time, but every so often, a wine will perfectly complement a dish. So it was with this Burgundy, which tasted as though its tannin had just crossed over the border from astringent to deliciously round, and the game bird, with its array of flavors. They fit together with stunning results. I sat there savoring the dish until the maitre d’hotel reminded me that it was time for the next course.

Troisgros after hours

It was after this last meal that I started visiting the empty restaurant and kitchen at night after the diners and staff had left. I needed only walk from my bedroom above the restaurant and down a staircase to reach the foyer. I felt that I was watching the ghost of the evening service, complete with the cooks preparing the dinners, Gerard, the stolid maitre d’hotel, giving instructions to the waiters, Michel, the chef de cuisine, steady as a rock, sauteing and roasting diverse items as he was, at the same time, making the sauces, Pierre preparing cuts of beef with the precision of a sushi chef, Jean wandering through the dining room with his cedar box full of Cuban cigars, and the customers thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Some of my favorite memories of that year were of hanging out at the bar inside the restaurant with the brothers and some of the Roannais who did business with Troisgros: the cheese affineur, who had invited me into his cellar to show me how he aged each type of cheese, the chocolatier, who taught me his craft (which would eventually become part of my own), the hunter, whose deliveries depended upon which birds or what deer crossed his path, and others. None of them looked like the type of customer you would expect to see in a three-star restaurant. In fact, the bar itself seemed out of place. If you entered the front door of the restaurant and went to the bar, you would think that you had just entered a small, local dive. Customers there were dressed casually, none in suits or ties or fancy dresses. On the other hand, everyone felt welcome, no matter how they dressed, at the bar and in the restaurant. The warmth, compassion and willingness to share made the restaurant an even homier place.

Throughout that year, the brothers, the cooks and apprentices, the waiters, and all of the other employees of Troisgros made up a family of some of the warmest and kindest people in the food industry, a family that was united in making sure every single customer was warmly received, treated with kindness, and fed the best meal of his or her life. There was no snobbery at Troisgros. Everyone felt comfortable there. Upon entering, every customer felt the excitement of knowing that as long as they were at Troisgros, they would be treated as though they were family, too.

This was one of the most exciting years of my life. After two years of experience at two of the most creative restaurants in the world, I was ready to return home in 1977 to start my American career. Along with a wide range of culinary skills, what I especially learned from Jean and Pierre Troisgros was their talent for pleasing staff and customers. They served as my models in that respect as I returned to the U.S. with the ambition of creating my own business.

Jean, as noted earlier, died young, in 1983 at the age of 56. Pierre lived a long life and got to see his son Michel and grandsons take over the business and move Maison Troisgros, their gastronomic restaurant, to a beautiful new location in Ouches, a few miles outside of Roanne. Pierre died in 2020 at the age of 92.

RIP, Jean and Pierre Troisgros. Thank you for teaching me so much about French cuisine—and about so much more.

© 2021, David Glass. First published on France Revisited, francerevisited.com.

See David Glass Chocolates for more about the author.
See Maison Troisgros for more about Troisgros restaurants and lodging.

The post Chef Talk: A Young American Apprentices with Jean and Pierre Troisgros, Masters of Nouvelle Cuisine appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I don’t thumb text easy enough to answer at length on my phone, so I’ll respond here.

I liked the food. I liked the presentation on the plate. I appreciated the mix of savors. There’s some serious cheffing going on in that kitchen.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. So back to the beginning.

I walked into the restaurant at 7:45pm, several minutes before my dinner date would arrive, and was given a choice of two tables. I selected the one by the window. Before I sat down I asked the servers, a man and a woman, if the restaurant had a cat. The man said, No. Since he didn’t ask why the question, I told him: Because it smells like a cat lives here. No cat, he said. His negation was no reassurance. I smelled something, something that reminded me of a home with a cat or something furry or litterboxy—not in a long-left-untended sense, but in a musky sense. Since I was one of the first clients in the restaurant it wasn’t someone’s perfume. I would hope not.

I wondered if it was more like hay, thinking that hay has a pleasant smell. Maybe they used hay as a bed for some creative dish, I thought, since I knew in reserving that creativity was on the menu. But no, something was off. Damp hay? I don’t know. My senses kept wanting to call it cat.

I like cats. I used to have one. For a time I was lucky enough to call one my significant other. I took my niece and her friend to the cat café when they visited last year. Cats are fine by me. But I thought it odd that a restaurant with a high ceiling and large panes of window giving out to the square and one wall full of wine bottles should smell like a cat, as it did in this corner.

My friend, a French lawyer, arrived a minute later. I’d texted her the previous day to say that in the time of the coronavirus we should support restaurants and, besides, we hadn’t seen each other for six weeks. She agreed, though in the time of the coronavirus she wouldn’t kiss me when she arrived.

I asked if she smelled a cat. She said, No, maybe, well there’s something, maybe it’s the plant—for our table was near a plant. That might be it, I said, something in the soil, so we moved one table away along the window. (Empty tables abound in the time of coronavirus.)

Moving two yards away didn’t completely eliminate the odor, but my friend and I hadn’t seen each other for some time so we quickly fell into lively catch-up talk, and I forget the cat smell, as I did back in the day when I shared an apartment with the world’s most beautiful, intelligent cat.

I thought of the cat again when the waitress placed some pâté before us, but her gratuitous act was much appreciated and we were hungry. We thanked her. We were in for a modern meal and it began with a welcome slab of tradition.

Twice the waitress returned to ask if we were ready to order the meal or something to drink, and the third time she came over we were. We selected from the 3-course fixed-price menu (49€) and a bottle of Gigondas (48€).

We chatted away, as friends of 30 years do, and the wine arrived. I reached for my glasses in my coat pocket to examine the label, as one pretends one does, and by the time I put them on the waitress had already removed the foil from the top of the bottle and was about to poke the cork with a screw. Now that I could see it, I remarked that the label read 2015 whereas the wine list indicated 2013. I don’t think so, she said, this is all there is. Can you check? I asked. She checked. The menu did indeed indicate 2013, and 2015 was indeed all she had. She claimed not to have noticed before. She asked if I still wanted the bottle.

Now what do I know from 2013 or 2015? What do I know from Gigondas or Domaine du Terme other than that I was planning on visiting wine villages in the southern Rhone Valley next month? But I do know that the staff of a restaurant with a substantial wine list should have something more informative to say than Do you still want the bottle?

I said, If it’s discounted.

She abruptly went to consult with the other server who was behind the bar. He was apparently her higher-up. Together they examined the menu. As they did, my friend asked if I knew the different between 2013 and 2015 in Gigondas. I said that for all I know 2015 was a better year, but given the way the bottle had (not) been presented to us and the way I was asked Do you still want it?, it was the principle of the thing. A restaurant that notes “cuisine & vins gourmands” on its awning and presents a wall full of bottles should have someone who knows how to talk about wine, someone who will show you the label and will be willing to engage, if only to say, I don’t know much about wine but let me ask my colleague if he can help. I don’t use one of those wine label apps, so it was indeed a matter of principle. My friend agreed. She said, Sometimes principle is all we have to go on. That’s a rare thing for a lawyer to acknowledge.

The waitress returned. Apparently Pirouette has principles, too. She said, No, same price, do you want it? (I’m translating; these exchanges were in French but no more extensive than that.)

Maybe I would have a liked a warmer tone; maybe I would have liked to hear that I was being offered a 5€ discount; maybe I would have liked to have the server explain that 2015 was even better than 2013 or how they were different; maybe I expect a restaurant with a substantial wine list to…. I said, No, I’ll take another look at the wine list.

This time I selected a Vacqueyras, a 20-minute bike-ride north of Gigondas, 2016, also Domaine du Terme. At 33€ it happened to be the list’s least expensive red wine from the southern Rhone Valley. I shouldn’t say “happened to be” since I wasn’t now going to select anything priced higher than the 2013/2015 bottle. I may have been shooting myself in the gut with my principle, but there you have it.

This time the male server brought over the bottle. It’s Vacqueyras, he said, but it’s 2017, not 2016. I thought there might be a punchline but none was forthcoming. In the silence that followed he missed his chance to remark, before my dinner date did, that they needed to update their wine list. We’re in the process of changing it, he responded, humorlessly. Is 2017 alright? It’s 80% syrah. And he followed that by looking at the bottle and saying something about body or structure.

I accepted the 2017. What do I know from Vacqueyras? What do I know from 2016/2017? The waiter poured us a sip. It was relatively direct (80% syrah) and relatively adequate. I nodded. He poured more. This wasn’t the coolness of French service as I’ve come to accept and even appreciate it; this was the coldness of appearing to not give a damn. Sheesh! If this had all been done a bit more engagement on the part of the staff, I wouldn’t have suddenly remembered what health officials keep telling us about the coronavirus: “Maintain a social distance.” The staff at Pirouette must think that referred to something other than distance in space.

The waiter then parted, stirring the air, and I was reminded of the cat smell that wasn’t coming from a cat.

Then the food arrived, beginning with “cruncheese” rice balls topped with marinated sea bream and an orange vinaigrette, for one of us, and green asparagus dressed with herb breadcrumbs and accompanied by citrus butter, for the other. Quite good. We liked it from the start. Then came our main courses of crispy pork, butternut puree with aniseed and a coffee mousse, for one of us, and cod covered with buckwheat accompanied by a crepe-size carrot and ginger ravioli, for the other. A pleasure. Chef François-Xavier Ferrol’s studied mix of savors may not be subtle (perhaps subtlety isn’t the aim) but they form an appealing kind of comfort bistronomy, handsomely presented on the plate. Filling portions. Not stellar, but 49€ fine. The wine was so-so, but who cares? We were two friends enjoying each other’s company over dinner in the time of the coronavirus.

My friend and I had agreed that we could dig into each other’s dish with the clean set of silverware that arrived with each course. Yet dessert has a way of making people forget their coronavirus principles. Having licked the last of her pleasing rice pudding with salted butter caramel from her spoon, she forgot that she’d asked for a second spoon (see photo of third course) and promptly stuck the same one into my chocolate ganache, peanut streusel and cocoa sorbet. I pointed out what she’d just done by saying, And to think you wouldn’t kiss me when you came in, to which she blushed as though she’d just impulsively stuck her tongue into my mouth. Take it all, I said—not because I distrusted her germs but because it was my least favorite dish.

My friend went to the rest room while I paid the bill. Then I went to the rest room while she looked at her phone. The rest room was clean enough. The sink is awkwardly placed. I washed my hands thoroughly.

I’d been away from the table for several minutes and as I returned I again picked up the scent of something cat-like or otherwise furry or litterboxy. It was like when I lived with a cat and would go down to get the mail then return to the apartment. Hmm, I’d think, a cat lives here. Whatever the odor was by the window at Pirouette, and however subjectively I’ve interpreted the smell, there it was. We then left the restaurant.

So on a scale of 1 to 10 would I recommend Pirouette?

Well, everyone deserves a break. Especially these days. There’s too much distrust, too much aggression, too many insistent points of view, too much judging going on—even too many principles. Shouldn’t the main principle be to help keep ourselves and each other healthy and to simply enjoy each other’s company while we’re together because you never know whom you’ll be stuck with in quarantine? So why not recommend François-Xavier Ferrol’s cuisine and forget about the staff’s “social distance,” their cold-shoulder wine oops, and that odor? Why not an 8 then, or a 7?

Because at this price I’d like a more graceful Pirouette, and because mutual support is a two-way street, and because there are (correction: will be) many other worthwhile options in Paris, and because you asked: 5.

Pirouette
5 rue Mondétour, 1st arr. Metro Les Halles. 01 40 26 47 81.
Open Monday-Saturday, noon-2pm and 7:30-10pm.

© 2020, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Pirouette in the Time of the Coronavirus appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

***

What do Alain Ducasse, Alain Passard, Pierre Gagnière, Anne-Sophie Pic, Gilles Goujon and Jean-François Piège have in common? If you answered that they are all masters of French high gastronomy then you’d be half right. The other half? They also have very French names.

Unlike Kei Kobayashi. Yet Kei Kobayashi is also a master of French high gastronomy, working the kitchen and operating his eponymous restaurant Kei. If his name sounded more French then perhaps this exceptional chef would have more American and British clients. As it is, he has a faithful French clientele, Japanese clients and a smattering of other well-informed international gastronomes.

Mastering the art of French cooking isn’t a question of nationality, as Julia Child taught us, but mastering the heights of French gastronomy has been a fairly passport-driven affair… until recently. Ten or twenty years ago, a chef from overseas would train in France for five, even ten, years then return home to, say, Japan to wow his compatriots and pursue his career there. But increasingly some high-caliber chefs from abroad choose to pursue their careers in France.

Kei Kobayashi, for example.

“I want to do that!”

Born in 1977, Kobayashi speaks of a vertical path from his childhood in Nagano, Japan, to the stature of a 2-star Michelin chef in Paris and about his ambitions. His father was a traditional chef of precise slicing in Japan. At age 15, the younger Kobayashi saw a documentary on TV featuring French chef Alain Chapel (3-star Michelin) in the kitchen. On the screen the chef worked with flare, fire and flourish as he’d never seen in his father’s kitchen. He speaks of it as a revelation. “I told myself, ‘I want to do that!’”

Having started his training in Japan, he arrived in France at the age of 21 intent on discovering, learning, practicing and climbing to the heights of French gastronomy. (Somehow along the way he also picked up the notion that French chefs are blond and so began dying his hair.)

A culinary Tour de France followed, during which time he worked with and learned from stellar chefs in Paris, Languedoc, Provence and Alsace. He opened Kei near Les Halles in 2011, received his first Michelin star a year later and a second in 2017.

Fifteen to twenty years ago, meeting a chef who had turned his back on the world of high gastronomy to focus on more accessible culinary offerings was refreshing. Now it’s refreshing to meet unabashedly facing the summit. From the moment he opened Kei, he said, he was aiming (and pushing his staff to aim) for three stars. That’s something few chefs think or admit.

The Setting

At first glance the 30-seat room of Kei seems mildly ascetic, despite the glitter and glow of the Saint Louis chandelier. But before long the off-white walls reveal a hint of lavender and one notices the crown molding and discreet French flourishes. At lunchtime, the glassy the white cut-outs on the wall-length picture window facing the street combined with the radiance of the chandelier and of the sconces reminds me of the comfort of a dreamy afternoon on a snowy day.

Distinguishing Japanese touches from French touches in the décor, the tableware and the succession of dishes is a table game that one inevitably plays… given the name Kei Kobayashi. The dishware and cutlery clearly present a marriage of cultures. But once settled into the meal one finds that Kobayashi’s cuisine—presented exclusively through tasting menus—is not a game of cross-cultural references but a hike to the heights of French gastronomy. True, along with products from France there may be some from Japan, Italy, Scotland and elsewhere. But it isn’t the Frenchness of the product that makes Kobayoshi’s cuisine French. It’s the intensity of focus on those products.

We’ve all had exquisite tasting menus that can be showy. I do enjoy the occasional gastronomic culinary Vaudeville, but Kobayashi’s cuisine is more subtle than that.

The Meal

There’s nearly something sacred about the progression through the meal, though without ritual or ceremony. Asked about the rhythm of a tasting menu, Kobayashi says that there is no single path. Instead, he speaks of the meal as a living construction, based on quality products, whether simple or noble, forming a menu that will change but should always feel complete. Our table’s 7-step tasting menu nevertheless evolved in nearly classic French rhythm from shrimp to vegetables and smoked salmon to quail risotto to smoked langoustine, culminating in line-caught sea-bass, before easing down with cheese and sorbet/dessert.

The menu is largely based on fish and seafood, from Carabineros prawn tartare with a smoked eel emulsion and a nip of Schrenki caviar to a direct this-is-the-real-taste-of-line-caught-sea bass whose sensuality retains an enticing coarseness thanks to his treatment of scales that have been left on.

The prawn of our menu was followed by the most seductive and deceptively simple of our seven dishes: a salad of raw and cooked vegetables, herbs, flowers, crumbled olives, a citrusy arugula mousse and a slice of smoked salmon from Scotland, all to be delicately turned and mingled by the client before tasting. It’s a celestial dish—the first time that I’ve ever thought of a mixed salad as a delicacy. The quail risotto with white Alba truffle, a Perigueux sauce and parmesan then tastefully brought us back to earth. A hay-steamed langoustine married with shitaki mushrooms appeared to be an attempt to return to the salad’s state of grace, but was for me the least remarkable of the dishes.

Beyond the tasting menus, diners can also add a course of l’oreiller de la belle Aurore, a pâté (in this case of game and fowl) baked in a savory pastry. It’s a highly crafted dish of rustic elegance that has in various shapes and forms been a staple of French culinary tradition for over 200 years. It was a signature of Gérard Besson, Kobayashi’s predecessor at this address. It’s placement on the menu is a sign of Kobayashi’s homage to and devotion to the heritage of French gastronomy that he carries forward.

A French chef

Reducing the Kei dining experience to cross-cultural analysis is to ignore the richness sought at the height of French gastronomy. The height for Kobayashi is one star away. Michelin-bashing has no place in his culinary world. In order to merit the third star, he says, he’s aware that he has to develop his own originality while ensuring flawlessness from start to finish and from kitchen to dining room.

No need to wait for that third star to put Kei on your culinary map. And don’t imagine that a Japanese name makes Kobayashi’s gastronomy any less French. Whatever passport he holds, think of Kei Kobayashi as an exceptional French chef.

Kei, 5 rue Coque Héron, 1st arr, just west of Les Halles. Metro Louvre-Rivoli or Sentier or Etienne Marcel. Tel. 01 42 33 14 74. Closed Sunday, Monday and lunch Thursday. The typical lunch menu is served in five steps or an extensive tasting in 9 steps. There’s also a 9-step “prestige” menu that includes additional choice items. See pricing for various lunch and dinner tasting menus here.

© 2019, Gary Lee Kraut.

The post Kei Kobayashi: Exceptional French Chefs Aren’t Always French appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

To eat late is easy in Paris, and to eat well is, too. But too eat late and well is rare. And to do so in the presence of one of Paris’s most esteemed purveyors of traditional bistro fare is a privilege.

I’m sitting with Paul Racat, owner of La Poule au Pot since 1974. Our soupe gratinée may seem simple enough but I know of no better setting in which enjoy in a single bowl all of the basic French food groups: onions, cheese, bread, chicken bouillon and white wine. Furthermore, when served at La Poule au Pot one can actually taste the history: the history of of the old central food market, dubbed “the belly of Paris” by Emile Zola; the history of this bistro whose décor has scarcely change since 1935, and, while classic French songs of the 1950s play softly in the background, the history of Paul Racat’s restaurant as a staple of late-night sustenance for greater and lesser names of fashion, film and pop music since the 1970s. I add to that my own personal history since I have been coming to La Poule au Pot for a late-night fix of onion soup for over 25 years.

As the waiter clears away our empty bowls, Racat brings out guest books containing the signatures, comments and drawings of some of the hundreds of familiar names and faces that have dined here: musicians, actors, comedians, designer, models, architects, chefs, models, and others that Racat collectively refers to them as “les artistes.”

La Poule au Pot has been known to have a party atmosphere in the middle of the night—as when some of the Rolling Stones first came after a recording session in Montmartre in the mid-80s or when Michel Petrucciani, a well-known French jazz pianist who passed away in 1999, stood on a banquette and tell raunchy jokes—but this was never a place to see and be seen, rather a place to enjoy the classics of hearty fresh bistro fare amiably served at any time of night. One is far more likely to see couples or friends in discreet conversation, as tonight, whether they’re artistes or not. And it isn’t unusual to see someone dining alone after midnight. Racat recalls Bruce Springsteen sitting quietly in a corner in the early ’80s, writing, perhaps lyrics to a song.

Guardian of fresh traditional bistro fare

“When I started out I imagined developing four or five restaurants, but I ended up staying with one for my entire career,” says Racat.

Not only has he remained devoted to his first and only restaurant, but to the menu of traditional bistro fare that he opened it with: escargots, soupe gratinée, os à moelle, fried camembert, chicken and rice with a cream sauce, steak tartare, poule au pot Henri IV (the restaurant’s namesake dish of long-simmered chicken and vegetables in broth), veal kidneys, salmon, lamb, tarte tatin, crème brulée, profiteroles, etc..

His dedication to preparing quality versions of such traditional dishes has made Racat one of the capital’s guardians of such cuisine. He is the Paris representative of the fraternal gastronomic order La Marmite d’Or, which honors the preservation of traditional cuisine and products. He is also a member of the Prosper Montagné Gastronomic Club, named for the renowned chef and author (notably of Larousse Gastronomique, an encyclopedia of French gastronomy) of the first half of the 20th century. Racat often repeats Montagné’s motto “On ne fait du bon qu’avec du très bon”—You can only make something good from something very good).

Paul Bocuse, Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy, and other chefs known for their high gastronomy have signed Racat’s guest book. And he has been honored by the French State with Knighthood in the Order of Agricultural Merit and in the National Order of Merit. Can the Legion of Honor be far behind?

Attracting show biz folk

Racat grew up in the Borbonnais area of Allier (Auvergne) and studied at the Beaux-Arts school in Moulins. After the premature death of his father there was no longer sufficient family funds for him to stay in a school leading to an uncertain future, he says, so he switched to a hotel-restaurant school with the idea of working as a chef. Cooking had been a passion since childhood. At 18 he was hired for his first kitchen job in Paris at the gastronomic restaurant Prunier. Brief stints followed at a series of stellar restaurants—Tour d’Argent and Plaza Athenée in Paris, Trianon Palace in Versailles—along with a gig in England preparing a hunting meal for the royal family.

In addition to gaining culinary experience during those six years, Racat says that he also learned “how poorly waiters and kitchen staff were treated by chefs and bosses at the time.” Together those valuable lessons led him at age 24 to want to strike out on his own.

“A partner and I were looking for a business and we came upon this one. A business at Les Halles may have been worth more than one on the Champs-Elysées during the time of the market, but with the market gone [Paris’s central food market moved to Rungis is 1969] it wasn’t worth much at all.”

Racat and his business partner bought La Poule au Pot in 1974. Racat created the menu and ran the kitchen. His partner oversaw the dining room. Several years later their teamwork turned wobbly, so Racat bought him out. Racat then hired a chef and began working as the front man. He would eventually acquire the property as well.

The décor of 1935

Racat and his partner were only the second owners of La Poule au Pot. They purchased the business from its original owners, the Penigueys, a couple who created the restaurant in 1935 and had scarcely changed the décor over the next 40 years. After her husband passed away, Suzanne Peniguey placed the restaurant under management, but, says Racat, the business turned sour, so at age 82 she was forced to take it back. Too old to operate it herself she decided to sell.

“She asked me not to change the décor until she died,” says Racat, “and I promised that I wouldn’t.”

His promise has held long beyond that. Peniguey passed away at the age of 98, yet the original décor still remains largely intact. Over the years Racat has changed some of the wallpaper, updated the overhead lighting and added some photographs and paintings, including a naïve painting of the front of the restaurant painted that he painted himself. Nevertheless, with its mirrored walls, copper bar counter, deep red banquettes, mosaic floor tiles, gold glass tiles around columns and various decorative elements passed on from the Penigueys, the bistro spirit of pre-war Les Halles remains in the décor as it does in the cuisine. The Penigueys’ cash register is still there, too, though no longer used.

La Poule au Pot might best be considered a luxury bistro. But the luxury here is in no way association with pretention or snobbery. What is luxurious is instead Racat’s insistence on simplicity, tradition, quality, kindness and the possibility to linger through the night. A 3-course meal runs 50-60€ without wine. Yet one might simply come for an after-midnight bowl of onion soup and a glass of white wine, before being tempted by a blueberry tart or a tarte tatin.

Hundreds of plaques of the names of celebrities

Racat and his partner didn’t set out to create a venue for celebrities, but thanks to friends of the partner and their decision to keep the restaurant open through the night, La Poule au Pot attracted people from show biz early on.

Typically it’s the record or production company that calls to say that the artist is coming. They come after their show accompanied by musicians, producers, friends or others. Sometimes a limousine pulls up, as when a little fellow arrived with a tall and beautiful blond on his arm and two hefty bodyguards close behind. “Love God. Prince,” the fellow signed in the guest book.

Musicians and actors still come, but gone are the days when there would be a haze of illicit smoke in the street. “The 1970s and 1980s were what they were,” Racat says, “but I never tolerated drugs inside the restaurant.”

Among Racat’s additions to the décor are the hundreds of little plaques that border the banquettes and side panels indicating the names of artists that have signed the guest books. It’s now the artists who ask for a plaque with their name to be placed here, he says.

La Poule au Pot has three categories of guest book: one for artists, one for politicians, one for everyone else. But only the artists have the right to a plaque. “Artists remain,” he says, “politicians just pass through.” One of the plaques toward the back bears his own name.

You may be disappointed coming to La Poule au Pot solely for the purpose of celebrity spotting, particularly if arriving early in the evening. Nevertheless, the banquette you slide into may have once been occupied by members of The Rolling Stones, The Police, Santana, Motorhead, Simply Red, INXS, Status Quo and other groups; Cliff Richard, Donovan, Marianne Faithfull, Alice Cooper, Mark Knopfler, Dave Davies, Joan Baez, Chrissie Hynde, Christopher Cross, Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Patti Smith; Frank Sinatra, Sigourney Weaver, Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, Jeanne Moreau, Miou-Miou; Jean-Paul Gaultier, Christian Lacroix, Pierre Cardin, Jean Nouvel, Paul Bocuse, Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy and many more French and international celebrities, architects, chefs and fashion folk. Photocopies of choice pages of the guest books are available for patrons to examine upon request.

La Poule au Pot, 3am

The stars aren’t out much tonight, or at least not the recognizable ones. A waiter whispers to us that the man at the window table has introduced himself as an Israeli musician. Racat points out writer across the room.

The pace of a meals slows as the night unfolds. Diners lingers in the knowledge that waiters won’t be piling chairs up around them. The wait staff has a gracious deadpan approach. They have a tendency to feign surprise that one would ever want the pay the bill and call it a night with so much of the night ahead.

At 3am Racat suggests that we have frog legs. They arrive, sautéed in a light flour batter with garlic and parsley. Though several decades removed from operating the ovens at La Poule au Pot, Racat still tastes and, when necessary, “corrects” dishes. He nods in approval of the frog legs.

A woman now enters and comes over to our table to greet Racat. She has high fashion written all over her, from couture hat to elegant shoe. A former model, he tells me. She lives in the area and occasionally orders something to go… at 3:30am.

I mention seeing that Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell once signed his guest book after dining here together. What could they have possibly eaten here in this home of hearty traditions?

“Normal,” he says, “They ate normally.”

Looking at the decades of guest books, it appears that the heyday of international headliners has slowed since the turn of the century, though without disappearing altogether.

“It’s now the children of artists that come,” says Racat.

Some time ago, Thomas Bangalter, one half of the helmet-wearing duo Daft Punk, arrived with a friend one evening. Though unrecognizable to his fans, Racat immediately knew who he was since Bangalter had been coming here since he was a child, when he came with his father, a music producer. It was Bangalter’s dining companion that evening that Racat had never met until Bangalter introduced him to his friend Kanye West. “To La Poule au Pot where I’ve come with so much pleasure since childhood!,” Bangalter wrote in the guest book. “Thank you for all these meals and for all the evenings I’ve spent here!”

Thumbing the nose at passing time

In 2012 Racat was awarded the Vermeil Medal of the City of Paris for his contribution to gastronomy in the capital. In accepting the medal he said, “La Poule au Pot thumbs its nose at passing time.”

Yet time has passed, and at 65 years old Racat, though he looks young enough to have many years ahead of him at the restaurant’s helm, says that he’ll willingly retire when the right buyer came along. “Operating a restaurant takes its toll and operating an all-night restaurant even more so,” he says.

His wife, Pascale, worked with him in the 1980s, but working nights together was untenable once they had children. They have two sons, born in 1985 and 1989. “Both are gastronomes, but neither is interested in taking over the restaurant,” he says.

Perhaps some famous chef or other entrepreneur or a well-financed group will purchase the place, but it’s unlikely that the next owner will maintain the quartet of qualities that make La Poule au Pot the institution that it is today: the 1935 décor, the fresh traditional bistro fare, the night-only hours and, perhaps most important of all, the all-seeing owner on the premises. At least one or two of that quartet will disappear in the name of profitability. The time to spend a few hours at La Poule au Pot is therefore now, while Racat is still on duty.

La Poule au Pot’s historical counterpart in the Halles quarter is Le Pied de Cochon, the brasserie on the opposite site of the park, by Saint Eustache Church. Opened in 1947, it, too, is an all-night institution. But whereas La Poule au Pot’s authenticity comes from the dedication, presence and character of its owner, Le Pied de Cochon, like the vast majority of the historical brasseries of Paris, was long ago gobbled up by a large group. (It currently belongs to the Bertrand Group.)

La Poule au Pot, 4am

At 4am two men and a woman arrive. One of the men, apparently a regular, says that they’ve just finished a gig at a club in the 6th arrondissement and asks if it isn’t too late to eat.

“Certainly not,” says Racat, and he nods to a waiter to seat them.

A long discussion follows as to what they might like to eat. The waiter goes over the entire menu. When they finally choose it’s clear that these three aren’t looking for a late-night snack. They’ve come to dine.

I leave at 4:30am as the waiters deliver a steaming vessel of poule au pot and other dishes to their table.

“Looks like I’ll be staying a little longer,” says Racat.

La Poule au Pot
9 Rue Vauvilliers, 75001 Paris
01 42 36 32 96
Open 7pm-5pm except Monday night.

© 2017, Gary Lee Kraut

An earlier version of this article first appeared in The Connexion.

The post Paris by All-Night Bistro: La Poule au Pot appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

The French have a reputation as frog-eaters, but admit it, Francophile friends, you’ve probably never seen a Frenchman nibble at a frog—and you may well have never tried fresh frog yourself. How about lightly fried pig’s ears? Pigeon? Snails? Well, maybe snails, but possibly fresh only from the freezer.

Le Vieux Crapaud (the old toad), near the Arc de Triomphe, is the place to catch up on such tasty, unfamiliar morsels, while also enjoying familiar bistro fare, freshly and earnestly prepared by owner-chef Thomas Boutin.

The airy dining room with well-spaced seating for 42 mostly shuns the decorative vocabulary of the traditional Paris bistro, while the hunting trophies—a pheasant, a boar (Boutin’s shot), a goose, antlers—remind diners that the cuisine of this citified restaurant has rural roots, as does its owner-chef.

Originally from the Sologne region of France in the Loire Valley, Boutin briefly attended Drexel University in Philadelphia at a time when he was aiming for a career in business. But he soon left classrooms for kitchens, where he’d felt comfortable since childhood. He returned to Paris to attend the Ferrandi Culinary School. America eventually beckoned again, so for 18 months he worked at Le Charm, a French restaurant in San Francisco—hence his SF cap in the photo. Returning to Paris, he gained further experience by working with gastronomic chefs and as a home chef for hire.

Bottin opened Le Vieux Crapaud in June 2014. Just over a year later, at the age of 38, he was named Officer of the Order of Agricultural Merit (Chevalier dans l’ordre du Mérite agricole), a national honor recognizing his role in maintaining what he calls France’s “formidable culinary tradition” and respecting “its formidable terroir.”

I initially came to Le Vieux Crapaud to enhance my frog education and have returned several times since. Boutin’s frog supplier is Patrice François, France’s only major frog breeder. The vast majority of frogs (typically legs only) served in France are imported. While inexpensive imports and regulatory requirements in France are enough dissuade most would-be domestic breeders, François, a well-establish fishmonger in the center of France, took up the challenge. In 2010 he created a frog farm just north of Provence in the Drome region. See this video from Patrice François’s farm for more on frog breeding (raniculture).

Boutin serves the whole frog at Le Vieux Crapaud, legs, body and forearms—eviscerated and with the head removed, of course. He sautés them with parsley and a bit of garlic, with some lemon in the finish. They’re typically served alone as an appetizer though the frogophile can also order them as a main course served with mashed potatoes. In the setting of this restaurant the taste is both rustic and refined, and finger lickin’ good. You’ll be given a knife and fork in case you wish to use utensils, but frogs are traditionally eaten with the hands, which makes it easier to suck the bones. (Think delicate chicken wings.)

Well on my way to appreciating frog, I next turned my attention to pig’s ears (oreilles de cochon) as a second appetizer. A pleasant surprise, Boutin’s pig ears are lighter I’d imagined. They have a slight and agreeable cartilage crunch. (Think really good, thick, homemade potato chips.) There’s some oiliness to them, which is well balanced by the accompanying lentils.

The vast majority of the products that Boutin works with come from France, as is the case in any self-respecting bistro here. The prime exception is the snails. That would appear sacrilegious in escargot country if Boutin hadn’t come up with a reasonable explanation. “True fat, wild so-called Burgundy escargot no longer come from France because of strict regulations to produce them,” he says. His meaty escargots therefore come fresh from Hungary. They’re grilled in a parsley butter, as one would expect, but without the heavy garlic and often oily aspect that one finds in restaurants less concerned about freshness and quality.

“I want to give people an experience,” he says of serving less familiar dishes to foreign clients. “I’m offering clients the chance to try things they might not otherwise try. Refuse what you want, but please don’t tell me you don’t like something before you’ve even tried it.” He isn’t opposed to having people send back dishes they don’t like, and he rarely finds that someone abuses the offer to do so.

Beyond the less familiar appetizers, there’s something to please everyone on Boutin’s changing menu that may also include pheasant pot au feu, pumpkin soup, calf sweetbreads, a mature entrecôte, a hearty côte de bœuf to share, along with chicken, pork and fish dishes, consistently direct and flavorsome, I’ve found over several meals.

Those seeking in-depth wine discussion may be disappointed to find a lack of vino-conversation with Boutin and the staff. Boutin acknowledges that he is not a wine connoisseur, and there’s no sommelier among his small staff (which may include his wife Tatiana at lunchtime). “I know what I like,” he says. “We manage to express that to clients who have questions, but please don’t talk to us about varietals. If you don’t like what you’re served I’ll take it back.”

Le Vieux Crapaud largely draws a local business and non-business crowd at lunchtime. In the evening tourists and business travelers enter the mix, many of them staying in the Champs-Elysées area and some perhaps at nearby luxury hotels such as the Raphael (worth considering for a well-heeled aperitif, especially in summer when its rooftop bar is open) and the Peninsula.

Moderately priced for the area (a 3-course dinner runs 35-55€ without wine), there is a genteel bon-vivantness to Le Vieux Crapaux. That comes not only from the food but from Boutin himself. In designing a restaurant with a window between the kitchen and the dining room, Boutin’s intention was not, as in restaurants with a similar configuration, so that clients could admire the chef at work as an actor on a stage. Instead, the kitchen window is a perch from which Boutin can keep an eye on the dining room. From there he can judge where diners are in the progress of a given course, and he’ll occasionally step out to give a helping hand in the dining room and to speak with clients, whether regulars or strangers.

Boutin is an affable fellow who clearly enjoys the give and take with diners, whether in French or in English. His menu is in French only because, he says, he prefers to explain ingredients and preparations to clients who may not be able to decipher a French menu.

Boutin’s good-natured approach to his preparations and to his clients would be a nice addition in many neighborhoods in Paris but they are especially welcome in the Arc de Triomphe area, where pretension, hefty prices, tourist fare and/or international branding otherwise dominate the restaurant scene.

Le Vieux Crapaud
16 rue Lauriston, 16th arrondissement. Metro Kléber or Charles de Gaulle-Etoile. Tel. 01 73 75 70 10.
Open Mon.-Fri. for lunch (12:00-2:30) and dinner (7:45-10:30). Available for private events and cooking classes on Sat. and Sun.

© 2016, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Le Vieux Crapaud: Admirable Bistro Fare Near the Arc de Triomphe appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

That’s my motto when selecting restaurants for many visitors. And there’ve been a lot these past few weeks: friends, relatives, friends of friends, friends of relatives, classmates, fundraisers, writers doing research, travelers taking most excellent tours. We’ve had lunch together, dinner, we’ve been to wine bars, had picnics, stopped for pastries, chocolate, Bertillon sorbet.

“How do you/they stay so thin,” they ask, causing me to suck in my gut, “eating like this all the time?”

Now here’s a secret the food-bloggers won’t tell you: We don’t. At least I don’t.

Paris can be visited as a perpetual all-you-can-eat deluxe buffet but it’s lived as a city with countless venues for a shared meal or drink with friends, colleagues, clients and assorted visitors. Eating well implies choosing well, ordering well, buying well… enjoying good company. There is a form of Parisian self-control in matters of food and drink. One gets a hang of quickly enough. Spending two hours à table doesn’t mean consuming four times the amount of someone who sits for 30 minutes. And we actually eat at home sometimes. We have access to good fresh produce. We walk to shops. We do our 10,000 steps, including frequent staircases. We cook in our little kitchens. We may even exercise, gently.

However, there are times when some combination of visitors, work obligations, journalist events, birthday celebrations and ordinary social life lead me on an extended period of wining and dining. And no matter how much I protest when the dessert menu is handed out, there are quite a few crème brulées, moelleux au chocolat, pies and tarts placed on the table with an extra fork or spoon. “I’ll just have a little taste,” as my grandmother would say.

That period of indulgence can last a few days or a week or, with my most recent schedule of visitors, events and travelers on most excellent tours, a month. Indulgence, however, is not the same thing as overindulgence. Indulgence is a knowing pleasure. Overindulgence is loss of control. Admittedly, there’s a fine line of distinction at times.

A friend, in Paris for business, unsure of which side of the line we were on, said during our third straight high calorie wine-infused meal together, “My wife’s gonna kill me for putting on weight. I’m gonna tell her it’s your fault.”

If shared good living is my fault then guilty as charged. I don’t know what you’re during this afternoon, Scott, but I’m going for a run as soon as I finish this article.

10 Venues for Shared Good Living—Simple Food, Simply Good

What follows is a selection of simple, simply good restaurants and shops that have been on my eating trails of the past few weeks during this most recent bout of shared good living. It’s my food diary of the past few weeks, minus the less appealing, the less well served and the more gastronomic meals consumed along the way.

Simplicity is the theme, meaning relatively straightforward fare, meat and potatoes and the like yet unmistakably French. Some will call this restaurant fare “borrrrring,” others will call it “just what I was looking for.”

All are moderately priced, here meaning 25-50€ for 2 or 3 courses without beverages. All have good to excellent service. None require much, if any, advance reservation, though no harm calling ahead.

1. Le Sully
6 boulevard Henri IV, 4th arr. Metro Sully-Morland.
Tel. 01 42 72 94 80. Closed Sunday.

It’s easy to overlook this daytime café-brasserie (it closes at 8pm) because the intersection out front appears to be a place of transit only and not of pause. But here—between Ile Saint Louis and the Arsenal quarter of the Marais, between old blocks from the Bastille and a statue of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, between an equestrian center for the Republican Guard and the Center for information, documentation and exhibition for urban planning and architecture of Paris—Le Sully is a place with roots. The same family has operated it since 1917 and their roots still run deep into the Aveyron region of central France. Le Sully is old reliable when it comes to enjoying the café-brasserie experience in Paris thanks to the generous spirit of Robert and Dany Vidal and their son Romain and to their sense of quality. Le Sully proudly sports the government label Maitre-Restaurateur, which signifies that dishes are made in house essentially using fresh ingredients. Aubrac rump steak and other nice lunchtime brasserie fare, Languedoc wines. We linger into the afternoon.

2. La Poule au Pot
9 rue Vauvilliers, 1st arr. Metro Louvre-Rivoli
Tel. 01 42 36 32 96 Open 7pm-5am. Closed Mon.
Ever true the bistro tradition, Paul Racat has for 40 years now maintained this relaxed yet classy home for rustic bistro classics, attentively served, and an atmosphere of unpretentious chic that develops as the evening and the night move on. Come the later the better. Soupe gratinée à l’onion, blanquette de veau, white Sancerre. We linger into the night.

3. Boucherie Roulière
6 rue des Canettes, 6th arr. Metro Mabillon or Saint Germain des Près.
Tel. 01 84 15 04 47. Open daily.

Having long associated this street between Saint-Germain and Saint-Sulpice with creperies, pizzarias and pubs, I thought it a bit risky to head here for beef. But the risk paid off: the sliced rib just right, attentive service, elbow-to-elbow seating that offered up a mix of good cheer and Parisian sophistication. Mille feuilles de tomate et artichaut à l’huile de truffe; côte de boeuf, bone marrow and steak fries; Saint-Estèphe (Bordeaux).

4. 750g La Table
397 rue de Vaugirard, 15th arr. Metro Porte de Versailles.
Tel. 01 45 30 18 47. Open daily.

If I lived on the southwestern edge of the city or frequently attended trade shows at Porte de Versailles, I’d be happy to consider Damien Duquesne’s Table my neighborhood restaurant for good chicken, good beef, homey side dishes, much freshness, a judicious wine selection and friendly service. But I don’t, so I consider 750g La Table as a sign that no quarter is immune to honorable food and wine.

5. Les Petites Ecuries
40 rue des Petites Ecuries, 10 arr. Metro Château d’Eau or Bonne Nouvelle.
Tel. 01 48 24 02 90. Open daily.
Walking by on a sunny day, it was the sight of the pleasantly odd alcove lined with a living green wall that gave me pause for coffee. Though suspecting that the place might be too young and hip for the food or service to be anything but an afterthought, I nevertheless returned for dinner with a visiting friend the following evening. And good thing, too: my duck was delicious, my friend enjoyed his steak, we were kindly served and we barely noticed that we were among the oldest ones there.

6. Le Plomb de Cantal
3 rue de la Gaîté, 14th arr. Metro Edgar Quinet.
Open daily.
Why waste your waistline on the meat and potatoes at an ordinary greasy spoon when you can do some delicious gut-busting in this joyful restaurant in the Montparnasse quarter with Auvergne comfort food, from deep in the center of France? Sausage served with aligot (mashed potatoes with cheese and garlic) or truffade (sliced potatoes, cheese, garlic) is king here, but duck, tripes or beef are also options. Hearty salads as well. It’s simple, it’s delicious, it’s caloric, it’s cheerful, it’s Paris without needing to be hip or sophisticated. There’s an extension around the corner and another outlet across the city near metro Strasbourg-Saint Denis, but come evening the greatest joy is on aptly named theater- and restaurant-filled rue de la Gaîté.

7. Terminus Nord  
23 rue de Dunkerque, 10 arr. Metro Gare du Nord.
Open daily.

While the Auvergnats accompany their sausages with cheesy potatoes, brasseries of the north, wonderfully exemplified by this large and brassy restaurant across the street from Gare du Nord (the train station that links Paris with London, Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam), serve theirs with sauerkraut. But upon returning from Amsterdam (Café Loetje for lunch) we came here for the other specialties of northern brasseries: fish (cod, sea bass, salmon, sole) and seafood. A reminder that simple fare, simply good, isn’t just a beefy affair.

8. Le Village Ronsard
47 Ter Boulevard St Germain, 5th arr. Metro Maubert-Mutualité.
Tel. 01 43 25 07 95. Open daily.
There are many like it, but when in this quarter come lunchtime I’ve always felt comfortable at this perfectly, excellently ordinary café-brasserie in the Sesame Street of Paris market areas. Poulet-frites, steak-frites, salads, omelets, etc.

9. Fil’O’Fromage
12 rue Neuve Tolbiac, 13th arr. Metro Bibliothèque François Mitterrand or Quai de la Gare.
Tel. 01 53 79 13 35. Open 10am-7:30pm Mon.-Wed. 10am-10:30pm Thurs.-Sat. Closed Sunday.

Past the loud brasseries, the cavernous cafés and the undesirable restaurants that first assault the rare explorer of the new Rive Gauche quarter of the 13th arrondissement, Clément Chérif Boubrit (“I’m the Sheriff,” he says), philosopher, photographer, cheesemonger, oenologist, operates an off-beat wine and cheese shop and eatery where I recently organized a tasting for a group of eight bloggers/writers. Don’t worry, you needn’t be eight or even organized to enjoy the Sheriff’s approach to tasting wine, cheese and cold cuts vertically, horizontally, blindly or what the hell let’s just share-ingly.

10. My kitchen. Leftovers from last night’s party. Open 7/7, by invitation only.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris Restaurants: 10 Ways to Keep It Simple and Simply Good appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

In an area where philosophers, revolutionaries and writers once roamed, chef Fabric Rialland, formerly of the Hôtel Costes, is offering tasty lessons in eggs-istentialism and the pleasures of carpaccio-diem. Thus far, the media star of the menu has been Rialland’s utterly elegant 3€50 oeuf mayo. In brief: the egg whites have been steamed, the yolks on top are miniature golden globes of perfection, and the Dijon mustard-laced mayonnaise is to die for.

But the main focus of the menu is raw meat. ”Carpaccio was a deal-breaker,” says Rialland. ”My investor, Benoist Kersulec, insisted on 20 varieties.”

They compromised at nineteen and the sweet part of the deal (for diners) is the possibility to sample two different platters for just 16€. The Greek version—light as air—is studded with tiny cubes of feta and cucumber. The most popular, Thai, has touches of ginger and pineapple. Mozzarella, pine-nuts, olive tapenade, soja and even camembert for a Norman spin adorn other options. All carpaccios are accompanied by salad, shoestring potatoes or wilted spinach.

Also on the menu: lobster spring rolls, savory pork ‘pluma’ casseroles, curried chicken, sautéed calamars and home-cooked foie gras with plum brandy. The Sunday brunch (25-35€) includes eggs benedict, and the dessert list features lemon-flavored cheesecake, apple-pie and a selection of sweet cocktails like the eponymous Café Bouillu that blends Kahlua, crème fraîche, coffee, vodka and a splash of hazelnut essence.

A glass of Terradria chardonnay from the Pays d’Oc costs 5€50 and a hearty bottle of Caprices d’Antoine Côtes-du-Rhône is 25€. However, the wine cellar also stocks some treasures from an earlier Café Bouillu incarnation in La Baule, including a 1983 Pétrus (3,600€) to enjoy in precious sips along with, say, a cheese omelet (12€). By the way, the wine cellar, which can and should be visited, is the site where Robespierre signed the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

Café Bouillu. 9 rue de l’Ecole de Médecine, 6th arrondissement. Metro Odéon. Tel: 01.46.34.19.41. Open daily.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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* * *

When car-conscious journalists showed up at Renault’s Paris showroom for a press conference about the 3rd Generation Twingo last month, the F-word (femme) was on everybody’s lips.

”C’mon, it’s a very girlie car,” explained one (male) automotive blogger who avowed that he would never be seen at the wheel of the latest model painted in glossy Cappuccino or Powder Blue.

Indeed, ever since the first curvaceous Twingo shifted gears down the asphalt catwalk in 1993 (with a name engineered to blend tango, twist and swing), it’s been billed as a feminine ride. Twingo designers describe the car’s personality as affectif and sympathique. There was even a 21st-century feminist backlash about an ad campaign (hastily-pulled) that suggested Twingo-drivers have “cute” problems with parallel parking

Thus said, the new Twingo is a city car with appeal to anyone who needs to negotiate tight corners and urban traffic. ”We’ve put the motor in the rear for added maneuverability,” says Laurent Negroni, part of the Renault creative team. ”With this Twingo, u-turns are a piece of cake.”

Coincidentally, ”cake” was also on everyone’s mind.

The Bertrand Group, owners of Angelina and the Hotel Saint James, took over the restaurant concession last May, bringing Michelin-starred chef Virginie Basselot from the Saint-James to supervise the menu. The pastry cart is fueled by Angelina.

Basselot, who acknowledges her own tween-age dreams about owning a Twingo in the 90s, designed an ephemeral autumn menu that speaks to her attitudes about the automobile. The first course, a deconstructed salade niçoise featuring a velvety tuna foam with dippable raw veggies, incarnates the adaptability of the Twingo.

For the cod aïoli with whelks, Basselot chose products that are ”simple, efficient and colorful, like the car” and topped off the meal with deliciously exotic coconut panna cotta ”because it’s all about travel, isn’t it?”

The sticker price on the ephemeral menu is 43€, although you’ll likely be tempted by fuel options like a ”Cointropolitan”, 12€, or one of the very good wines available by the glass. The restaurant just installed a nitrogen machine that keeps those Clos Vougeots from corking.

The food, good enough to merit a trip, combined with an upstairs restaurant offering panoramic views of the Champs-Elysées, make this venue one of the avenue’s more notable dining experiences. There’s also a smaller wine bar in back, set up as a table d’hôte, that can be privatized.

L’Atelier Renault Café. 53 avenue des Champs-Elysées, 8th arrondissement. Metro Franklin D. Roosevelt or George V. Open daily. Sunday through Thursday 10:30 am to 11pm; Friday and Saturday 10:30 am to 1 am.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

The post On the Champs-Elysées: Dining à la car(te) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Tell a Parisian that you’re heading south into deep France, la France profonde, and, after warning you that you’ll miss Paris after one day, he’ll eventually concede that one can eat well there, mention some magnificent chateau or landscape and finally confess that he has fond memories of once visiting with a friend or lover or cousin. But tell him that you’re headed to the deep France of the north and he’ll look at you with complete bewilderment. His only recollection of France’s northern border is likely to be a collective memory of German invasions.

So when I told friends in Paris that I was going to the French Ardennes, an area that accompanies the Meuse River as it pokes into Belgian forests just west of Luxembourg, I got nothing but a blank stare followed by a stunned “Pourquoi?”

Actually, one friend had been Charleville-Mézières, capital of the French Ardennes. “There’s a beautiful square there,” he said. Still, he thought I needed a better reason to go.

I did: beer. For three days I would set out to meet producers and purveyors of craft beer in the area.

But before taking a swig I had to deal with the ghost of Arthur Rimbaud.

Arthur Rimbaud: the Runaway, the Poet, the Explorer

As familiar as I am with the (sparkling) winegrowing area of Champagne-Ardennes, I’d never been to its northern reach, the French Ardennes and its capital Charleville-Mézières, even though it’s just a 2-hour train ride from Paris’s Gare de l’Est station, with a quick change at the Champagne-Ardenne station (near Reims), or an hour’s ride from Reims.

In addition to the aforementioned “beautiful square,” this small city/large town with a population of 50,000 (73,000 with its suburbs) is best known as the hometown of Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891), a beloved poet of French adolescents.

On a pedestal in the park in front of the train station, a bust of Rimbaud, forever young, indicates the titles of his most famous poems (Bateau Ivre, Voyelles) but refers to him as an explorer in Africa. Rimbaud’s sketchy portrait photograph is used to promote sights and businesses throughout town, exploited for a glory that he would have denied it. Rimbaud fled Charleville at the age of 17, running away from the family home for Paris, where he flirted violently with poets and drank excessively. For several years he returned periodically, mostly against his will, before definitely turning his back on the town at the age of 21.

Coming from a culture that doesn’t know the cult of Rimbaud—young poet in search of freedom—I didn’t intend to write about him along with beer, my primary quest on this trip. But speak with tourist officials and Rimbaud is immediately evoked: the Rimbaud Museum in a former mill over the river; La Maison des Ailleurs (The House of Other Horizons or Elsewheres), the home that he fled; a walk outlined in young Arthur’s footsteps, and his tomb in the family plot of the city cemetery, a half-mile from the Place Ducale—for though Rimbaud stayed away, his remains were returned.

The house where he lived as an adolescent, now La Maison des Ailleurs, stands across the street from the Meuse River. Arthur lived here with his mother and siblings; his father was largely absent during those years.

I didn’t come looking for Rimbaud by the river; I came to find the river itself; I like river towns. I stood across the street from Rimbaud’s house for a good 20 minutes watching water and people go by. It was yet too early in the afternoon to pursue my beer explorations. I had no intention of going inside the house because I’m generally insensitive to the interiors of the homes of artists and especially writers. The more telling view is always outside.

The stone, curtainless House of Other Horizons looked forgotten, forlorn. No one came or went. It appeared to have more ghosts than visitors. I imagined a local association of preservationists and professors fighting to have it classified as a historical monument. I imagined the smirk on the face of the government accountant looking at the budget line for the house from which a young man ran away. I imagined someone at the ticket desk engaged in a game of speed solitaire so as to avoid thoughts of fleeing herself. I felt sorry for the place and for the imagined ticket seller. So I crossed the street and went in.

I wanted the woman at the ticket desk to be happier to see me, a visitor—from afar, no less—, but that was wanting too much. I had an immediate glimpse into Authur’s flight since I was tempted to do the same.

Fully prepared to be let-down upon entering the empty little rooms upstairs, I instead felt inspired by the near-void. Here in the House of Elsewheres, where I was the only visitor, the rooms were empty only in the sense that they lacked furniture and fabric. In their place they presented through sparse images, indecipherable maps and faded walls an invitation to travel. Here, I felt that desire to be away—not necessarily from here but simply to be away, to travel, to discover—to be a part of something else—to be embraced by accomplished poets, to stretch his freedom, to partake in rowdiness, to create poetry, to find soul mates, to find lovers, to create a life, to work in other lands—to explore.

Rimbaud’s most famous poem, Le Bateau Ivre (The Drunken Boat), is a 100-line chef d’oeuvre written in 1871 when Rimbaud was 16 years old, shortly before his departure for Paris. It is the tale of a drunken, driving, rudderless and eventually sinking boat. Rereading it that day, like visiting the house adolescence, didn’t make me want to be 16 again, but it did make me aware of the troubled pleasure of being away from the familiar. I loosely translate four of its lines:

Now I, boat lost in the tendrils of coves,
Thrown by the storm into the birdless air,
I whose drunken carcass coast-guards and merchant ships
wouldn’t have fished from the water…

Or moi, bateau perdu sous les cheveux des anses,
Jeté par l’ouragan dans l’éther sans oiseau,
Moi dont les Monitors et les voiliers des Hanses
N’auraient pas repêché la carcasse ivre d’eau…

Sometimes when traveling we see something, do something, hear, smell or taste something, and we feel a sense of absence or regret—of a person, a place, an age, an activity. Yet sometimes we feel not absence but our own life forces, our own drive to discovery and realization. Here I missed nothing, no one, a most wonderful travel feeling—all is present, all is to come. I liked Rimbaud’s house because I sensed not his presence but his departure, his longing at once solitary and in search of brotherhood. The house was indeed an invitation to elsewheres, which is precisely where I went.

And there I found beer.

Beer bars by the river: Le Baratin and a barge named Mawhot

I returned to the river several times over the next 36 hours. There, along with the absence of Rimbaud I discovered the presence of two notable beer joints.

Two hundred yard to the left of the Rimbaud Museum (the old mill over the Meuse), beyond Rimbaud’s house, I could tell from the moment I walked in to Le Baratin, that I was likin’ whatever was being served on tap at this happy home of craft beer where I was greeted by an eclectic selection of music and firm but friendly owner-barmaids. The evening program can vary from live music to DJ to social events. That evening the DJ was into hoppy and heavy-beat rock ‘n’ roll. The B-52’s’ Rock Lobster played as I was invited to try Agent Provocateur, a nice blond ale brewed in Belgium with American hops by a Scot (Craig Allan) living in Picardy. The music made me want to move my feet. I took my beer for a walk. “Everyone had matching towels…,” went the song. Everyone also had grey-free hair and wrinkle-free smiles.

I liked Le Baratin, but I especially liked the elsewhereness and more age-appropriateness of a barge (péniche) named Mawhot (or simply Le Péniche), about 200 yards on the opposite side of the Rimbaud Museum. For beer-lovers and fans of unusual venues filled with a wide cast of characters and offbeat barman-owners, Philippe Boudard’s beer bar barge Le Mawhot may by itself be reason to visit Charleville-Mézières.

Philippe Boudart, captain of this bar-barge since 1997, looks like Hugh Jackman pouring beer at a 20th–anniversary celebration of the first X-Men, both dangerous and lovable. He and his barge are legendary in Charlie-M’s beer-drinking circles. I stood up to the tin bar in the hold of the old grain barge and introduced myself to Boudart as a traveler in search of a beer education.

“Four Belgians, two Germans and an Irish,” he told me as though he might launch into a long joke. But it was no joke; those were his beer selections for the evening, representing each of the major types of beer, he said. I allowed myself to be introduced me to a dark and aromatic St. Bernardus, from Watou, Belgium, weighing in at a stealthy 10%.

Boudart is a man with great knowledge and firm opinions, though it wasn’t always clear which was which, as is the case with the best mentors. He is a goldmine of information/opinion about the European history of beer and its geographical, technical aspects and religious aspects. Though originally from the Ardennes he doesn’t feel that it’s his duty to up-speak local beer.

Boudart puts down no one but fools. I made the mistake of mentioning the craft beer craze in Paris, and that was enough to set him off on a discourse of authenticity. “I’m a fundamentalist,” he said, berating Paris barmen for cutting the head off their beer. “All they know is fads. The clients [here] have their own opinion on beer. They don’t follow fashion… I serve real beer.” He then gave me a quick lesson on the Trappist beer tradition in the Ardennes, explaining the proximity of Cistercian (Trappist) monasteries producing beer within the enclosure of their abbey walls.

The barge is named Mawhot. Mawhot, Boudart explains, is a legendary giant lizard that lives in the Meuse. When you see him partially that’s good news; when you see him in full that’s bad news.

“Have you seen him lately,” I asked?

“He’s right behind you,” he said.

I turned to see a drawing of lizard eyes peering out from a swamp.

I also saw a man who immediately clinked my glass and told me that we must rejoice in being strangers/foreigners. He was Belgian, it turned out, and drunk. I was reminded of Rimbaud’s Drunken Boat and of Rimbaud himself, having run away from Charleville, an aspiring poet, getting wasted. But Mawhot the bar(ge) is steady under Boudart’s watch, and beer-time for me ended exceptionally cheery and well and somewhat poetic on the deck.

(A French video introduction to Boudart’s beer-barge can be seen here.)

Arthur’s Table and The Squinting Pig

The owners of the restaurant Le Cochon Qui Louche (The Squinting Pig), between Boudart’s barge and the Place Ducale, the town’s central square, have two apparent passions: a desire to share homey fresh cuisine and an interest in second-hand junk/treasures. Regarding the cuisine: tomato soup, goat cheese and chorizo in a fried filo pastry, cucumber and carrot salad; mussels and fries, stewed beef and carrots; crème brulée. Regarding the second-hand items: On the wall outside, the pig (cochon) sign from an old butcher shop; on the walls inside, multiple pigs, boars and brass instruments along with an old squash racket, a great corkscrew, a Mannequin Pis and much more. In this homey restaurant with the atmosphere of a subdued pub, gentle service and a gentle bill complete the picture.

Re-cue Mawhot Le Péniche the following evening before a fabulous meal at La Table d’Arthur (as in Rimbaud). On the ground floor, Arthur’s Table is a handsome wine bar with a nice brasserie menu, yet the greater find is in the vaulted basement, where a finer menu is served. There’s a breezy buzz here, smooth, efficient service (a kind explanation when needed, withdrawal when not), a well-selected and reasonably priced wine list with an emphasis on organic and biodynamic grapes… and quality cuisine—bistronomy at its best. A wonderfully balanced restaurant. If in Paris, every guidebook in the world would be singing its praise, you’d need to reserve a month in advance, you’d pay twice the price or more, and things would go downhill from there. In Charleville, well, you won’t find many guidebooks about Charleville-Mézières—lucky us.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

Continue to The French Ardennes, Part 2: Charleville-Mézières: Place Ducale and the Bare-Ass Casserole
Jump to The French Ardennes, Part 3: The Meuse, Sedan, More Beer and the Big Boar

Addresses and other information, in order of appearance in this article

Charleville-Mézières Tourist Office
4 Place Ducale
08102 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. 03 24 55 69 90
Open Mon.-Sat. 9:30am-12:00pm and 1:30-6:00pm, until 7pm in summer. Also open Sunday in summer.
www.charleville-mezieres.org/indexpc.php

Le Baratin
25 Quai Arthur Rimbaud
08000 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. 06 75 73 05 95
Open Mon.-Sat. 5:30pm-3am. Occasionally live music on Friday.

La Péniche a.k.a. Le Mawhot (Philippe Boudart)
Barge on the Meuse, Quai Jean Charcot
08000 Charleville-Mézières.
Tel 03 24 44 54 35
Open Wed.-Sun. 5pm-1am.

Au Cochon Qui Louche
31 Rue Victoire Cousin
08000 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. : 03 24 35 49 05

La Table d’Arthur
9 rue Pierre Bérégovoy
08000 Charleville-Mézières
Tel. : 03 24 57 05 64
Open for lunch and dinner Thurs.-Sat., also for lunch Mon. and Wed.

The post The French Ardennes, Part 1. Charleville-Mézières: The Runaway Poet, Great Beer Bars and the Giant Lizard appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

* * *

Don’t you get tired of running into Kim and Kanye in Monaco, Brad and Angie in Cannes, Elton and David in Saint Tropez?

Then set your GPS for La Ciotat, a breezy Mediterranean port 18 miles east of Marseille that mixes the raw beauty of the Côte d’Azur with the je-ne-sais-quoi of Cleveland. It’s a paparazzi no-fly zone where the beaches, the prices, and the food are better than you’d expect and a low-profile port that gives the town a whole lot of ‘come hither’ for tourists with an allergy to $500 bikinis.

It’s not that La Ciotat never got up-close and personal with celebrity tourism. Back in late 19th century, when the Lumière brothers, Henri Stendhal and Georges Braque vacationed here, the town was a notably fashion-forward destination.

In 1857, the establishment of the Messageries Impériales gave La Ciotat a parallel raison d’être as the hub for France’s naval shipyards, a function that gradually eclipsed its tourist vocation. When the yards closed in the 1987, the port sunk into a deep, dark depression.

Both facets of this comparatively recent past co-exist with an old town replete with photogenic 17th-century penitential chapels and 18th-century stone façades.

The Eden Theatre, fully restored in 2013, is the world’s oldest movie palace, screening the first Lumière moving pictures in 1895. (Here’s one of them, a 1-minute film of a train arriving at La Ciotat.) Its current eclectic, line-up (e.g. Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, Godard’s Adieu au language, Chaplin’s Modern Times and The Rocky Horror Picture Show) continues to draw film buffs.

And while the city is pluckily re-inventing itself as a hospital for the yachts of the 1%, it hasn’t forgotten its working class romance with oil and methane freighters of yesteryear. Giant cranes loom over the old city’s skyline. Instead of deploring these rust-friendly relics, La Ciotat jauntily sought (and received) landmark status for one of the largest hulks.

That’s the back view. The beauty shot, however, is full frontal, whether by day

or by night

Back to the beach

For some reason, guidebooks insist that only Marseille and Cassis have calanques, the hilly, Mediterranean inlets that can be best be described as Scandinavian fjords lined with pines and cacti.

Forget that: La Ciotat’s botanical Parc de Mugel, has some of the prettiest and best-protected calanques in Provence. Keep it a secret that only you and the locals will share. These isolated beaches are accessible by car, bus and boat. But remember, mum’s the word.

Closer to town, going east of the Old Town and the harbor, there are lots of scenic beaches in city limits as well. And no, these are not in any sort of industrial zone.

In fact, La Ciotat is quite ahead of the times with a 21st-century spin on segregated sand. There’s one beach, inaugurated in 2011, that’s an entirely cigarette-free zone. Another, opened in 2012, welcomes dogs.

Party like it’s 1720

When most cities look around for a party theme, they don’t come up with “The Plague.” However, La Ciotat is not like most cities, so the locals break out in pustules every October for a festival that, quite literally, flirts with the Black Death.

The whole thing was the brain-child of Mireille Benedetti, the guiding spirit of the Bastide Marin (see further below) just outside town. The swashbuckling, three-day event takes place around the Old Port, requires over 1,000 costumes, and draws up to 100,000 attendees.

This year’s fever fest is slated for October 17th-19th. (Get a preview of former fêtes here.)

Pack an umbrella because, according to Liliane Siréta, director of the La Ciotat Tourist Office, it always rains on this particular parade. ”Mud makes everything more authentically 18th century,” she adds cheerfully. (By the way, La Ciotat residents always know if it’s going to rain. When the clouds touch the ‘Trois Secs’ hilltops outside of town, they never wash the car.)

Back to Nature

When pirate raids and plagues got too pesky for La Ciotat’s population, the citizenry headed inland to an area known as Céreste. The Bastide Marin is the optimistic (and sadly underfunded) response to keep this part of the area’s history alive.

Centered round a delightfully dilapidated aristocratic manor house studded with mysterious underground chapels and cabalistic mosaics that have yet to be deciphered, the property now encompasses organic gardens, period arts ‘n crafts, beehives, livestock and a farmyard filled with the sort of geese and chickens that were popular in medieval times.

Where to stay, where to eat

In its own quiet way, without Michelin-star fanfare, people eat very well in La Ciotat without paying Côte d’Azur prices.

Check out the seafood specialties at the informal L’Oustaou (12 Bd Anatole France, Tel. 04 42 08 28 26) on the waterfront just outside the Old Town. An anchovy pizza is only 10€, the moules grantinées à la provençale with frites maison are 18€, and our Italian dining companions licked their plates of squid tagliatelle clean. (Added bonus for families: There’s a handy playground right across the street.)

Guestrooms start at only 119€ (in high season!) at the seaside 3-star Hôtel Plage Saint-Jean. There’s WiFi, a covered pool, and a sauna… and better yet … an in-house restaurant serving some of the best bass and elegantly epicurean fruit tarts on the coast. Make dinner reservations even if you’re staying elsewhere.

Also make note of Damien Arnaud’s Mediterranean cuisine at the Roche Belle, (Corniche du Liouquet, tel. 04 42 71 47 60).

Further information: La Ciotat Tourist Office, Boulevard Anatole France, 13600 La Ciotat. Tel. 04 42 08 61 32.

Getting There: Frequent TER trains from Marseille to La Ciotat take 25 minutes and cost roughly 7€.

© 2014, Corinne LaBalme

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