We often stay a day or two in Paris before heading home, blessed with a good friend, Frederique, who puts us up in her lovely apartment on the "skirts" of Paris proper. We take the commuter train into town, catch the metro to whatever destination we want and spend the day, walking and talking and spending as little money as we can. It's almost a game to see just how much fun we can have on as few euros as possible.
Except this past June. Shortly before we headed home, my husband, Glen, suggested that Hallie and I pick any restaurant we wanted and go out for a blow-out meal to celebrate my upcoming birthday--one of the ones that end in "0." That was all the excuse we needed. But, where to go?
My first thought was the Jules Verne, one of Alain Ducasse's restaurants located on the second floor of the Eiffel tower. While it's not a three star--only a one, in fact--the ambiance seemed to guarantee an auspicious beginning to a new life decade.
So, I went on-line and tried to reserve. Full, it said but I could be put on a waiting list. Just give us your cell number. Now, I don't have a cell phone in France. Hallie does but it's one of those pay as you go ones and it had no "pay' on it. You see, cell phones don't work well, in fact hardly work at all, in our little village so what's the point. The Ducasse site didn't seem to want our land-line number and so I was stumped. Picking up our regular phone, I gave them a call, worked my way through the options and finally reached a live person. A not terribly friendly for the cost of the restaurant live person, but a person. I gave it a go, in French. Sometimes contacting a site directly yields different results than on the web so I thought I'd just start from scratch and said I wanted to reserve. "No can do" was the essence of the reply. Reservations were only taken via the internet--no exceptions. By then, I wouldn't have eaten there if they'd paid me, hardly a likely possibility, so I hung up and started again.
Here's where the search got fun. We hauled out the Michelin guide book and decided to go for three stars. Since Glen hasn't made millionaire status yet, I opted for lunch to keep him (and me) from bankruptcy. We asked our French friend, Annette, if she had any suggestions and she enthusiastically provided about six names. From there, we went back to the net and looked at menus, prices and anything else interesting the restaurants might have posted. Pierre Gagnaire looked mighty tasty and we liked watching the clip of 24 hours in the restaurant on our computer screen. Once again, I filled out the e-mail registration. Warned by Annette that these restaurants fill up way in advance, we wondered if we'd strike out once more. But no, an extremely polite e-mail note showed up in my inbox, advising that we would be welcome on the day requested but could they call us that day and let us know exactly when?
Odd, we thought. But, as with so many things in life, said "Whatever." We gave them Hallie's cell number, deciding we could juice the thing up with a few euros for the occasion. By then we'd be in Paris and it would actually get some reception.
Once in Paris, Monday--aka lunch day--arrived and we turned on the phone. Nothing. We waited, strolling Fred's neighborhood--nothing. Finally, we called them. Oh yes, they said, they'd been trying to call us and couldn't reach us. We'd given them the wrong number it turns out. Hallie uses the phone so little she'd made a mistake remembering it. They asked what time would we like to come. I said 12:30 and off we went on the commuter line from Fred's towards the Champs Elysee. Why they didn't just ask us initially when we wanted to come is still a mystery but, again, whatever.
Fresh from our train and metro ride, we strolled in like we owned the world, dressed in the finest duds we could scrounge from our Mollans' closets. Black duds, of course, the mark of the true sophisticate, n'est-ce pas? Mollans is not exactly the hot spot of the fashion world nor is Project Runway going to come there any time soon so we don't tend to keep anything too dressy. Fred looked at us on the way out her door and promptly handed Hallie a pair of her shoes, a mere half size off. Hallie, to her credit, kept her world-owning stroll intact despite her borrowed shoes and we were soon seated at our table.
My it was lovely! Annette's husband, Jean-Claude, has coined the expression "tres chic but not tra-la-la" to describe various events. This event will be the gold standard for all to follow in that category. Everything at the restaurant was tastefully arranged, the staff attentive without hovering and, oh, the food.
We picked the menu du dejeuner for June. Each month, the restaurant plays with seasonal food and presents the best available in a stunning way. M. Gagnaire, along with Herve This, is one of the major players in molecular gastronomy or using science to come up with unique and complimentary food pairings in unusual ways.
Our pre-first course service or "amuse bouches" was incredibly playful. Our waiter brought five small tastings, each served in an individual, cleverly shaped dish, and arranged them in front of us in a specific order. He explained, in a measured voice, just what each appetizer, for want of a better description, contained. We nibbled on each one, oohing and aahing as we went over things like an ever so thin chlorophyll wafer on baby sprouts, puree of chorizo with an anchovy tandoori, beef tartare topped with salmon eggs, gelee of clams in a tilted cup, parsley mousseline with eggplant and snails, teriyaki shitake with a pain d'epice wafer and a sorbet of Lucques olives with a squid pasta.
Our slightly stiff waiter returned to clear the pre-lunch debris and accidently dropped one of the plates. This is just not done in a three star restaurant and he was mortified. We didn't mind as it just made the whole experience more human but the interesting thing was that he was never seen again, not at our table or anyone else's while we were there.
His replacement arrived with our "first" course, a small cup of velvety porcini mushroom soup swirled with an arugula puree and topped with a tiny plate of the smallest chanterelle mushrooms I've ever seen, perfectly sauteed. On the side, more arugula accompanied by tender, miniscule turnips.
While spooning up every morsel, we took the opportunity to look around. The restaurant was now full and the assembled guests could have come straight from an Agatha Christie mystery--a truly eclectic assortment of diners. Behind us was an American couple, he'd arrived early and started right in. She floated in later sporting bright floral, form-fitting pants and accompanied by a standard poodle. The poodle found his way under the table and she announced in a drawl that dripped oil money that she had many food issues but would have a bite or two and a glass or two of wine.
Then there were the two Japanese girl-women giggling through their meal across the room, looking like they were spending Daddy's money plus the older French gentleman with his much younger female friend and a classically-turned out French couple. Rounding out the crowd was an American family with children dressed to the nines, an Asian couple with the wife in a badly fitting knit pant suit and a man with a buzz cut who ordered a substantial steak and looked like a military big shot in civvies.
Getting slightly full, we nevertheless had no problem demolishing the main course when it arrived: monkfish wrapped and crisped in Spanish ham and accompanied by cabbage, fennel marmalade spiked with star anise and the best grain dish of spelt (aka epeautre in French and farro in Italian) ever.
Okay. We were totally satisfied and yet able to deal with the final course, until the waiter set the plate in front of us and said "this is your first dessert." Oh dear. From then on it was a blur, as plates arrived with such temptations as cassis sorbet in an almond paste ravioli, a poached pear with wasabi ice cream and a frozen bonbon with toasted hazelnuts topped with a smoky chocolate sauce. Oh, and then there were the little mignardises--the tiny treats fancy restaurants like to throw into the mix including meringue wafers with buttercream, dark chocolate with an apple jelly and strawberry marshmallow strings. With our coffee and tea, in case we weren't done in quite yet, they passed two kinds of chocolate.
By now, it was 3:15 and time to pay the piper. We'd washed all the goodness down with a bottle of white Loire valley wine, forgoing the carafe of champagne and so kept the bill to a mere $416.00 once converted from euros. Worth every penny.
On the way out, our replacement waiter said good-bye and stopped to chat briefly. We mentioned we were cooks and he asked if we'd like to see the kitchen. Of course. And so, as a final birthday treat, off I went with Hallie to their small, very zen-calm and spotless kitchen. Unlike the Gordon Ramsey atmosphere we all see on TV, the quiet was remarkable, as was the sense that everyone, indeed, had the food down to a science.
Which reinforces a theory of mine that food, if it's not produced with a positive emotion, never tastes quite right. No wonder everything at Pierre Gagnaire was so remarkable.
Next: Back to France.
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