Andy Lynes

About 18 months before the event, I had pretty much decided that I wanted to mark the occasion of my 40th birthday with a weekend in Paris. Just my wife and I, with the kids safely off loaded onto a willing relation and the dog in kennels. The highlight of the trip was to be our first ever meal in one of the city's 3 Michelin starred restaurants. As a food writer, it was an embarrassing gap in my experience and a major birthday was a good excuse to fill it. More importantly, I couldn't think of anything I would rather do. Hot air balloon rides, track days or scuba diving hold as much attraction for me as a tax inspection. Its not that I have limited horizons…scratch that, I do have limited horizons. I'm obsessed with restaurants. There really was nothing to think about. Nothing, except the creeping dread that it would all be a horrible disappointment, and a crushingly expensive one at that. Would it not be better, I rationalised, to seek out the best bistros in the city or find the hottest young chef working in a dive in some far flung suburb. Wouldn't that be just as thrilling as the haute cuisine option, only a hell of a lot cheaper? We could have our weekend away, and still be able to feed and clothe our children when we got back which would be something of a bonus, especially for them. Throughout the protracted planning stages, my mind changed on an almost daily basis, as I combed the internet gathering evidence to support first one side of the argument that was raging in my mind, then the other. "Ducasse has gone up again", I'd shriek, "No one in his right mind would possibly pay €200 just for the menu!” Twenty four hours later would find me calm and reflective, "You know, when you take everything into account, the a la carte at Tallievent is really quite reasonable. For a three star I mean." My wife was no help. "It's your birthday, do whatever you want to do. Just don't let me see the bill." Perhaps she knew that I was secretly enjoying wrestling with myself, prolonging the pleasure of pouring over guidebooks and menus for as long as I could, and didn't want to spoil my fun. Perhaps after 12 months or so of endless debate, she had tired of the whole idea and just wanted to get it over with. As my birthday approached it became clear that the man of the moment in Paris was Yannick Alleno, executive chef of the five star Hotel Meurice on the Rue du Rivoli. It was simply impossible to read a bad report about the man's food or the restaurant. The fact that he had bagged a second Michelin star within 5 months of taking the job and was hotly tipped by Le Figero to get a third sometime very soon was another good sign. When a chef friend, a very hard man to impress and whose judgement is rarely off, recommended it without hesitation, I at last made that long delayed decision and booked a table. Hotel Meurice is almost ridiculously opulent. Although relatively small with just 160 rooms and compact public areas, there’s enough marble, hand carved moldings and columns to keep a battalion of Llewelyn-Bowens happy. The hotel was closed for two whole years while the Dorchester Group refurbished it to its full 18th Century glory. I can’t imagine that move particularly amused the accountants, but from the guest’s point of view, it was worth every penny of lost revenue. Unless you are a member of the fur-clad tribe of super rich that swarms the hotel’s corridors, I challenge you not to walk around slack-jawed at the sheer beauty of it all. The moment for our dinner arrived. I turned to my wife as we rode the lift down from our palatial room and, almost quivering with excitement said, “This is it then,” as if I expected the doors to open and for us to step out onto the moon. I’m not going to go into detail about what happened during the next four hours, it was too important to me to be picked over in public like some day old chicken carcass. Besides, others have described similar meals in greater detail that I could ever be bothered to do. What I can tell you is that if a dining experience can be faultless and transcendent, then this surely was. Not everything we ate was perfect because nothing can be. But it was close enough to make me believe that Yannick Alleno is destined to be one of the greats. Dining at Le Meurice is the culinary equivalent of riding in a sedan chair – the last word in indulgence. From the first bite of kugelhopf to the final glass of 25 euro Calvados, the 10 course meal was shot through with startling flavours, inventive twists, high craftsmanship and the flashing blade of genius. Alleno manipulates flavours and textures with the dexterity of a card-sharp; a master of close-up magic that will take your breath away. You want examples? Well, how about the three lettuce leaves served with the goose fois gras from the quercy region confit with truffles, gelee and red beet salad with walnut oil. Not impressed? You try finding salad that is so bursting with fresh, crisp flavour that it almost overpowers the liver. Or imagine the sort of lateral thinking that results in parmesan shaved at the table and served with whipped vacherin mont d’or from meaux flavoured with white truffle oil and mustard fruits. I could tell you about the stunning breads and the very fine pastry work; I could describe the extensive gueridon work, the millefeuille built at tableside. I could explain how exquisite that first sip of 1989 Pommery champagne tasted and how good the slight burn from the last drop of calvados felt as it slipped down the back of my throat. But I’m not some sort of exhibitionist. And I know you’re not any kind of voyeur, so I’m keeping all that stuff for myself. If you want to really know what Le Meurice is like, there’s only one way you’re going to find out, isn’t there?

I've got this mental image of a smartly suited waiter wheeling up a trolley to the table, lifting a cloche to reveal half an upturned grapefruit stuck with various things on toothpicks. "Would madame like to sample the cheese and pineapple today, or we have some badly overcooked cocktail sausages? Some cheesey footballs perhaps?"

I'd be amazed if her looks weren't entirely natural. The fact that she doesn't have a TV show is yet another indicator of her integrity, but if you really want to see her on screen there is a DVD available of the American Masters documentary about her.

I guess there's room enough for all sorts of approaches to the restaurant game, but I know which I prefer. I had an opportunity for a brief chat with Alice Waters after her demo, during the "chef's tables" event where she was dishing up the truffled arancini with salad and some lovely crepes (which is what she is doing in the third photo in my first post). I said to her that it must have taken a tremendous amount of self control not to expand her business interests beyond Chez Panisee, the cafe and the bakery and her reply was "None at all." But surely, I persisted, the opportunitites were there? "Oh yes, the opportunities were there, but I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. In fact I wish the restaurant were smaller, its a little too big." That she has put her energies into the Chez Panisse foundation, that her cafe is immenantly affordable (I ate from the $26 pre fix menu and had a great three course lunch) and that the restaurant reasonably priced for a legendary address speaks volumes about her integrity. I'm not trying to make out that she's some sort of saint, and I have no doubt that as a business woman she has profited suitably from her endeavours, but there is no denying, as someone at the Masters put it, that "she is a class act."

Cookery demonstrations are an enticing proposition for the keen cook; a chance to get up close and personal with a celebrity chef, get an insight to their working methods and maybe bag a few of those all important professional "tricks." The reality is often rather more mundane as ill prepared cooks mumble their way through a few recipes before scuttling back to the safety of their windowless subterranean kitchens, or self obsessed egomaniacs ram their unappetising personalities down the audience's throat. The demos I attended at last weekend's Masters of Food and Wine at the Park Hyatt Highlands Inn in Carmel were thankfully a cut above the average. Due to work commitments, I was only able to catch the last 20 minutes or so of Charlie Palmer who was on great form. He chatted to the audience about the challenges of living in a tiny apartment in New York with four sons and fielding the usual "if I haven't got ingredient "A" can I use ingredient "B"" questions with aplomb. He was even prepared to josh with the crowd about the blocks of text in his cookbook "The Art of Aureole" being printed at odd angles. Although slightly less well attended, Bradley Ogden's session was equally diverting, relating hair raising tales of his time with Joe Baum, tossing out culinary conundrums to the crowd and rewarding correct answers with dinner for two at one of his nine restaurants. However, it was left to Alice Waters to provide the Masters with a truly inspirational finale. Looking at least 10 years younger than her age, Waters is the perfect advertisement for what she calls "real food." If the oft quoted mantra of local, seasonal produce simply treated is a familiar one, then it's because Waters has espoused it for many years. "Alain Ducasse says 85% of cooking is about shopping for ingredients. We'll I've up'd him and say its 90% about shopping," she claims, while waving a kardoon that is nearly as big as she is. She rhapsodises about the colorful array of chicories now available, "yellow and lime with splashes of purple," and gets visibly excited talking about the Tangerines she is currently serving at Chez Panisse, her legendary Berkeley restaurant. When Waters tells us that she "looks for vegetables in the market that talk to me, that want me to use them," we begin to understand just how close her relationship with produce really is. She explains that she has recently decided to use locally caught Salmon at the restaurant, available only between April and September, even though she could sell the fish all year round and that this has allowed her to rediscover the delights of the fresh sardines, anchovies and squid from Monterey. In all, she talks for 90 minutes, telling us about the ensemble nature of the kitchen at the restaurant (joking that "no one person says what everyone else should do…unless I'm there!"); her Edible Schoolyard project that will make lunch part of the school curriculum; and that her next book will address the issue of affordable food. She tells us that we need to get back to something more primitive; the cooking pot on the fire, the pestle and mortar. We need to learn that work can be pleasure, that pounding garlic can relieve our stress. This was a cookery demonstration so a salad got made, as did a truffle risotto and some aranchini, but that really wasn't the point. Alice Waters told us about some things that are important to her, and from that we learned what good cooking and good living can be all about.

I got the impression that Ingo felt he was in attendance as an ambassador for the Okanagan as much as a representative of his own particular winery. No doubt it's in his own interests to promote the Valley and the wine making industry as a whole, but he read the audience well and did so with exceptional grace.

What did you think? It bought a wistful smile to sommelier Josh Clark's face who said that it was the sort of bottle he would open when watching the hockey. That and his reaction to the Blue Mountain Pinot made the whole endevour worthwhile for me.

On Tuesday 22 February, the Canadian Tourist Commission (CTC) in Trafalgar Square, London hosted a tasting of British Columbian wines from the Okanagan Valley. The event was organised following my visit to the Okanagan last summer when I toured a number of the vineyards, mainly in the Naramata Bench and Okanagan Falls areas, speaking to wine makers and tasting their wares. Sampling a variety of vintages in tasting rooms, restaurants and bars (I did a lot of drinking that trip) I was impressed the quality and character of the wines. I mentioned to a number of winemakers that I would love to take a few bottles back to the UK and have them tasted by people who, unlike me, actually knew a magnum from a Nebuchadnezzar, which is how I came to acquire three quarters of a case of some the finest bottles the area has to offer. Back in England, getting others to taste the wine proved more difficult than I had imagined. Call anyone for assistance in the consumption of nine bottles of seriously good wine and they'll be knocking on your door before you've had a chance to hang up the phone. Mention the fact that the wine is from Canada and long delayed dentist appointments suddenly become urgent, funerals need to be attended and hair washing just can't be delayed for another minute. I could of have course simply invited a few friends around for a boozy dinner, but that would have betrayed the trust of the winemakers who had donated some of their best bottles on the basis that I would seek out some educated palates in the UK to try them out on. Part of the problem was that I wasn't really sure what it was that I wanted to arrange. As a freelance writer I had no vested interest in promoting the wines and therefore no budget to fund an event. I wanted someone to host a tasting but couldn't really offer them anything in return. Attempts to arrange events in a few restaurants came to nothing and I had almost given up hope when the CTC offered the use of their premises and organisational resources. Soon we had Josh Clarke, the Vancouver born sommelier at Fifteen restaurant, on board to lead the tasting and Dan Correy of Lanson International offering to supplement my bottles with some from Mission Hill winery. Finally Ingo Grady, Director of Wine at Mission Hill happened in to be visiting London on the scheduled date and offered to attend the tasting. Nine months on from collecting the wines, I at last had an event to attend. Invitations were sent and accepted and a select group of food and wine writers were expected to attend. After finalising the date, an opportunity arose for me to go to San Francisco on assignment, but I arranged my itinerary so that I would arrive back at Heathrow the afternoon of the 22nd and travel straight to Trafalgar Square before continuing home to Brighton after the tasting. Everything was planned, except the weather. On the day, snow kept several of the attendees who lived outside the capital away; turnout was diminished but enough of us braved the elements to do justice to some pretty fabulous bottles. The Wines: Blue Mountain Brut Sparkling Wine Blue Mountain Pinot Noir 1996 (striped label) Blue Mountain Winery Cedar Creek Platinum Reserve Meritage 2001 Cedar Creek Platinum Reserve Chardonnay 2001 Cedar Creek La Frenz 2002 Shiraz La Frenz 2003 Alexandria La Frenz Winery Mission Hill Pinot Gris 2003 Mission Hill Estate Wines Syrah 2001 Oculus 2001 Chardonnay 2001 Icewine Riesling 2001 Mission Hill Winery Poplar Grove 2001 Benchmark Cabernet Franc Poplar Grove 2002 New Block Merlot Poplar Grove Quail's Gate Estate Pinot Noir Family Reserve 2002 Quali's Gate Jet lagged, tired and by the end of the tasting a little light headed, I'm sory to say that I'm not in a position to offer complete and accurate tasting notes. What I can say is that the wines tasted as impressive and delicious in the rather impersonal surroundings of a boardroom on a snowy day in London as they had on the patio of the Cedar Creek winery, gazing out over the sun-drenched vines. Particular highlights were the Blue Mountain Brut Sparkling Wine, generally agreed to be the best methode champagnoise from the area; both Pinot Noirs (although the rare stripped label from Blue Mountain and by far the oldest wine we tasted was deeply impressive); the Burgundian style Occulus and the beautifully balanced ice wine both from Mission Hill. The Okanagan makes for some fascinating drinking, not least because the 85 wineries strung along the Valley's massive lakes benefit from a series of micro climates ranging from cool in the North to near dessert in the South that allow for a huge range of varietals to be cultivated with success. With a combined total of 5000 acres, the wineries are mostly small with limited production and these essentially very personal enterprises often make for richly distinctive, quality wines. As sommelier Josh Clarke puts it, the Okanagan produces "wines for every price point" which translates as "there is some real plonk to be had if you really want it", but for the most part we are talking hand crafted wines. Production is generally so small that what's made in BC stays in BC so you will have to travel to British Columbia to sample the wines, although limited quantities of Mission Hill are distributed in the UK. Although I can't speak for the other attendees, my impression was that the wines met with a favourable reception and that the tasting was deemed a success; both interesting and educational. My thanks go to Josh Clarke for giving his time for free to lead the tasting, to Dan Correy for donating the Mission Hill wines, to Ingo Grady for attending on a weeks notice and to Nim Singh at the CTC for the room, food and human resources. Most importantly, my thanks to Ian Mavety at Blue Mountain ; Gordon Fitzpatrick at Cedar Creek; Jeff Martin at La Frenz; Ian Sutherland at Poplar Grove; Anthony von Mandl and Ingo Grady at Mission Hill and Ben Stewart at Quails Gate for the fabulous wines. Special mention to Michael Dinn at Joie Farm Cookery School for the bottle of Poplar Grove Cabernet Franc.

I would be very interested, yes thanks. I think I went to Marcel's once, very MPW if I remember correctly. If its the place I'm thinking of (slightly out of town in a mostly residential area with a very fussy modern interior) I had a gateau opera for dessert that was straight outof the pages of Canteen Cuisine.

I do this when roasting a chicken at home. I cook it with some wine, a lemon, garlic and herbs. I strain the liquid at the end of cooking which now includes the roasting juices and fat from the bird, and blitz the whole lot with a stick blender. I some times add a little chopped tarragon right at the end.

I've just reviewed this book for a magazine in the UK and I loved it. There is an annoying repetition of some material in its 500 pages, but overall its very well written and a must read for anyone interested in haute cuisine and the Michelin phenomenon

Is this for real? It sounds like something out of a Nathan Barley script.

I know that Heston Blumenthal employed a similar process, using lamb shoulder, to sauce a lamb dish cooked at a low temperature to provide those "maillard flavours" that would have been otherwise missing.

Why does the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore one legged Tarzan sketch spring to mind at this point?

That didn't last long. I heard it was in trouble when I was over in October last year.

Niall Mckenna is doing some really interesting stuff at James Street South, which is also a lovely room. My interview with him appears in the next edition of Restaurant magazine.

Shame about the cover.

This method is strikingly simlar to the one employed by Bernard Loiseau as described in The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski: "He sacrificed prime cuts of each sort of meat by cooking them separately in a big sauteuse and removing the grease before deglazing them with water. He then transferred the sacrificial meats to a second receptacle and continued cooking with water and aromatic herbs until they had rendered up everything they had to give in the form of a rich syrupy essence or jus." Moby - what happens to the butter at the end of the process according to Ducasse - do you skim the jus or is it emulsified into the finished sauce as for a jus gras?

This is all very helpful, thanks a lot. I'm going to attempt to do a bit of trend spotting in the short time I'm in town. Is there any one type of restaurant, or style of service or location that I shoudl pay particular attention to?

I'm rooting for you big time. Don't let that energy slip away. Looking forward to the first eGullet night at your gaff.

I rather not think about approching the soon-to-be Duchess of Cornwall if its all the same to you, it's quite putting me off my next "cleansing ale"( Jamie Maw 19??).

A slightly educated guess from a slightly educated person: if a British critic were to suggest that it was routinely necessary to visit a restaurant two or three times before writing a review, they would be laughed out of the editor's office. I get the impression, as a measily freelance, that budgets in publishing in the UK at the moment are as tight as...something that I would be kicked off this board for alluding to. However, I am quite prepared for someone who actually knows what they are talking about to contradict that statement. Jamie your assertion that "in order to develop a fully exposed picture of a new restaurant in England, it seems necessary to compile the sum of various reviews, other opinions as enlisted here, and then evaluate if that’s the place I really want to spend my daughters’ modest legacy" accords with my own experience.

I'm delighted to see that this idiotic thread has been given the short shrift it deserves. As an update, it now looks highly likely that I will be able to make a visit to Manresa which I am thrilled about. I am however still in search of a chef in the city itself and will do some proper research on the forum and refine my question which I hope will then be worthy of an answer. Thanks for your patience on this.

Nope, different people have different expectations and hence have different experiences. ← And there I was thinking that Tarka had gone to the notoriously bad "Anthony's Fish Dining Restaurant" round the back of the brewery by mistake. If I've learnt anything in the last three and a half years of being involved in eGullet, its never get into an eating contest with Jason Perlow. The other, perhaps more pertinent lesson, is that there is no such thing as an objective opinion about a restaurant. But that's just my opinion.

This is a terribly lazy post for which I'd like to apologise for right off the bat. That said, would members be able to give me an idea of who is considered to be SF's hottest chef right now? I know David Kinch at Manresa, although not actually in SF, qualifies, but don't think I am going to be able to fit a trip to Los Gatos into my itinerary when I visit. I must fess up and admit that my reason for asking is that I would like to try and bag an interview while I am in town. Normally I would do a little more research before asking such a thing, but this really is a last minute thing. Are places like Fifth Floor & Gary Danko still considered the best, or is there a new wave of chefs rising up. I have read the Chronicles top 5 for 2005, does that list reconcile with member's views? I promise to look around the forum when I get the time, but a few pointers would be much appreciated.