Jonathan Day
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La Merenda has a menu but it changes daily -- it's written up on a chalkboard which they bring round to each table.
Fenocchio is another interesting glacier (sorbet and ice cream shop) in Nice -- it's at the end of the flower market. In Cannes, there are wonderful ices at Vilfeu, on the rue des Etats Unis.
We really should compile a guide to the South, just as the Italy forum does for Florence, Rome, etc. These questions crop up again and again!
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OK, while we're at it here are a few more.
In Mougins, try Côté Mougins, a new place located outside the old village, and Le Bistrot de Mougins, and old standby in the village. Most of the restaurants in the old village are decent, with the exception of Feu Follet, which has slipped badly. We had a very pleasant lunch at the newly opened Moulin de Mougins under Llorca. At lunchtime for EUR 58 you get 3 courses, wine, mineral water and coffee. The cooking was bright and precise.
In Le Rouret, Clos St Pierre can be good at lunchtime.
In Cannes, try the newly opened Mantel, 22, rue Saint Antoine. Noël Mantel, the chef, was a student of Alain Ducasse. We had a well prepared and fairly priced lunch there.
In Biot (you do pronounce the "t"): Restaurant Des Arcades. The menu is OK but the off-menu daily specials can be outstanding -- ask the waiter what's good that day.
Happy hunting!
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I'm curious about your choice of Florence for a home base in Italy. I love Florence, but don't think of it as a great gastronomic town. There are some fine restaurants, but the tourist influx is so strong that there seem to be far more mediocre ones. Perhaps I have this wrong -- do you view Florence as a place for good restaurant dining?
When in Florence, do you tend to eat at home or visit restaurants? And, when in your home town, where do you like to dine out?
Many thanks for joining us in this Q&A and sharing your expertise!
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Jay, La Merenda is indeed a fine local restaurant, but there are many, many delicious places to eat in Nice and environs. A few steps from La Merenda is La Petite Maison, which takes reservations in the ordinary way and has very good Nicois food. A few steps further takes you to Terres des Truffes (Truffleland!) where even the apple tart after your meal is flavoured with truffles. And the towns around Nice have many good restaurants -- Monaco, La Turbie, Cannes, Grasse, Mougins...the list goes on and on.
Aim the search engine at the France forum and look for some of these town names, plus Cote d'Azur, South of France, Provence. You'll find many relevant threads with useful information.
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Denton's, on the Clapham Road, has a wide range and good prices. A catering supplier but open to all.
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For an example of corporate entertainment à la Française click here.
The text says that a joint performance of (Britain's) Royal Academy Ballet and France's Ballet of the Paris Opera was given to celebrate a century of entente cordiale betwen the countries. Prince Charles and Bernadette Chirac were in attendance. BNP Paribas, the giant bank, provided corporate sponsorship.
Then, to ensure that everyone left with warm feelings about Britanno-French entente, the bank presented a dinner for top British and French corporate executives, in L'Orangerie, their headquarters building, shown in the picture. Pierre Gagnaire, the 3-star Michelin chef, supervised the catering: an improvement from the rubber chicken, overdone fish or leg of lamb with a cloying sauce so often served at corporate events. Some aspects of life are fundamentally better in France.
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Don't forget pork, from the pork barrel. Perhaps in the clam chowder.
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A bipartisan dish: waffles.
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The French captains of industry (heads of public companies) and their advisers (investment bankers, lawyers, consultants, etc.) spend a lot less time lunching in restaurants nowadays.
First, most big companies have internal dining facilities, some of them very grand. Even professional offices will have dining rooms where nearby restaurants can send in dishes. Dining in these settings is more private, and the conversation flows more easily.
Second, a bit of "American" austerity (it is usually attributed to the US, though of course the same thing has happened in Britain) has crept into the upper echelons of French business life. A glass of wine at lunch, perhaps, but not much more than that. Lunch from 1230 to 1600 is not the norm. Deals are still made at three star restaurants (those menu prices seem less onerous when the shareholders are paying) but not as often as 20 years ago. Most business offices don't close at mid-day; after all, new York is just waking up at that point. Lunch is usually more than a sandwich or a trip to McDo's, but globalisation has made itself felt.
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La Bastide St Antoine, Chibois' place in Grasse, has two dining rooms, one for smokers and one for non-smokers. Both are large and well appointed with plenty of natural light. Le Mas Candille, in Mougins, runs an entirely non-smoking restaurant. It's happening, but slowly.
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Mimi, thanks for joining us for this Q&A. It's great to see you here. I have an ancient dog-eared copy of Visions of Sugarplums -- a book that's still in print!
What's the best disguise you have used as a restaurant reviewer? Working in New York, and with the biggest critic's job in town, wouldn't you have had to resort to ever more outlandish disguises to avoid being recognised?
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You certainly didn't need to avoid moving the pan on it. No worries about scratching the surface. So if was glass, it was a different material than that GE stove had.
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Thanks, Daniel Rogov, for a wonderful post. What an experience it must have been to dine with Curnonsky and Courtine!
I will confess to an increasing bias away from fancy, multi-course meals, both at restaurants and at home. I'm not alone in this. Richard Olney, the American food writer, wine authority and gourmand who spent most of his life in France, was reportedly a formidable cook and could produce amazing dishes in a simple kitchen. I find it striking that as he grew older, the meals he loved to eat and prepare grew simpler: a fish soup followed by roast lamb followed by a green salad and cheese ... all served with the finest wines. If the fish is perfectly fresh and the lamb cooked just so and the salad from the garden, who needs another 8 courses?
But every now and then it's fun to prepare a multi-course meal. Long ago on these boards I posted the rules I try to follow in planning an extravaganza. Every one of these rules comes from disasters I have created on my own, so they were hard won.
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1. Cook to please your guests and yourself, not to impress them with your culinary skills or your wealth. Make a dinner that will give them genuine pleasure. This is one reason it's important to think through the sequence of dishes (principle 2). Save the pièces montées for a cookery competition. Don't feel compelled to include "gourmet" ingredients. No rule states that you must serve caviar, foie gras and truffles at every meal. You certainly don't need to serve them twice.
2. Balance the menu and sequence it with care. A good menu will provide variety on a multiplicity of dimensions: hot/cold, different flavour dimensions (sweet, sour, hot, aromatic, bland, etc.), colours, textures, cooking methods (steaming, braising, frying, roasting...), saltiness, acid, absence or presence of alcohol. A rich dish needs a lighter, more refreshing one to follow. It is also helpful to think about a theme for the menu: perhaps it is focused on one special dish, or is a series of themes and variations. Heaping together dishes that you like to make or that you think will impress will almost never result in a menu that your guests will enjoy. After writing down the menu, run through it mentally, "tasting" each dish in your mind.
3. There is no rule against serving one thing on its own. Not everything needs to sauced, gratinéed, accompanied or garnished. I have often served a dish of very fresh green beans, all by themselves. This is even more important in a multi-course dinner.
4. Be thoughtful about timing. Different menus call for different metronome settings. I read of one where a new dish was to be served every 45 minutes; the meal started at 2 pm and dessert was served at 10 pm. Perhaps this worked for the cook, who could then plan timing for precise arrivals, but to me this seems a rather rigid schedule and must have exhausted the diners. Sometimes it makes sense to allow for a short pause in the proceedings, or to serve two dishes in quick succession. It is important to make a preparation and service list (see principle 8 below) so that you know roughly when things are supposed to arrive.
5. Keep quantities small. If you are serving nine courses, and if you start with a soup, serve an espresso cupful -- no more and perhaps less. Once again, what works for Thomas Keller or Heston Blumenthal doesn't for the home cook: that dish you laboured over for many hours gets snapped up in a second. Keep desserts light and their quantities small. After many rich dishes, few people will enjoy a heavy, complex chocolate fantasy. Some carefully selected fruit and a few chocolates are often enough.
6. Work in a clean, organised manner. As I get older I increasingly rely on a preparation and service list, setting out the steps I will follow and the dishes I will serve. These lists have saved me, more than once, from leaving entire dishes in the refrigerator or in one of the ovens of the Aga cooker, only to discover them after the guests have left. Plan both the entire preparation in advance and the entire service. If you are serving ten courses to 8 people, you will need a lot of service plates and quite a bit of cutlery. Plan this in advance.
7. Get some help with service. We often hire one of the local au pairs to help serve, take up plates and wash dishes as we go. A bit of help doesn't cost much, and it makes everything go more easily. Best of all, you don't emerge from the dining room to find a kitchen heaped with dirty pots, dishes and glasses. Professional dishwashers are available that cycle in 90 seconds. Even with professional equipment, though, some help with service takes a lot of pressure off the cook. Don't rely on your partner: he or she will need to be chatting with guests while you work.
8. Don't drink while cooking. This one is very personal. I find that one glass of wine degrades my knife skills, my personal organisation and my ability to correct sauces and seasonings. Others can handle their liquor better, but for me it's water until everything is under control. This sometimes means missing the apéritif, but so be it.
9. Children and multi-course dinners don't go together. Most children don't enjoy sitting through a long dinner, and it is difficult to keep a complex dinner going with the little ones underfoot. We typically serve a "children's dinner" early in the proceedings (something easy like baked chicken legs or pasta) and send the kids off to wreak havoc in another part of the house. It is a bit tricky to plan two dinners, but it pays off. They feel special and appreciated, and they get out of the kitchen early.
10. When in doubt, leave it out. When tempted to add one more course, that final garnish...don't. Your guests will thank you, and perhaps your partner as well.
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I've just returned from a parental visit, where I cooked on their glass-top. It's the top of a GE drop-in range, so it wouldn't be cheap to replace; in any event, they cook relatively little.
It's a tin fiddle, as far as I can see. The hobs heated relatively quickly but they didn't maintain a constant temperature. You can't shake a pan (for a sauté) because it will scratch the glass. The top of the stove gets quickly covered with fat, and you can't clean it until it cools down. The oven controls are digital, on the front of the unit; wipe the control panel with a cloth and the oven turns off, changes temperature, etc.
The induction hobs I've used are metal and very robust; more like a professional flat-top than one of those glass things.
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Guess what, GG. What may be the best sourdough loaf in the Nice-Monaco area is in one of those drive-in places in Cap d'Ail. It's part of a chain called Ribeireau (sp?). Each outlet differs in quality, but this particular one is where we always stop if we are within ten miles. Jellybean can vouch for me, and he's an extremely serious amateur chef who buys bread there frequently.
The chain is called Le Pétrin Ribeïrou. It specialises in pain au levain (sourdough bread); the bread has good character and it keeps well. The bread is baked frequently throughout the day. There's a pleasant variety of styles. It's a franchise operation with its own web page.
The branch we use, in Le Cannet, is not a drive-in but (like every other bakery in France I can think of) is usually busy. You don't swap stories with the vendeuse: you tell her what you want, you pay your money, and you give way to the next person in the queue. Start pointing, smelling, discussing, and you'll be asked, politely but firmly, to let others get the bread they are waiting for.
And what is this about touching? Bakeries in France almost never allow this. They choose the loaf for you. You don't handle the unsold stock.
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By the way, I don't think there's a single verb that corresponds to "spatchcock". One recipe for pigeonneaux en crapaudine tells you to "ouvrir en crapaudine", i.e. open them in the form of a toad. Here's another example, from Cuisine A-Z:
Demandez à votre volailler de préparer le poulet en crapaudine : il va lui fendre tout le long du dos et l'aplatir (en écrasant légèrement la poitrine, ce qui lui donnera la forme d'un crapaud).I.e. "ask your poultry seller to prepare the chicken en crapaudine. He's going to cut it along the backbone (fendre tout le long du dos) and flatten it (aplatir), pressing down on the breast, giving it the form of a toad."
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could it really be? Poulet à la crapaudine
Tout à fait. That's what it is.
"En crapaudine" because the chicken is flattened to look like a toad -- un crapaud -- some say like a toad that's been run over on the highway.
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What is included in the social charges? Do they include pension, and if so does the worker pay additionally? Do they include worker's compensation and/or some kind of disability insurance in case the worker is injured? Do they include unemployment compensation if the worker is layed off?
All of the above and more e.g. medical insurance (the patient pays a bit for services and prescription drugs, but not much), and life insurance. Most middle-class people top up their pensions with a private plan, and private medical insurance is available, again as a top-up for the state system.
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The minimum social charges for a French worker -- and these are paid by the employer -- amount to roughly 45% of salary. So for a worker to take home €10 per hour, the employer pays €14.50. This leads many employers to pay some workers in cash, "under the table".
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Andrea, welcome to eGullet.
Any thoughts on the varieties of Piedmonte wines that go well with white truffles? Or that conflict with truffles?
Thanks for sharing your expertise with us!
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Here's a link to an English language discussion on this -- scroll down in the page to find the story on restaurant taxes. As with so many Internet sources, this one has no date -- very irritating.
In digging around for up-to-date news on this I was astonished to discover that "restauration rapide" (fast food) incurs VAT at the lower, 5.5% rate in France! So much for French concerns about McDonald's.
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Robert, I'm signed up -- a great idea. Why don't we use this thread, or a special thread you start, to record our discussions with restaurateurs and others?
For those used to a sales tax scheme, as in the US, European value added taxes (VAT in English, TVA in French) works "backwards"; it is already included in the price of the good or service.
In a US state charging a 7% sales tax, a restaurant tab for $100 gets marked up to $107. In France, with its 19.6% tax, of the €100 bill you pay, €83.61 goes to the restaurant, €16.39 to the government. In the UK, with a 17.5% VAT rate, the restaurant keeps £85.10 of a £100 bill.
Under the 5.5% tax rate, the restaurant in France would keep €94.79 of a €100 bill -- a huge difference, as Robert points out. The restaurant could lower its menu price so that the meal you formerly paid €100 for now went for €88.21; it would pay its 5.5% tax (=€4.60) to the government and the restaurant would still pocket €83.61.
What I'm wondering is the extent to which restaurateurs will feel comfortable competing on the basis of price. This hasn't been the way things are done in France; it's only recently become common with branded consumer goods, where there's no doubt that the Sony Walkman you buy cheaply in Carrefour is the same one you buy in a smaller shop, and that the difference in price has nothing to do with the quality of the product.
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Start alapage.fr, enter "francois simon" in the search box, and when the result comes up scroll down to "livres rares et anciens", at the very bottom of the page. Click on that link (see below) and then scroll down about a page. There it is:
Comment se faire passer pour un critique gastronomique sans rien y connaître - 50 leçons pour être... - SIMON François - Albin Michel. Paris 2001
Cet ouvrage vous est proposé par la librairie le meridien
Prix : 7,00 € / 45,92 FRF
this is the link, but I'm not sure how long it will work.
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alapage.fr offers this, used, for 7 euros.
Restaurants In Nice - Anything Nice?
in France: Dining
Posted
M1, I would support Robert in his advice to travel to Italy. Not because the food in Nice and on the Côte d'Azur isn't good -- it is -- but because the trip to Italy is fun and interesting.
First, you experience a dramatic change in landscape and architecture when you go into the tunnel in Menton and emerge in Italy.
Second, when travelling to Italy, even just over the border, you realise that why the best food in Nice is as good as it is. It's simple, taken from good fresh ingredients, not overly prepared or processed, a cuisine focused the products themselves. In other words, it's more Italian. A quick trip to Italy brings this to life and provides new insights on the dishes when you get back to France.
Finally, the market in Ventimiglia is very good. The drive from Nice can be unpleasant because of traffic jams, especially on Friday when the market is in full swing. In that case, the best approach is to take the train. It's slow but relaxing, and it brings you right into the centre of Ventimiglia.