robert brown

Even more a character in his own house. We were more blown away by the house than the museum in Figueras. I think you can book on the website, although with the tourist season over, you may not have to. (Better safe than sorry, however). Regardless, Cadaques is very charming and picturesque. Marcus has some dining recommendations.

I hope you're intending to go to Arzak. It's nearer, more fun, and, based on only one meal at each, better.

John, they're not like chicken. Espardanyas are somewhat like razor clams and kind of chewy, I would say. I would think they always come with a sauce. The restaurant offered langouste in some kind of jelly, I seem to recall. I would have been better off with that. Pedro was at Sant Pau a couple of weeks before I was and wasn't enthusiastic. So you will have to see for yourself. I don't like to say to people what to order, but if the halibut is still there, I believe it's a sure-fire winner. I wish you all the best in gaining a table at el Bulli. Call every day and let them know where they can reach you. This is the best time of the season to snag a table. I gave this advice to a friend exactly a year ago and she got lucky. If you get a table, you have to spend the night in Roses since the restaurant is in a beautiful, but far from anywhere else, especially at 12:30-1:00 am. Have a great trip. By the way, if you plan to see Dali's house in Cadaques, it's best to book ahead. It's a memorable place to visit. And thanks for enjoying my post.

Restaurants in the Spanish Pyrenees are the way you like visits to the in-laws to be: few and far between. I knew this before plotting my two-week sojourn to Catalunya, especially in light of the fact that no one on the site could relate any first-hand experience. Those restaurants that the Michelin and Gourmetour rated highly were far apart from each other and quite far away from La Seu d’Urgell where we were staying. We made the most of our six nights, however by taking several meals at our hotel, El Castell de Ciutat, a Michelin one star. Here is a serious, unpretentious kitchen with a chef who has worked there for 27 years. In deference to the gastronomic landscape, the menu emphasizes baby lamb, veal, pork, and, best of all we thought, roasted baby goat. Yet with the coast only a relatively short distance away, there was some seafood to be had, especially a warm lobster salad that we found delicious. There is a serious wine list as well with interesting bottles at reasonable prices along with some well-aged classics. We had six meals there without exhausting the menu. The breakfasts were included in the room price and consisted of a generous buffet along with egg dishes made to order. Just another example of the thoughtfulness we encountered (see my dedicated post about El Castell), we saw for the first time ever on a breakfast buffet table a container that kept milk cold. The one excursion we made for grand dining was an hour south in the small town of Peramola. The drive there is gorgeous. Hills, small mountains and rivers in unspoiled terrain marked nearly the whole route. Our destination, Hotel-Restaurant Can Boix served a clientele a category a notch below El Castell, and although the construction is recent, the establishment houses one of the oldest restaurants known to mankind, being held in the same family since 1763. The owner-chef greeted us on arrival, probably alerted by Jaume Tapies of our hotel. Our lunch unfolded in a spacious, airy dining room with good views of the countryside. My wife had a very good Parmentier of cod while I had a cold appetizer of a piece of cod made as a chaud-froid covering a timbal of the same fish. It was less stellar than the main courses of delicious lamb kidneys and the veal tongue in a wine sauce. What made the excursion worthwhile on its own was the bunyols xocolata which my wife proclaimed the best runny chcolate or chocolat moelleux dish of her life, which is saying a lot given the ones she has had. All in all this was a splendid address, just short of being among the best Spain has to offer, and worth a return visit. One local restaurant was all we could manage, but if it is any indication, dining on a less-exhalted level in the region is most sartisfying. Fonda Biayna in Bellver de Cerdanya 30 miles east from La Seu d’Urgell came recommended by a woman in a local specialty food shop. Nothing fancy here in terms of the room or the cuisine, but the menu was copious and the gazpacho and stew of wild pig (not exactly a summer dish) were very satisfying.(Fonda Biayna is a few kilometers from the highly-rated Boix. However, Jaume told us that the restaurant was recently sold and advised us against dining there.) After six nights and a coveted reservation at a former Relais & Chateaux, Hotel Santa Marta, 45 miles north of Barcelona in Lloret de Mar, we arrived at the hotel in time for the buffet at their beach restaurant. At 48 euros, the buffet was a decent deal. I counted over 100 preparations. While we endured the usual shortcomings of a buffet, this one put to shame the one at the Grand Hotel du Cap-Ferrat, which for seven euros more offered less-than fresh food in a meager selection. Being a Monday, our choice of where to have dinner was severely curtailed. We had to make due with El Trull, between Lloret and Tossa de Mar. Hoping for a seafood restaurant along the lines of Hispania, further down the coast, we were disappointed. El Trull is a combination hotel and feeding palace that I though of as the Costa Brava’s version of Lundy Brothers in Brooklyn’s Sheepshead Bay. El Trull was more upscale and, of course offered more. Yet it was still perfunctory and rushed service. My main course was generous, an entire chapon or hen fish that wasn’t quite impeccably fresh. My wifes gazpacho was ordinary. We were glad to get out of there. Restaurant Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar, half-way between Lloret and Barcelona, in spite of its Michelin two-star rating and being a Relais Gourmand member somehow gets overlooked in the gastronome’s zeal to dine at near-by Can Fabes or even Hispania. It’s a mistake hard to fathom, if our lunch the next day is any indication. Sant Pau is a small restaurant. We ate in an intimate room with four tables that looked down on a playfully-decorated garden that ended a few feet from where the commuter trains for Barcelona stopped. Our meal would have been near-perfect if I hadn’t forgotten that I am not a big fan of espardenya, an invertibrate that we call sea cucumber. My wife went over the rainbow with her locally-caught hake, calling it one of the most memorable fish dishes of her life. It came with tomato, dry sherry and a light garlic cream. My mosaic of pork was an intriguing, composed combination of both the meat and gelatin made in a spicy sauce of green tomato and apple with verjus. One dessert came in two servings; the first called “junior taste” because it had components children like (raspberries, Coke, strawberries and vanilla) and “senior taste” with tiger nuts, coffee, brandy and coffee dregs. The second dessert was chocolate in two servings that included sorbet, sweet corn ice cream, pink pepper ice cream (fabulous) and a hot dark chocolate ganace. As we were finishing, the chef Carme Ruscalleda made the rounds. I asked her straight-away if she was self-taught. She told me she was and that she grew up in a large peasant family for which she did the cooking. She decided to become a chef, and that cooking and her restaurant was what she lived for. We wanted to hug her and take her with us. With an unexpected opportunity to have dinner the following night at el Bulli, we left Lloret de Mar (a surprisingly overdeveloped and commercial town, much to our surprise) for Roses. We returned to the Hotel Vistabella, somewhat overpriced and lacking crashing surf in spite of its position right on the water. Yet it is a friendly place and the room are adequate. Without going into the long detail of 31 courses, I’ll simply say that of the four meals we have now had from Ferran Adria, this latest one was at or near the top, on a par with the one Jonathan Day and I wrote about in the Daily Gullet. The service was remarkable. Four servers brought out everything in under three hours. Adria was at the top of his game, with many dishes showing a finesse, execution and conception at a level I had not previously experienced. With a dinner at el Bulli we hadn’t counted on and only three days left before taking two days to return to Nice, we made sure to have two meals with our man Rafa, the a la placha seafood artist without equal. When we arrived, however, Rafa wasn’t happy. He had the height of the tourist season on his hands and a time of the year that wasn’t optimal for his catch. He was glad to see us, but he made it clear we would better off seeing him later in the year. It wasn’t our favorite two visits since he was too busy to talk at length or answer our questions. Still, his cigales de mar are without equal, and it was worth the visits just to have them. Our last formal meal in Spain was lunch of our last full day at Hotel Emporda in Figueres. Details escape me for the moment. We enjoyed our meal, though, and would go back. It exemplifies the ambitious nature of Spanish restaurants that are off the tourist beat; places where you can eat very well and that challenge your gastronomic aspects.(It’s the way France used to be almost no matter where you were.) That to me is more significant than what a few Spanish chefs are doing.

Carlsbad, if what you want to write is of any relevance to the discussion, be my guest.

It's very hard to lay off workers after they have been working for several months, as I understand it. A two-star chef in the Alpes-Maritimes has been advertising for a dishwasher. Some restaurants/hotels will fire people when they return from vacation with the person in question unaware of what will happen when he or she returns. How's that?!!!

It's the social charges that business owners complain about the most. Letting the worker keep more of his take home pay amounts to a subsidy, at least in the short-to-medium term. There is also an acute labor shortage in the restaurant industry. What would best correct that?

Tighe, what might the implications be of these two inefficiencies?

Lucy, what about an old Lyonnais stand-by you never see anymore--gras double? I haven't had it in years and miss it a lot.

Andrea, thanks for sharing your life's work with us. I adore Piemonte and usually get there a couple times a year. Do you welcome visitors? If so, on what basis? Lots has been said about the perceived differences between Barolo and Barbaresco. I am wondering if there are any generalities you could point to, or is it a question of overlapping between producers such that even those with a trained palate could not tell the difference a large percentage of the time? This is a weird question, but is it possible to make Barolo-like Barbarescos, or would that be a sacrilege? I love these wines, but I am hardly an expert.

My chef friend told me that in the restaurant business, the maximum number of hours a week has been 39, with 35 hours applying elsewhere. The 11% increase is for minimum wage earners regardless of overtime. I don't remember if the author addressed the situation with overtime. Let's keep trying to get the definitive word on all this. I'm sure it's easier with this than with the swimiming pool security regulations that recently went into affect!!!!!!!!1

I stumbled on this because Delta gave out the Riviera Times on my flight back to NY. I should have saved it. The article presented the facts as a fait accompli. When I get a chance, I'll dig around as I hope others will. In France, fact has a habit of reverting to something other than. Jonathan, let's see how we can seperate this out in a distinctive way.

Thank you, Steven. Even holding the prices constant is, for the owner, the same as raising his prices. I think for the first six months or year of the era of the 5.5 VAT, restaurants will look bad if they raise prices without any apparent value added to the diner. Of course, what is to stop them from adding caviar, lobster, etc. or offering a bigger menu at a higher price? I bet next to none will pass along the lower tax by lowering their prices. This is why it would be interesting to speak to many chefs in the coming months and ask them what they plan to do as of January 2006.

Here’s a great opportunity for the eGullet France forum to gain fame and notoriety. There is now the potential for France to move up smartly in the national restaurant derby, possibly even regaining the top spot, thanks to a national government that has come to its senses about its restaurant culture and economy. On January 1, 2006, the value-added tax on restaurant meals will drop dramatically from 19.6% to 5.5%. The law limiting the number of hours a restaurant worker can work will be abolished. It is now 39 hours a week. The minimum wage has risen 11%, which is significant because 40% of restaurant workers are paid the minimum wage. However, the Government is making 1.5 billion euros available to offset the added cost. We have had discussions here already as to what this lowering of VAT might do to the restaurants of France. Would the majority of owners keep the difference or pass it on? Might some owners use the money to offer better or more expensive products, expand choice, reduce debt, redecorate, or increase kitchen and dining room staff? I propose that during the next two to three years we members who spend a fair amount of time in France each keep track of a handful of restaurants. Starting now, I think we should talk to chefs about what they plan to do, given the low VAT and the ability to have staff work longer and keep restaurants open more hours a week. Then after the day comes in 16 months, we should note what they do in terms of actual change. We should keep a record of whom we talk to and what restaurants we eventually will track. I think we could develop something extremely interesting and influential. If we start now, we can get a giant head start on the media, as this is sure to be a big story when the time comes. Please post your ideas and suggestions as to how to go about or organize this.

One would think that in my 30 years of French provincial dining in and around the Rhone-Alps and Provence-Cote d'Azur, I would have set foot at least once in the Department of Le Drome, particularly in the wine-growing region of Gigondas or the small but gastronomically-rich area known as Tricastin. Perhaps because of its dearth of renowned restaurants, I never did until a few days ago. My Maitre Cuisinier de France friend Guy Gateau, whom you may remember from the scintillating Roundtable and Q&A we had with him earlier this year, invited me to visit him at his home outside Nyons and to visit the Universite du Vin in Suze-la-Rousse. Guy picked me up at the Orange train station and drove me to the school where I received a thorough guided tour from the Rhone Valley's equivalent of Mr. Slow Food, Jacques Avril, the university’s deputy director. The Universite du Vin, which takes up all of the monumental 12th-century Chateau de Suze-la-Rousse, is overwhelming unforgettable. I’ll have more to say about it in the near-future. We returned to Guy’s house for an aperitif and great conversation before we left for a mediocre restaurant meal in Vinsobres. One reason of many why I enjoy the company of Guy and his wife Karen is that they have their fingers on the pulse of the economic and labor situation of restaurants in France. Right now there is an acute labor shortage affecting both small and large restaurants, though it seems it is felt the most in the former category. Karen mentioned a two-star restaurant near Nice that is looking for a dishwasher, chef de partie and a commis. Look in the “help wanted” ads in L’Hotelier Magazine and you will get an idea, she told me. After a good night’s sleep in Guy’s guest cottage and some toast with his homemade apricot confiture, made just the way I like it with little sugar so that the true taste of the fruit that is one of the great products of the immediate area comes out, Guy showed me some of the small towns and the Chateau de Grignan. He dropped me off at the Montelimar station where I told him I would be back to visit, this time with my wife, the next time we were in France. I know that the Vallee du Rhone is where many wine lovers go. It does seem to be a difficult area, however, for fine restaurants. Does anyone have any suggestions? For example, I have heard much about Beaugravieres in Mondragon, best known for its wine cellar. Where else might one consider dining?

Cy, how do you handle all this traveling? I'm jealous. You know, you could stay on the Lago di Garda in the same place for three days and still go to the restaurants on your list. I like Enoteca in Canale. It's off the Asti-Alba SS in an agreeable old town and on the second floor of the tasting rooms for the Arneis wines. A young, personable chef, Davide Palluda, is turning out inventive, but sober cuisine. If you went there and stayed at Castella di Villa (in one of the two ground floor rooms) in Isola d'Asti. you would have a productive, although brief, stay in Piemonte. Combal is right off the Tangenziale that goes around Turin (don't try to get there through Turin itself) and connects to the Autoroute that goes to Asti. Enoteca is maybe 20 minutes from the hotel. Let me know when you get close to leaving for how precisely to drive there. I like the Swiss guy who owns the hotel, but he is a bit flaky. Others will no doubt come up with other places like Trattoria della Posta in Monforte or Cesare in Alberetto, but these are much harder to get to and then to get on your way to Bergamo.

Do not miss Combal.Zero in Rivoli. on the outer limits of Turin. Everyone said it was Adria-like cooking, but maybe if you order the 120 or so euro menu in advance. We had nothing like that, but rather delicious, personal Piemonte-inspired cuisine. The restaurnt is attached to a very serious modern art museum that we did not have time to visit. Just follow the signs to the Castello di Rivoli, park behind it and walk up the outside stairs. Bill Klapp loved Combal as well. It's probably the best restaurant going in Turin. Are you going outside of Turin?

Perhaps it is my conspiratorial nature, but did anyone get the impression Bruni's review of 71 Clinton was a subtle dig at WD-50? He gave 71 Clinton the same two stars Grimes ( I think) gave WD-50, but Bruni's was a more upbeat two stars. Are there certain factors at work beneath the surface?

I think I'll be able to start (if not finish) the post about my trip in Catalunya. Some details about specific dishes have slipped my mind, so it won't be a diner's report as such. But if Adam Gopnick can write about Blue Hill at Stone Barns without mentioning a single dish, I'm entitled to leve out some details, even though I'm hardly an Adam Gopnick.

Ari, it sounds like a lot of fun, though hard work at the same time. If I were in your position, I would have asked (if I had a lot to drink) if Michel's father or uncle Jean was the creative force prior to Jean's sudden death in 1982 (or thereabouts). Also, where is cousin George, Jean's son? Last I knew he was at Lutece three or four years ago. I'm sad to hear that the Saumon a l'Oseille is no longer on the menu. I did hear, however, that it wasn't exactly the same as when Jean made it. Did you meet Pierre? How is he doing?

The state of affairs I describe also happens in Italy to some degree, only there you don't see the limited offerings because the person who takes the order verbalizes what ever is available. I loved going to La Regelade, especially in fall when the menu was chock full of game birds. How is it under the new owner? Maybe this is for the Spain/Portugal forum, but is anyone worried about the impact on restaurants of the new Socialist government?

Between Grasse and Villeneuve-Loubet, which is home to the Musee Esoffier, one finds the town that I have designated the capital of “La Cuisine de la Demi-Pension”. Le Rouret is the place, and it has two good restaurants. One is the Michelin one-star Clos St. Pierre; the other La Table de Mon Moulin. The latter was opened less than a year ago by Jean-Pierre Silva, who closed his restaurant north of Beaune, L’Hostellerie du Vieux Moulin, that once had two Michelin stars. While these restaurants differ significantly in cuisine and atmosphere, they have one significant attribute in common: Both serve what I have named “La Cuisine de la Demi-Pension” As most travelers in France know, staying at a hotel and taking the “demi-pension” means eating a set or no-choice meal (usually dinner). This has been a standard feature of hotels at all standards of comfort. Unfortunately, this manner of dining has now become increasingly prevalent and growing like wildfire along with other restaurants that offer a choice of three starters and three main courses. All of this is another manifestation of how dining in France is offering increasingly less as time goes by. It seems that every chef who wants to start his very own restaurant can’t afford to hire more than one or two servers and one or two assistants. Strictly speaking, most restaurants of this kind offer a slight bit of latitude that demi-pension hotels do not, such as a choice between two main courses or substituting dishes from two fixed “menus”. Thus in Le Rouret, Clos St. Pierre engages in the former (while offering special, significantly more expensive “menus” such as a truffle and a lobster one), while La Table de Mon Moulin is demi-pension” or “table d’hote” in its purest form. I can go on naming other restaurants of similar format: Parcours, in Falicon, on the edge of Nice, recently opened by the former two-star chef, Jean-Marc Delacourt, and L’Auberge du Cheval Blanc, outside of Cavaillon. Both offer two “menus” at different prices between which you can exchange dishes. Regardless of the permutations, the shrunken restaurant is taking hold like wildfire in France. For the diner, who is always the person I try to look out for, it means that restaurant-going in France is often a form of potluck. The situation is symbolic of a nation in gastronomic distress in which the “gestalt” and rituals of fine dining are rapidly disappearing. The causes for this hardly lay at the feet of the chefs. My plumber recently told me that he cut his operation from 12 employees to three because of the punishing social charges. Who can blame a chef for doing otherwise? I would even go so far to say that this doesn’t result in bad meals as such. It keeps the costs down; allows the chef to concentrate on finding top produce; and make it possible to offer a decent value for between 30 and 50 euros a meal accompanied by a small choice of wines that fall in the category of “petit vin” at modest prices. (La Table de Mon Moulin is an exception worth noting. It has the “cave” from Jean-Pierre Silva’s former restaurant that must rank among the very best in France at prices that are hard to beat). Yet I look at the phenomenon of the incredibly shrinking restaurant as a much larger factor than a relative lack of cutting-edge creativity as to why France is losing its overwhelming culinary superiority to a country such as Spain. Having just returned from Catalunya, I saw no evidence of the gourmand “petit restaurant” in my travels.

Bux, Claude Troisgros is coming back to NY with a restaurant backed by Jeffrey Chodorow (whom I used to assume was Indian). A friend of mine had a dinner at his restaurant in Rio that he said was one of the best he ever had. CT is also trying to sell a cooking series. Ari, I am sorry I missed your initial post. Thanks so much for the praise of my report. Let us know if you get a chance afterwards to pose any more questions. For whom are you conducting the interview?

I still don't understand. Here's a guy who reported that he paid a lot of extra money for a 2 x 2. Something doesn't sound right, and if it isn't, what does it mean? As for all this talk about the reviews and the forthcoming review, what difference does it make what a bunch of people who are nothing more or less than journalists say about Per Se. If you want to spend the money, you go and find our for yourself. No one is going to review whatever meal they give you or choose your dining partners. Keller may or may not be in the kitchen and that may or may not influence the outcome of your meal. The reviewer isn't going to chose your wines, especially if you're paying out of your own pocket. Just go there and let us know what you think. At least we'll know that there were no editors and publishers looking over your shoulder.

Maybe someone can clarify more than butter for me. I understood that Keller did this 2 x 2 thing for friends and regulars at the French Laundry. When I had lunch at Per Se in late May, the six of us had a variation of each dish for, I believe, $150. a head, though I would have to check this with my generous host who never said otherwise. So is this substitutions surcharge and supplement for 2 x 2 something very recent? If so, someone should hit Keller over the head with a 4 x 4. But why would anyone want such a meal? It's bad enough eating nine little courses, let alone 18. I see that as a lose-lose proposition. If something is really memorable (and I had three dishes there that I thought were), you don't get enough to really get into it. If you get something that is not, in and of itself, emblematic of the chef's reputation, you have been made to have it against your will. Of course one can argue that you do get a forgettable dish in a tiny portion, but other than Ferran Adria, I have yet to encounter a chef who delivers near-continuous engagement beyond three or four courses. But on any day of the week, I'll take a highly-touted signature dish of a chef in savorable and full portion. I'm waiting for Keller to come to his senses and serve his very best dishes in full portions. I would then be, I am sure, a really happy diner. What are the chances of his opening another restaurant in New York where he could do just that? I bet he would make some serious money.