robert brown

I can tell you first-hand that Terry Keenan makes a terrific roasted leg of lamb. I can try to get her to post her chutney recipe.

Bux, I made the contrast of the two restaurants to illustrate the past and the future. I am not sure that one restaurant being provincial and the other Parisian is a fallacy in the point I was trying to illustrate. A contrast that is even more extreme would be comparing Chapel to L’Astrance (if it were a three-star place). But that is the way I think the wind is blowing and that you will see provincial restaurants become inexorably less differentiated than Parisian ones (as my Troisgros experience exemplified). I can see your point of the handing down of traditional, localized dishes more so in a domestic situation. Don’t you think that talented chefs can make an authentic classic dish? The best "pot au feu" you could possibly hope for comes (or came) from Michel Guerard. And that was another great aspect to the provincial three-stars of the recent past: They made traditional dishes (Escoffier ones as well) better than anyone. As for the clients of Robuchon, Girardet, Chapel, and even Blanc seeking out Adria, Bras, Veyrat, Roellinger, and so forth, if the number of them posting on this site is an indication, we must be a dying breed. I would like to go on, but it’s time to pack up the computer, cancel the AT&T Global, and get up early in the morning as we say goodbye to the sunny Cote d'Azur.

Because Part II of the Troisgros thread has turned into a general discussion of dining in France, its present state and where it might be headed, I think any continuing discussion should have its own thread. We have recently dined with at Arpege. My wife asked me to compare it to our experiences in the 1970s and 1980s at Alain Chapel’s restaurant outside of Lyon. By coincidence, while formulating my response , I put it in terms close to what Steve P. wrote yesterday. I said the difference between going to the two was comparable to hearing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed by the Berlin Philharmonic and Beethoven’s Early Quartets played by the Cleveland Quartet. Chapel in its glorious country surroundings represented a by-gone era in which enormous choice and offerings of food, sometimes ethereal, sometimes staggering, were served by highly-trained waiters who somehow managed to serve 50 people unobtrusively, faultlessly and yet being able to talk with you as long as you wanted. Arpege is entirely at the other end with its small kitchen and dining room teams, relatively small choice of food and small dining room on a street corner on a quiet street in Paris. In both places, however, we have dined about as well as one could hope. Yet Chapel the way it was is irretrievable history and Arpege likely represents the future of luxury dining and creative cooking. On one hand Steve’s comparison to opera today is a little off the mark since opera hasn’t shrunk and become as irrelevant as haute cuisine throughout France has. Yet, I think (and hope) there will be a revival in cuisine that takes on again the classicism of grand opera and that people will search for its gustatory equivalent. My guess is that “creative” restaurants will exist, but increasingly more so on the margins and that the restaurant infrastructure will become more like it is in Italy in which there are a few ambitious restaurants in the big cities, in hotels, and scattered throughout small cities and towns in Italy that reinterpret Italian cuisine or are part-French, part-Italian. Perhaps even the joy of eating (as opposed to the hope that you will spend) that reigns throughout Italy will come to characterize eating in France. As for Bux’s lamenting the decline is regional cuisine, I predict a comeback in varying states of authenticity as the “fad” of various manifestations of fusion cooking runs it course. To clarify what I wrote in the Troisgros thread, I am now more willing to go out of my way and to plan my itineraries and outings more around the “small” gastronomic pleasures than the trophy restaurants. I, like Steve, think more about returning to La Cave in Cannes (and thanks, Steve, for the great recommendation) than to Chibois in Grasse or to perennial two-star restaurants that show their hand with one visit. I don’t think the lights are out on three-star or luxury two-star restaurants in France, but building a trip around them is becoming increasingly less relevant to enjoying and understanding the present state of gastronomy in France.

JJS, white Piemonte truffles are at their peak in early December as they take about five weeks to go from germnation to maturity. The colder the weather the better they do, which is why a truffle season that gets bad marks in October can rally by the time November and December roll around. You should be there at a good time for them. The game season in France starts in late September, though I can only guess that it varies from bird and animal to bird and animal in various regions. I believe, for example, that one can shoot deer in Alsace in the summer. I am not as informed about Paris restaurants as before or as some of the other posters in the France forum. I can only concur from a meal in July that La Regalade gives a good bang for the buck, to put it in hunting terms. As for booking at three-stars, I have a hunch that getting into any of them will be a lot easier than last year, and any song and dance about booking only under certain conditions could be posturing although it is foolhardy to be playing those kind of games. But these are the French. It has to be that way since Americans are staying away in droves from these restaurants, and they accounted for a healthy percentage of the clientele.

Can you imagine a "seminar" of this sort and length taking place in just about any other country? It strikes me as an insult to the customer and a form of self-agrandizement and self-importance to the owners. Furthermore, why would anyone want to be forced to eat AND drink what the chefs feels like making and pouring for everyone? Don't the owners have the skill, staff and resources to treat diners as if they have at least minimum abilities to think for themselves? But Southern Girl, thanks so much for the great and detailed report. I have been curious about this restaurant since reading about it last year in Gourmet. Maybe I'm missing something in both senses.

Andy, I have never met or spoken with Dr. Revenue, although I have sent a few e-mails to him and members of his family, great gastronomes all. I don't know the details of his relationship or friendship with Rockenwagner. He did say right at the beginning that he has helped the chef and his wife with their business planning, which I factored in to my theory of why Dr. Revenue reacted in the way that he did. Remember, my scenario is based largely on the fact that Steve Shaw called into question the reliability of my bullshit detector. I believe I have doped out the reasons correctly and am willing to stand corrected. So where I am coming from is some minimal correspondence with Dr. Revenue, defense of my position, a sense of moral outrage and enough experience with the restaurant profession to know that it is yet another in which not all hands are clean.

Steve Shaw, regarding your comment on the "Site Recommendations" forum about the sensitivity of my bullshit detector, I dare to say that I am a seasoned veteran at detecting bullshit, especially on-going bullshit. How Dr. Revenue's being upset began, I am willing to guess, is with the realization that Rockenwagner has been bullshitting him and being disingenuous all along, and that Dr. Revenue at last, to his great chagrin, finally realized it. For several years, I am willing to bet, Rockenwagner picked Dr. Revenue's brains for business advice, offering something much less valuable and scarce in return. Rockenwagner showed his true colors, possibly in a situation in which he didn't want, or could not afford, to sacrifice any restaurant revenue. Whether or not Dr. Revenue was justified in airing his grievance in a forum as he did is hardly going to elicit a uniform response from interested members. I think he was justified in naming names, or THE name. I would have done the same. I support Dr. Revenue's having done what he has done. Rockenwagner should have had his manager call to say that this night was not a good one to visit the restaurant as the manager himself knew. The chef was clearly ill-equipped to serve a dinner that was up to standards. If my bullshit detector is off form today, I won't mind being corrected just as I am sure Dr. Revenue will tell us if somehow there has been a legitimate misunderstanding from the start, as opposed to phony after-the-fact excuses the chef might offer.

Steve, I think we are right at the inflection point to see which model works best, or if at all. We should know within a year if the 300-euro meal keeps certain restaurants in business or gets cut in half along with one’s enjoyment. I wonder if some of the reasons for chef burnout have to do with the lack of challenge resulting from the cutting back and the changing tastes. I believe we now have to think in pan-European terms in our gastronomic travel. Instead of trying to hit the French three-stars, we should consider spreading out to Northern Spain and Italy. Instead of considering visiting only “big” restaurants, we should knock around markets and shops. Just in the past week my wife and I have spent quite a bit of time watching “Gourmet TV”, Robuchon’s cheap version of the Food Network. We watched a program in which the correspondent hoped around to little places near Le Lavandou. We noted a couple of names so that on our next trip we can visit them. The program made them look delicious even though they don’t get big ratings in the guidebooks. Gastronomic travel is shifting to different kinds of pleasures from which I still get lots of kicks.

Andy, I'm glad you brought up the matter of using e-gullet to air dirty linen, so to speak. I am not sure, however, that "dirty linen" is the right term. I think it is an important matter to put up for discussion on the board that handles site topics. I was all set to do it just before I saw your post.

This is e-Gullet at its finest. Whether or not the contributors all agree, I think it is good to have a public forum in which people bring to the attention of the brethren what they think is outrageous, dishonest, or other wise egregious behavior. I don’t think Rockenwagner (whenever I see his name, all I can think of is “Ride of the Valkyries” played on a synthesizer) has a leg to stand on. He should have treated his business of the evening as if it were a private party and closed the restaurant. That he took the only person with him who knows how to prepare the restaurant dishes to a catered event means to me either he is understaffed or doesn’t know the lack of ability of the people he left to cook in the restaurant. Clearly, there were other employees who did and who respected Dr. Revenue and Liz’s devoted patronage by wanting to waive them off that evening. I sometimes look for hidden motives in these kinds of situations. Perhaps Rockenwagner has a serious need for money and could not afford to discourage even devoted two clients from spending money at his restaurant.. Maybe Rockenwagner has never assimilated himself to the way most Americans covet their best customers. Perhaps Rockenwagner is a misanthrope at heart and doesn’t really like any of his customers. It makes one wonder if this is not the first time he has tried to enrich himself in this way and that he has “shortchanged” other customers on other evenings and will continue to do so. That he mishandled the situation with Dr. Revenue without remorse and missing several opportunities to redress it makes me wonder what the man has on his mind.

Bux, here's the scoop on the Christine Ferber confiture: Total contents in sugar, 60 grammes per 100 grammes. Prepared with 55 grammes of fruit per 100 grammes. Contents:, fruits (in this case the flavor is pink grapefruit), sugar, pectin of apple, and lemon juice. Keep cool and consume eight days aftger opening. Prederable to consume before Jan. 1, 2004. Has anyone ever come across her confitures in the States?

What I notice most in today’s three-star French restaurants, as well as luxury dining in some of the world’s major cities, is how much more economically sensitive they have become and the steady erosion or shrinking of the experience in the past dozen years or so. What I liked most about my visit to Troisgros last week was the professional, civilized and friendly way everyone there treated us. Even if it were somehow insincere or studied, it didn’t feel that way. It contrasted mightily with my experience at Maximin and Le Moulin de Lourmarin, to name a couple of places. Yet, Steve is correct in saying that Troisgros is a kind of museum, living in part on its past and counting on its wine inventory and hotel rooms. Ironically enough, the dining rooms were pretty full and the hotel rooms were largely vacant. I also think that the rare bottles in their “cave” are gathering more age. I also agree with Steve in the fact that the “wow” factor is harder to find with the passage of time. Chefs have to realize now that only the enthusiasts are willing to go to far a field or make an arduous “tour gastronomique” to eat in France or spend wildly to eat in the best restaurants in Paris. My wife and I were just today talking about how luxury restaurants are truly and maybe even primarily business establishments in which every morsel is weighed and accounted for and every client maneuvered and manipulated. The only relative handful are those that charge prices that no one would have dreamed of three to five years ago. I also believe that chefs in France are spooked because for the first time in culinary history the chef who comes along every half-century to rewrites the book isn’t French (Adria). That, along with other chefs such as Trotter, Keller, Daniel, Jean-George, Ramsey, and White, have made going to France to dine unnecessary for a lot of people even if what they provide is inferior. ( I think the loss of Japanese and Anglo-Saxon clientele has been a major one for the top chefs in France.) All of this is a major distraction to chefs who now can’t concentrate on cooking and deters young talent to open ambitious restaurants in France and instead being hired by hotels or leaving France altogether. (The dream now is to have a restaurant in New York). Liz, I think Michel Troisgros’ fundamental approach is certainly clean and “pure” if you mean not fussy and overloaded. I certainly did not see any traces of an Adria influence either. The establishment is no longer has a family-run feeling to it, but it is not cold and formal either. (If Pierre had been there it might have felt more familial to me). Maybe their informal restaurant next door, the Hotel Central, does, but it was closed when I was there. The bar serving locals is certainly long gone. Jaypee, it is strange that you mentioned Lameloise since it occurred to me as well that this could be a restaurant that because it was very much a family affair without a lot of bells and whistles 15 years ago, it may still be close to what it was. I had written about Arpege, my guess as to the future of high-end dining in France, and a few other topics. However, I lost the post trying to move it from Word to e-gullet and for some reason I can’t get to the recovery file in my Windows 2000. I hope I get a chance later.

Bouland, as I am not an authority on confitures, all I can tell you is that unlike another good confiture we bought, the Christine Ferber ones should be consumed before the start of 2004, whereas the others should be consummed before May 2006. The latter says to keep it cool after opening, whereas the Christine Ferbers should be consummed eight days after opening. The man who sold me the Chrsitine Ferber said he gets varying varieties throughout the year depending on the season of the fruit. Maybe lots of others stagger their production in this way.

Bux, Steve, Liz, it may be 18:10 or 15:10 where you are, but here it is 00:10 Friday. I really adore your comments and plan to join in again in the morning. Night-night, Robert

Steve and Bux: I hope I am open-minded when I dine in France these days in the face of certain vibes people send me that say, “Get over it”. (It’s tough when your reference is France between 1974 and 1990. Where are all the other Brits and Americans I used to see? It would be nice if they posted their experiences and opinions) Being open-minded and not enjoying what one hopes is a great meal these days is not necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, Steve, you make the point well that chefs are not cooking at the level that I consider the period of the apogee of dining in France. I am sorry I never got to write it up, but we had a lunch at Arpege in early July that was the first perfect meal we have had in France in a long time. Although the menu was small and focused and we had expert advice on selection (we ordered “a la carte”, thereby minimizing the risk of getting any dishes we would not find “perfect”), the lunch showed that it is still possible to have terrific meals in France. (I am sure, however, that the chances of having one have been greatly diminished in recent years.) To a notable extent, the present-day Restaurant Troisgros keeps up family traditions, but as I indicated, to me it was more in non-culinary concerns. Only 20% or so of the “a la carte” dishes pre-date Michel’s taking over the kitchen. (Does any one know if there is any rotation of the Jean and Pierre dishes? That would be interesting to know). While it was our intention to relive old memories of what we had eaten, we were so taken with how we were received and the comforts of the hotel, we decided to stick to Michel’s dishes and come back another time for the salmon, lobster, or Charolais beef. Just to add a sub-topic to what Steve wrote, it is also interesting to note that so far there has yet to be a son of a great French chef today who people are sitting up and noticing. I don’t want to dissuade you, Bux, for returning. I really do want to give it another go. Troisgros struck me as being unlike other restaurants that you can sense after one meal that they have nothing better to give. I also hope I go when Pierre is there as I hoped to have the chance to talk with him and ask him, among other topics, what the genesis of the salmon in sorrel. However, it was a long holiday weekend about to start and he decided to extend is vacation in the Jura mountains. Liz, I would try any dish that has the pea, almond and mint stuffing. There are two or three apparently. The “Homard Bleu” was always terrific. You might ask when you arrive if there is a Jean and Pierre dish you could have at dinner. Maybe there is a French way to prepare the wild loup de mer . Other than that, it is not usually possible to know from the menu description if a dish is going t taste sweet or “foreign”. I would ask, unless you like those kinds of flavors. Beachfan, I wonder if the mistakes were the result of the restaurant's two-week vacation. I wonder, too, if the larder was fully stocked. The picnic we ordered for the train seemed as if was bought on the outside.

Liz, thanks so much for the kind words. It's late here. Therefore I will answer your question as best I can tomorrow. But I'm hardly an expert on the restaurant after six dishes, two extras, and cheese.

Steve, I could have played it safe by ordering the dishes that I had between 1975 and 1982. We decided to postpone the salmon and try an all- Michel Troisgros meal, having pretty much decided we would come back within a year. Maybe we ordered badly, but we didn't pick that up from the maitre d'hotel who also encouraged us in our selecting the saddle of lamb. Based on my meal, I would say that Michel Troisgros is not in the upper echelon of French chefs. I also have never picked up any sense that the culinary world feels that he is also. There were glaring errors that I point out in my original post-the lamb, potatoes, and souffle-that should not happen in a three-star kitchen. I expected better from one who spent the majority of his apprenticeship with two chefs who were the greatest of the day: Alain Chapel and Freddy Girardet. The wine was 1993 Chambolle-Musigny "Les Sentiers" of J-F Mugnier.

The challenge of choosing the dishes to dine on at Restaurant Troisgros is nearly as daunting as deciphering the clever and artistic monochrome drawing on the cover of the menu. You could spend a couple of hours with the drawing; a puzzle of sorts in which the goal is to find the letters that spell the name of the tiny renderings above and below the word “TROISGROS”. (ROI corresponds to a crown; OS to a bone and so on. The task is made quite complicated with the addition of small supplemental letters as well.) Rather than being an impediment, the reflection needed to order your meal is the product of Restaurant Troisgros’ inherent generosity. The eight-course 150-euro fixed menu (with the option of foregoing the langoustine and spending 120 euros) exists not as a tool to have as many diners as possible order it (unlike so many other restaurants throughout world), but as a means to make possible partaking in a cross-section of Michel Troisgros’ handiwork. If you want dishes in full portion (none of which are used in smaller portions in order to construct the tasting menu, which is also a widespread practice) there are nearly as many “ a la carte” dishes as there were 25 years ago. They also are not overpriced to encourage you to order the “menu”. Thus it is possible to order three or four full courses for little more, or somewhat less, than 150 euros. (For a very clear, up-to-date virtual “a la carte” menu with prices, look at the Restaurant Troisgros website—www.troisgros.fr/). Given our unusual circumstance of possessing 27-year old memories of Troisgros, we had to make the decision of going “retro” for some of our meal or giving Michel Troisgros’ cooking a relative “look-see”. Do we order Jean and Pierre’s monumental classic “Saumon a l’Oseille” (salmon in sorrel sauce)? Perhaps we should relive the “Chateau au Vin de Fleurie et a la Moelle”, which is beef tenderloin and marrow cooked with the grand cru Beaujolais wine, Fleurie , or splurge on the Brittany blue lobster cooked with Calvados. Instead we decided to share one warm appetizer and then have two fish dishes, a main course of lamb for two, and two “a la carte” desserts. The meal started with an “amuse-gueule” described as a flan of celery. The consistency of the flan was much more liquid than the one associated with the Spanish dessert. It contained both the stalk and the leaves of celery and included a slice of banana that seemed very incongruous, yet gave the dish a contrasting medium- soft texture and a bit of sweetness. The dish, served in a small, narrow ceramic cup was topped off with a warm, velvety liquid cream that seeped down into the flan while we were eating it. The textures and flavors danced in our mouth and did its job of jump-starting our meal. For our appetizer, we borrowed a dish from the tasting menu of which the kitchen gave us two small portions. (The restaurant is very accommodating in its willingness to serve half portions of appetizers). Titled “Ravioli de Petits Pois, Amandes, a la Menthe”, it was an oversize ravioli with a filling of pureed peas, almond paste and mint. An unshelled pea of a sweetness the intensity of which we had never before tasted was placed on the dish. We both were convinced that there was sugar in the filling, but the sweetness apparently came from the almond paste The ravioli itself was so sheer and translucent that we could see the filling through it, and more silken and delicate than any that we have had in Italy. The mint was a counterpoint to the peas and almonds, while the almond enhanced the pea flavor. The dish was delicious and as light as a feather even given its richness. Our two fish dishes were a crash course in the culinary differences between the old and the younger generations. Both would have been inconceivable in the era of Michel Troisgros’ father and uncle. “Fin Bouillon de Loup et Riz ‘Koshi-Hikari’, un Voile de Moutarde” had an aroma from its bouillon with mirin that so evoked Japan that I was able to smell Tokyo on the serving table a few feet away. For us, the mirin was so cloying that it quickly detracted from one of the most memorable pieces of fish (wild sea bass from the Mediterranean) we have ever tasted. It was perfectly cooked, impeccably fresh, and had a thickness and meatiness that can only come from a very large specimen. The Koshi-Hikari rice, short-grain rice used for sushi, reminded me of the rice gruel one has for breakfast in Japan. Served on the side were small, perfectly-cut rectangles of eggplant, red pepper, yellow pepper, and zucchini placed on a paper-thin, crispy crepe-like base that tasted as if they had been unnaturally sweetened. In our opinion, almost any other preparation from within the boundaries of France would have better suited the remarkable piece of sea bass. As for a “voile de moutarde”, we had no idea what that was, as any hint of mustard was drowned out by the taste of the rice vinegar. “Saint Pierre Cuit sur L’Arete, des Prunes Bigarrees, Sauce Carotte” offered modern luxury cooking of a different stripe: the use of fruit to acidulate a sauce. The translated dish is John Dory cooked on the bone with “motley” plums and a sauce of carrots. The fish, roasted with its skin, is served as a fillet with cooked plums (I could not find any reference to “prunes bigarrees”, but these were tiny golden plums) and little tomatoes. The plums and tomatoes acidulated the carrot sauce. While Michel Troisgros often cooks with fruits in savory dishes, this one struck us as pleasant but shallow and unexciting. Unlike the wild sea bass dish that was served at the same time, we found it more sober and accessible, however. “Extra” in French is short for “extraordinaire” and the word I used to ask the maitre d’hotel if indeed the lamb dish for two I was about to order was in that category. He gave a definitive, whole-hearted “oui”. In our opinion, and to our disappointment, it was not. The dish in question, “Selle Affine dans un Harissa, Croque-Jardiniere is saddle of lamb aged in the North African hot pepper sauce one adds most commonly to couscous. In a cardinal sin of world-class restaurants, it came with the same side dish of vegetables that we had with our wild sea bass. Also served on the side were rather thick round slices of potato that had been poorly sautéed as evidenced by being cold in the middle. The saddle of lamb itself was superb and provided two copious portions. Although we requested it be cooked “bien rose”, it came to the table almost medium—probably cooked three minutes too long. The taste of harissa was so subtle as to be missed; the sauce tasted overly salted instead. Excepting the high quality of the meat, the dish was more in keeping with what might be served in a good bistro or one-star restaurant. The “plateau de fromage” had always been a highpoint for us in prior meals at Troisgros. The current one, assembled from two local cheese shops, has shrunk in size; yet it is still substantial and of the ultimate quality. While the number of varieties is around 35, several, such as some of the goat cheeses, are offered in varying states of ageing. The cow’s milk Saint-Marcellin came in about half a dozen degrees of texture Between the “on the house” and two “a la carte desserts, our personal jury was still out in regard to the abilities of the pastry chefs. The complimentary dessert of a mousseline of blackberry wrapped in a circle of chocolate wafer and served with a scoop of goat’s milk ice cream and blueberry sauce dripped around the plate was light, well balanced and not at all cloying. The two desserts we ordered at the start of the meal followed. The “Nage de Cerises et Fraises des Bois”, not on the menu, but which the waiter suggested as a summertime dessert, was a lightly chilled soup of cherries, wild strawberries and small pieces of orange rind containing many pieces the two fruits and the little variety of cherries known as “griottes”. A scoop of intense and smooth vanilla ice cream came on the side. This was a marvelous suggestion, so refreshing and welcoming. It vied with the flan of celery and the ravioli dish as the highlight of the evening. Noticing a familiar dessert, “Souffle au Fruit de la Passion”, on the “a la carte” menu, we ordered it. Our familiarity was not bred at Troisgros, but at Restaurant Girardet, whose owner-chef Freddy Girardet’s original version was arguably the most famous dessert on the “grande cuisine” circuit in the 1980s. Whereas Girardet’s soufflé was cloud-like in texture, almost vanishing in your mouth-- and the sauce poured into it pleasingly tart. Michel Troisgros’ was stiff and heavy with a sauce that was overly sweet. As my wife and I sat in the large garden for both our after-dinner coffee with the whimsical caramelized sugar and butter creations that accompanied it, and breakfast the next morning, we viewed the one main feature of Restaurant Troisgros that had remained unchanged since our previous visit: the immense glassed-in kitchen and the cuisiniers within chopping, weighing, and scurrying back and forth. (So much change had occurred in the last 20 years that it became obvious to us that the Troisgros family has plowed back the large majority of its profits into improving their facility and keeping up the wine inventory which is one of the largest and deepest in France. I only had time to study the part of the wine list that I wanted to choose from—the red Burgundies. The available wines included many from Henri Jayer, Jean Meo and the Domain de la Romanee-Conti that most other great restaurants in France have long depleted). Of course we discussed and evaluated our visit. Although we had minor differences of opinion about certain dishes, we both felt that we were better cared for than fed. As with most people whose meals fall short in a great restaurant, we wondered if we ourselves failed to take a good measure of the cuisine. Did we order wrong by not choosing at least one of the Troisgros classic dishes? (We decided not to since we planned on coming back). Did we make a mistake coming for the first dinner after the restaurant’s semi-annual two-week vacation? (Certainly two weeks is not a long layoff; there was a lunch service under everyone’s belt; and the kitchen staff certainly made their preparations a day or two before). While one can in theory always order “better”, we suspect that there are two reasons for whatever failings our meal had. Michel Troisgros, while diligent and intelligent (he makes the rounds of the dining room better than any chef I ever encountered: so relaxed and a good storyteller is he) is not quite, or not yet, the great chef that his uncle and father were. Our meals in the 1970s and early 1980s were more focused and disciplined because they were all about France. Now the baton has been passed to a chef-restaurateur whose palate and tastes reflect the internationalization of food and what the “Coca Light” generation expects or is used to, most notably sweetness in almost every bite. The main ingredients are French, but the preparation, seasonings, and sauces are apt to be from anywhere, which to our minds makes the cuisine more appropriate to Paris than a small town on the Loire. Yet we have every intention of returning for the simple reason it felt good being there. The lack of pretense and the Troisgros touch that makes you feel special being there has not changed. On our next visit we will do what I think anyone who goes there once in a lifetime or very infrequently should do, which is for half the table to order the tasting menu and the other the glorious dishes that Jean and Pierre Troisgros created together.

Wimpy, that should hold you for a while. Right now we just have three jars of Christine Ferber confitures to being home next week. We tried one that we bought in Paris at Pierre Herme. We called her HQ in Alsace and got the name of the one place on the Cote d'Azur that sells them: La Boutique des Gourmets in Nice, which had about 20 varieties. The price was 7.93 euros for a small jar. On the back is written to keep the jar in a cool place and to finish the contents within a week. I like that since it means there are no preservatives.

Boy, you're fast. But don't feel you have to.

The best way to see how a great restaurant has changed over the last 20 years is to wait 20 years before going back. As annual visitors, beginning in 1975, to the revered Restaurant Troisgros in Roanne (where we would often have dinner one night and lunch the next day) we stopped going in 1983, the year that Jean Troisgros, one of the two chef-brothers, died at age 51 while playing tennis during a vacation in Alsace-Lorrain. For reasons that may have little or no substance in reality, Jean Troisgros was our primary reason for visiting what was then called Hotel-Restaurant Les Freres Troisgros. A distinguished-looking, handsome man with a salt and pepper beard that gave him the air of an artist or writer, Jean was soft-spoken and friendly in a quiet way. When he was not working in the kitchen, he often stood behind the reception desk alongside his sister-in-law, Olympe Troisgros, making himself available to the clientele. Compared to his brother Pierre, who is still with us and now serves as the restaurant’s figurehead and meeter-and-greeter, Jean looked like he was clearly the creative force in the kitchen. Pierre, on the other hand, was cherubic and rotund, having no apparent shared features with his brother. In fact even back then, Pierre worked the dining room and signed menus with amusing drawings and inscriptions. So whether or not Jean was the culinary brains of the operation (that the house classics served today were also those when Jean was alive lends credence to the probability that he was), to our mind he was; and his premature and sad death was sufficient to sap our desire to return. Just as the restaurant used to be among our four or five most favorites in the world, recently it had become one of the four or five on our short list of restaurants in France to go out of our way for. Restaurant Troisgros, after all, holds the honor of being among present-day restaurants the longest consecutive holder of the Guide Michelin’s three-star rating (now in its 35th year) and there was nothing anyone had written or said to indicate that the restaurant had deteriorated in terms of its cuisine or service. In fact, I had looked at a recent menu from the restaurant that made me think that the glorious days of eating in France might still be found in the town of Roanne, 55 miles north-northwest of Lyon. Biting the bullet train, in a manner of speaking, we took the TGV from Nice to Lyon and transferred to the “slow” intercity train to Nantes, which made its first stop in Roanne. My wife and I bounced along the rails talking about, and reflecting upon, our visits there when the restaurant was in its prime and was considered by many to be the finest in the world. We remembered the “bar-salle” with its large oak bar where the locals gathered for a drink, too poor, some of them, to dine on the foie gras, lobster, and Charolais beef being served in the dining room next door. (For a while there was just one dining room, with another for private parties added on around 1980. Now there are four). A few times we spent the night in one of the dozen or so adequate hotel rooms that were furnished in a modern style, but to which you walked down a corridor of dark wood panels and plaster walls typical of pre-war inexpensive provincial French hotels. We also recalled that when we drove to Roanne we would cross a bridge over the Loire and a minute or so later go down a sloping driveway into one of the car stalls beneath the newly-constructed immense glassed-in kitchen that allowed the clients to watch the thirty or so chefs diligently work away on the lunch or dinner they would soon be consuming. Our arrival this time seemed little different than all of the ones before. The entrance to the establishment was where two streets came together and the reception area was nearly unchanged except for the repositioning of the front desk and the additional shelves displaying household wares and restaurant souvenirs for sale. Only when the receptionist took us up a flight of stairs did we begin to see the changes. We walked through a seating area that had bookshelves filled with magazines and coffee table books on food and travel. We then entered a small elevator that did not exist at our last visit and alighted at the top, second floor where there were four rooms--ours being at the end of the hallway. The receptionist told us that our room was the last to be renovated, done so two years ago. It was spacious, solidly constructed and luxurious The adjustable bed was very large and comfortable and the bathroom, which was divided into a room with toilet and bidet; a large walk-in shower; and a washing up section with two sinks and a bathtub built into a corner, was rock solid from its very generous use of brownish travertine used even for the floor) and large white tiles. When we looked at the décor of the bedroom—sycamore tables, chairs, and couches in a style best described as a little-Scandinavian, but more Japanese -- we had our first taste of the overriding theme of the new, “pass-the-baton-to-the-next-generation” Troisgros: East Meets West. The more time we spent poking around and asking questions, the more we realized the most salient feature of what can now be called the “Hotel-Restaurant of Michel Troisgros”--Michel being Pierre’s son and the head chef-- which is the cashing in on the Japan Boom that has come and gone. It is apparent in the total renovation of the establishment that has slowly, surely, and now with finality, with last year’s building of the large glass-enclosed wine cellar, taken place over the past 15 years. The Japanese feeling is most notably in the garden that was built over the airspace of the driveway that leads to the parking stalls (The garden itself is not a Japanese one, but it does have a self-contained structure that resembles a meditation room); the light wood tones of the dining room and the public rooms; and, most notably, in some of the inventions that come out of the kitchen, even as the Japan boom has turned to bust. If there is a second major theme of the present-day Troisgros, it is the glory of longevity. While some new luxury restaurants in France cut back in such matters as size of the kitchen brigade, choice of dishes and use of formally trained servers, it is as plain as can be that Pierre Troisgros has kept the immensely high level of service and a kind of magic touch that makes every client feel special the way it was 25 years ago. As soon as we were seated, we felt that old magic of the Troisgros treatment at work once more. (Coming Soon: Dinner)

Liz, for a guy like me who has never been to Napa or these places in SF, this is as good as it gets for advice and descriptions. Thanks for taking the time and effort to write up everything.

Paula, maybe certain hotel-restaurants these days find cancellation fees the most proitable part of their business. A 182 euro meal cancellation fee is unbelieveable. No one told me anything about it when I booked for a room and dinner at the Moulin last month. Paul, was Loubet moving furniture around because people needed to move to the dining room? If I recall accurately, some top restaurants I have been to set all the tables, indoors and outdoors, in case of situations like this, or when the weather is iffy and it could rain during the meal service. I thought that some of the dishes of Loubet were remarkable. We loved the lamb. It is funny,though, what you wrote. Did you notice if the waiters then went over to another table to show them the steaming lamb chops? I wonder how long they remain steaming because when the waiters showed us ours, they were not steaming. Maybe the smoke extinguished itself between another table and ours.

1. How do we know that Ducasse's palate is the sole determining factor.? i.e. how long will it be before other factors come into play (such as pay-offs and vested interests). 2. If the shop is a success, will the producer of the "best" product be really the best or the best of those that can provide the requisite supply? 3. What happens to "variety is the spice of life". I associate lack of choice with failing or underfunded enterprises.

How crowded was the place? Were any tables turned? (Not on you, of course).