marcus

Michel del Burgo left Taillevant more than a year ago and is now at the Chantecler in Nice. Taillevant is an owner run, rather than a chef run restaurant, but even so, del Burgo was not considered quite good enough, or perhaps the chemistry was wrong. The new chef at Taillevant is the highly regarded Alain Soliveres who had been the chef at the 2 star Les Elysees. Taillevant is generally considered to have improved with Soliveres, but there have been numerous complaints as well. I can't speak from experience as I haven't been there since the latest change. With regard to sommeliers sampling wine, In many visits, I have never ever had a sommelier not taste the wine prior to serving in a top French 2-3 star restaurant, it's part of the standard procedure. I wonder what others have experienced or observed.

It's very easy to take one's own point of view and project it onto the world. It's actually the most basic market research error. Better is to try to understand where other people are coming from. I personally have not attempted a reservation at Per Se and do not have an urgent interest in eating there. I was taking exception to your assertion that peoples motivating interest was the pursuit of trendiness. Well, rather than support your original position, you're now making rather different assertions, the common theme being that one way or another, you're unhappy with this thread. And by proxy from your husband, it doesn't make sense and it doesn't compute. And obviously, however he (you) view(s) matters should be good enough for everyone else.

This is a knee jerk analysis that is overly simplistic and I believe incorrect. The issue is not trendiness, I'm sure that is not at all the motivation of most of the posters on this thread. There are only a handful of restaurants in NYC, fewer than 10, that represent ultra high end luxury dining that aspires to culinary magnificance. These restaurants have all been around for a long time, some are in decline and others that may be maintaining their standards are not innovating sufficiently to maintain the interest of the most dedicated diners. Per Se represents an opportunity to try something new and different at this level with the expectation that it may be great. Of course one can do this six months from now, but so what, what can one do now, time counts, it's not irrelevant. Having to defer gratification is painful, and it is this pain, as minor in the grand scheme of things as it may be, that is giving rise to all of these assorted complaints that may come across as trivial and petty to a more dispassionate reader.

loufood, is your purgatory in Spain or in Paris??

I've never sat down there, there are more seats on the main floor, but I've seen it on the way to the WC and it is kind of awful. I don't know what happens if you insist that you don't want to go, you could make it a condition when you make a reservation. On the other hand, Ardoise is very much like a coffee shop/diner kind of place, with much much better food and good prices, the table turnover is the most rapid in Paris, and I suspect most people use it as a place just to eat, rather than a destination with the other considerations that that entails. I've seen lots of French eating down below without objection.

I would suggest that the genius of Gagnaire is most visible when ordering a la carte. The tasting menu, as described, I would characterize as vertical, a long succession of small dishes, that have some relationship to one another from the perspective of meal composition. Ordering a la carte is horizontal. The a la carte is composed of dishes named after their principal ingredient, lamb, pigeon, turbot, venison, etc. However, these are not single dishes, but actually 2-5 variations along with other accompaniments such as a flute of passion fruit juice, for example. The famous langoustine appetizer provides five variations. For each of these courses, the dishes are placed on the table simultaneously. What Gagnaire then shows brilliantly is not the essence, that's not what he's about, but the potential for each of these foods to be taken in new and unimagined directions. Yet he does ultimately maintain a respect and connection to his raw material, rather than transforming it beyond recognition, which is one of the reasons that I strongly prefer him to Adria, a subject for another day. When we last ate at Gagnaire, it was a Sundey evening in late November 2003. We sat on the balcony at the rail with a full view of the entire restaurant, which seats 35-40 people. The clientele that evening appeared to be at least two thirds French, and at least 75% of the guests were ordering a la carte, so I believe that this is the preferred way to go, and I would suggest that even visitors make this effort. Mme Gagnaire will be more than happy to help. Other advantages of ordering a la carte are not having to take the composed cheese plate or the grand desert, which are on the a la carte menu, but are never ordered there, as best I could see. There is a conventional chees cart which is quite popular, although at 29 euros per person seems to be quite exorbitantly priced. If one orders a la carte and skips the cheese, the price for the food will actually come out roughly the same as the menu, around 200 euros per person. Whether one likes or despises Gagnaire's deserts is an interesting matter of discussion, but once again the deserts available on the carte are more interesting that the grand desert which has grown tired. One other comment I would like to make regards dress. In general, dress even in Paris and other major European cities is quite informal. At Gagnaire, more than two thirds of the men did not wear a tie and a number were in shirtsleaves. I suspect that on a workday it might appear more formal, but this would only be because of what people were wearing already, not the requirements of fine dining.

When was Wells' most recent review? Although the chef owner is the same, Au Bon Accueil has changed format in the last year or so, and is serving more upscale, rather than bistro food. It is also overall significantly more expensive, although I believe that they do maintain an inexpensive option. Regardless, I'm sure that there would be no problem bringing a child.

Just noticed this. Actually the GM search engine is better than viamichelin because you can search on restaurant names as well as locations, with viamichelin, you must provide a location which is very restrictive, especially when searching for a restaurant in the boondocks, where you know the restaurant name, but not where its located. However, viamichelin is up to date, whereas GM online has not been updated since the 2002 guide, which is now 2 years out of date.

I would not recommend Esplanade unless you go at lunch for the view. It's not bad, but doesn't seem to have much feel of terroir in the cooking, and I am always most disappointed in high style cooking that doesn't quite make it. I also found the restaurant to be quite expensive and I'm not sure that you have the full picture from the prix fixe menus that they sent you. Much, much better, but without the view, and only slightly more expensive, is Le Centenaire in Les Eyzies. What is most interesting overall in the area are the local restaurants with Perigourdine cooking, you can ask around for the best recommendations. I remember a couple of restaurants in La Roque Gageac, but don't remember their names, one was in a hotel.

The Michelin star rating is supposed to be for the food alone. Although this has been questioned at the 2 and 3 star level, it is pretty much true for one stars, unless there is a very serious deficiency. The fact that both of these restaurants received a star and had equivalent food, really indicates that Michelin is accomplishing just what they intended.

Most significant in Naples is the pizza, the prototype for all the others. Simply prepared, soft crust, clean clear flavors of tomato sauce and usually cheese, I'm not a fan of the pizza marinara which is just crust and sauce, but actually very popular. The pizza is baked in a typical wood burning beehive oven. Pizza in Naples is always the main dish, don't think pizza appetizers, and even in many fancier restaurants may be available, and when it is, it will be ordered by at least 30% of the diners, the Neapolitans love it so much. However, as a visitor, you will want to have your pizza in a pizzeria. The oldest and most traditional is da Michele, really super, you will need to take a number and wait, only pizza margarita and marinara are available on the menu. Almost across the street is Trianon, much larger, but also excellent, and with more selection if you become jaded. They offer, although I don't think that it's particularly popular with Neapolitans, a DOC pizza with buffalo mozzarella and san marzano tomatos which I found to be very good. Outside of pizza, the best thing to have in Naples is the super fresh simply prepared whole fish, prepared in a number of ways. I personally found Mimi alla Ferrovia to be excellent for fresh fish, but best of all is da Dora, a truly wonderful restaurant. I found the whole fish at da Dora, although not the other dishes, to be even better than at La Rosetta in Rome.

It's very east to select certain facts in order to reach a personally desired conclusion. I actually prefer bistros most of the time rather than haute cuisine, although I appreciate both. But I also try to observe objectively. My observation is that haute cuisine is probably more popular and more significant today than ever before. It's the bourgeois cuisine that has really been moving in the bistro direction. There are 10 three star restaurants in Paris today, significantly more than at any previous time. When I first started going to Paris in the mid 60s there were only 5 (Maxim, Tour d'Argent, Lasserre, Laperouse, Grand Vefour). There are also today a number of up and coming candidates. These restaurants are largely full and not just with tourists, but with Parisians. Yes, there are chefs like Camdebourde and his cohorts that could do haute cuisine and have decided to do bistros instead, but there are also up and coming 3 star chefs like Yannick Aleno at the Meurice. We should all be pleased that Paris offers to each of us what we're looking for without needing to believe that it is being guided exclusively down our own personally chosen paths.

I am an admirer of Ducasse, but I think that you are far underestimating the importance of Piege and also treating Ducasse as if he were Superman. Ducasse has in fact had serious chef transition problems in his restaurants, most notably in Monte Carlo. Every chef change at ADPA has been noticed and commented on in the press and this has been true for Taillevant as well. Loufood's diary has also made clear how uniquely important Piege is to the operation.

I had an outstanding dinner at ADPA in December from the cuisine perspective, couldn't really be much better, but I very much disliked the room, in my experience there are very few who like it, and the service was seriously condescending. But the principal reason that I didn't recommend ADPA was the one mentioned by vmilor, the departure of Piege, who I believe was really key to the food operation. I haven't seen any reports yet regarding the new chef.

I have not eaten at Grand Vefour and Taillevant has changes chefs at least twice since I've last eaten there, but by repute these are among the lesser of the 3 star restaurants from a cuisine perspective. The restaurants with the most foodie interest are Ambroisie, Arpege and Pierre Gagnaire, and I certainly wouldn't recommend Pierre Gagnaire for a first 3 star experience as it is too avant garde to fully appreciate without a broader background. Arpege would be for food primarily. Ambroisie comes closest to meeting your requirements, however, an evening reservation is almost impossible for someone not known to the restaurant unless you are staying somewhere like the Plaza Athenee and utilize the concierge, lunch is relatively easy to reserve.

Every restaurant in Mt St Michel serves puffy omelettes, and some of these are atrocious mass tourist dives. Mere Poulard is a respectable and expensive restaurant, but she is long dead and the restaurant lost its Michelin star at least 10 years ago, and probably deserved to loose it long before. However, I don't believe that the omelette served even today at Mere Poulard, would qualify in the worst meal category.

At a recent disappointing dinner at Le Bernardin, I had their bouillabaisse as part of the tasting menu. One must acknowledge that the broth was described on the menu as being based on lobster, which was how it tasted, so it should not be directly compared to the deeper flavored and far more interesting fish based varieties in the Mediterannean areas. My complaint was that it tasted sweetened, which to me is a major turn-off. Without an specific horror story, I found the service which, I would once have described as the best in NY, to have declined significantly across the board, and we had a 7:30 reservation. The diners also struck me as much more of a bridge and tunnel crowd than I used to see there.

We actually stay in the Gites Ruraux, which are found throughout France, we've done it about a dozen times. Mostly, these are independent houses, and can be quite interesting, and are always good value. The major restriction is that most need to be rented on a Saturday to Saturday basis with a one week minimum, although there are weekend arrangements as well that I've never familiarized myself with. We've organized our trips to the countryside on this basis, moving frome gite to gite and useing each as a base for an area. For those not focused on swimming pools and luxury, or being in a major resort, these are much more fun and of course economical than going to a major villa rental organization like Vaccances en Compagne.

Actually, it was called Moomba, which received frequent mentions on Page Six. Quite so. Just goes to show how hip and cool I am.

Very briefly, Tan Da was opened by the former owners of a hi trendy restaurant, I believe it was called Momo, never been, in a former OTB parlor on Park and 23-24. There was a bar upstairs and you needed to be known or look right to get up there after 9-10, but downstairs was Tan Da, a serious restaurant intended to showcase Stanley Wong's talents. This guy has a major resume, I believe that he was executive chef at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong, this is actually far more impressive than being the chef at Vong. He had complete control Tan Da, and what he produced was the most flaccid fusion cuisine that one could imagine. The only thing that was good, was the house cocktail named the Wong, which I found out was actually made with ginger ale. I have to say that I thought that the Pho was also good, but this was one of the more conventional dishes. Grimes gave it a very weak one star. In fact, after the restaurant folded, it was replaced by Sage, a comfort food restaurant, I haven't been, which Grimes praised greatly in his review, saying how much better it was than Tan Da, but then also gave it one star. My bottom line is that this is an itinerant chef who must have certain characteristics that impress major chefs, but who is never successful and does not deliver in the environment of an actual restaurant.

Stanley Wong as the executive chef raises real questions. Do people remember Tan Da?? I do!

Loubet worked in Veyrat's kitchen, which I think is the important relationship. He is often referred to as a strudent of Veyrat and this is probably where he developed his interest in herbs. Robert Brown wrote a quite negative review of this restaurant a couple of years ago.

We had dinner at La Feniere once a few years ago and found the Mediterannean accented cuisine of Reine Samut to be truly excellent, I remember well a bass with fava beans. Of equal interest was the outstanding and very moderately priced wine list. They had all of the single vineyard Guigal Cote Roties for 1989 and 1990 for 1200 francs, for those who don't remember, well under $200, including of course tax and service. We ordered the 1990 La Mouline, truly outstanding, and Guy Samut came over to our table asking if we were the people that ordered the great wine. He was actually quite pleasant and funny, stating that "Guigal is a god".

I stand by my statement that it is hypertrendy, but I meant that in the sense of trend setting, not trend following; however, the proof is what's on the plate, hypertrendy food. Perhaps after 4+ years it is now not quite as shocking as when the restaurant first opened. Note that my characterization is not intended in any way as a criticism of the restaurant. With regard to Barbot's comment re "normal restaurant", I can't imagine any French chef saying anything different, it is a response that inevitably will result out of the French cultural mindset. Journalistically, you need to dig deeper to get at the essence of L'Astrance which is not just a normal restaurant serving particularly good food. For example, the restaurant appears to be Adria influenced, is this direct or indirect, what has been the level of his contact with El Bulli? Is he willing to admit it? I assume that you will agree that El Bulli is hypertrendy. If not, we have an issue of sematics as well.

Firstly, Wells is clearly talking about residents of Paris, not us visitors, who clearly operate on a different set of principles away from home than we would on our home territories. She is trying to make a point about the emerging ephemeral nature of trendiness in Paris, but unfortunately uses Hiramatsu as an example. She describes Hiramatsu as being not so good, and also as having treated its customers horribly when it was in vogue. It appears to me that its fall from grace is well deserved and not to be blamed on the fickleness of the Parisians. What she has done is tacked-on an irrelevant argument, in an attempt to spice-up her review of this restaurant, and we have been focusing on this argument rather than on the actual review. If she really wanted to make the argument, she should have named a number of restaurants and shown how they make her case. There are certainly counter examples, Astrance, serving hypertrendy food, has been going strong for about 4 years and is still the most difficult reservation in Paris. Restaurants have always been a Darwinian enterprise, independent of geography. Finally, I have been visiting Paris for more years than I care to count and there has always been the restaurant of the moment, the small place with the new young chef, where it is impossible to make a reservation. I don't see this as anything fundamentally new.