julot-les-pinceaux

I am casting yet another ballot for Les Elysées after yet another amazing lunch there. Chef Briffard is one of the four of five best chefs in Paris, and definitely the most affordable among the best. See this amazing 155eur lunch, with the many dishes you can see here, including the onion and truffle tart, three great glasses of wine (Meursault 2006 from Alain Gras, Volnay 1998, Lillet), water and coffee. Of course the room, setting and hotel are not on par with le bristol or les Ambassadeurs -- but that's good news for us food and wine lovers, since that means the prices are what they are. Talking with him, I was impressed by the serenity of Chef Briffard. He is a chef always in the kitchen, chopping vegetables (and truffle) himself and finalising every delicate cooking operation himself. But he does not seem in pain, restless, tormented or sad like the other chefs I know who are/were that scrupulous -- eg Loiseau, Guichard, Girardet, Pacaud, even Passard. There's something quiet and yet on the move, searching about him. He considers himsel as not fully mature yet, and yet his style of cooking reminds me of some great conductors of the past, able to achieve both an incredible of detail and techniques and a sense of unity and beauty. Each dish is a wonder of architecture, fine tuning and technique mastering, as is the meal in its entirety. I think that "food nerd" would best qualify the place, as well as some of its regulars. While Pacaud or Loiseau seemed to play their entier life with each dish, Briffard is the kind of guy who stays home on sat night, experimenting and practicing. You can tell that, while never overconfident and always aware of the risk taken with each plate sent, he finds daily and sustained pleasure in his work.

Cosi has nothing to do with the NY chain -- in terms of the quality of what you eat there (don't know about possible other links). Their bread/pizza is baked throughout the day in their wood oven, so when you get a sanwich there it is always warm and "juicy". Now the idea of treating it as a bread that keeps and that you can eat cold sounds plain absurd to me. It is pizza, only good when still warm, but the stuffing does not cook with the dough. And their ingredients are quite decent, their prices gentle and their wines pleasant. That's a case where a 7eur, 1O min visit is better than a long review.

The bar at Senderens' (le Passage). BE (boulangépicier by Ducasse) with their 15eur coquillettes aux truffes (and cheaper fancy sandwiches). Some small chinese/vietnamese such as Pho 14 avenue de Choisy or Thao Ly rue Berthelot (super budget, delicious). Cosi rue de Seine (nothing to do food wise with the NY chain). Sushis at Okame, next to the place des Ternes. Bellota sandwiches at Lafayette Gourmet, or Le Bon Marché. John, do you ever sleep?

That is an awesome schedule. The only thing is: is it not too much? God knows I love all the restaurants you selected but isn't there a risk that exceptional experiences become less exceptional with that kind of abundance? And, on a more personal and maybe inappropriate note, aren't you overdoing it a bit? I mean, your girlfriend had better be a serious foodie to not be overwhelmed by that plan. Anyway, Les Crayeres sounds like an ideal place to propose and spend the night. My favourite low key brasserie is La Rotonde but obviously Boffinger is fancier, le café de la Paix even more so. Chez Denise after les Elysées sounds like something for very strong stomachs. I would encourage random attitude for all the spots in your schedule where you haven't figured things out. You may find picnics in March a bit optimistic. Maybe the gods will be with you.

Le Bristol is great, especially the poached poularde. In my opinion though, the lunch menu is not worth it. It is quite good but still 90eur and nowhere near the delights of the regular menu/à la carte such as the cinnamon sweetbread or the merlan. Also it used to have the best pastry chef in town (Gilles Marchal) but they replaced him. Pastry still very good, but not standard-setting as it used to be. Robyn, I understand you just want a meal to enjoy -- But you don't mind that I am interested in the metaphysics of fine dining, do you? Re: Winkler, one of the reasons I like it is that I don't believe that many restaurants out there offer that kind of archetypical nouvelle cuisine. L'Ambroisie and l'Arpège are the closest in Paris, probably, as they equally dare offering the simplest dishes and make them incredible. Some dishes at Joël Robuchon, too, like sweetbread or fried merlan. Also worth taking the TGV to Montbard and have Bernard Loiseau's "classiques" in Saulieu (esp. the steamed poularde in truffle season, the red wine sauce Sandre, and the Saint Honoré as a dessert). Roellinger in Cancale and Guérard in Eugénie-les-bains are obviously even further.

Exactly. Food is always excellent at l'Ambroisie, but it is not always orgasmic. But in terms of consistency of the whole experience, as I said, Taillevent, Rostang or Savoy beat l'Ambroisie or l'Arpège. Or le Meurice. Or many others, really. I disagree that this is inacceptable even if I regret that it is so. When you take a trip, go to the theater, to a concert, those are all costly events and you know that there is always a significant chance that the experience will be bad or simply not worth it. The way I see things, you consider spending that kind of money in food because you expect a life-enriching experience. And, alas, there is no way to guarantee that. No quality criteria suffice here. Top restaurants, especially these, are human enterprises, one of the last fields of human activity where craftmanship remains, where industry does not rule. No opinion on Gagnaire's Gaya but I wholeheartedly support Senderens (please see my blog for more reading on those restaurants). Please note, however, that lunch will not save you money there, as there is no lunch menu.

A word to mention Pichard, rue Cambronne, and his oven on the sidewalk during the galette season. Go around 5pm and you'll have the galette warm out of the oven. Highly recommended.

Of course not: it's Ducasse.

Yum. There is a also a nice and long report on the restaurant with great picturs in the last Trois Etoiles.

Actually, I would make a distinction betwen high end and more casual dining. Basically, to pick a good pizza (e.g. Luna Rosso in Romainville), I only need to know it is one. Or once you have characterised the "bistronomique" category, it is enough to say that La Regalade is the model and still one of the best. But anyone who intends to spend 400eur on a meal is entitled to more information than a binary (or even bidecimal) characterisation, methinks. High end dining is not (anymore?) standardised -- today's top restaurants thrive to offer singular experience, not only (not at all?) excellent ones. You wouldn't go to a six hours opera without some preparatory work -- knowing the libretto, listening to some CDs, maybe some additional reading. Why would you head to a more expensive, three hour meal without appropriate preparation? In that spirit, the difference between reading the whole review or the punch line is often, anyway marginal -- that's the whole concept with the whole Figaroscope team, that a restaurant review should not take you more than five seconds to read, the ultra star Simon being the "exception" with his "temps de lecture" indication in his croque note. You would expect Ribaud to be an antidote to that sad and ridiculous tendency (after all, if you only take two minutes to pick the place where you will spend beaucoup $ and plenty of time, you know who to blame if you don't like it). But when does he ever talk about the actual restaurant rather than some side stories?

I would second the idea that l'Ambroisie and l'Arpège just do the best food on earth, both based on the oldest wisdom: getting the best of exceptional ingredients. But those restaurants are extremly expensive, as they are reaching for the sky, they only reach most of the time. At those prices, disappointments are brutal and they happen something like every third time. Also, restaurants are not only about the best possible food, and, in my opinion, the setting is quite unexciting in both restaurants. Many people enjoy top restaurants under the angle of the "art-de-vivre" and indeed restaurants in France are part of culture, not only agri-culture. So some restaurants have a way of making you feel special, of creating the moment for you and I would totally rank Savoy and Taillevent as the best in that regards. Highest luxury is also something that is worth mentioning and part of that cultural experience, and then Le Meurice and les Ambassadeurs are probably the best in that category. Then again culture cannot be static and for some people it is particularly important to focus on the way it is changing and moving and surprising. Gagnaire in that regard has unquestioned leadership, while les Magnolias (to which I have not been) have a nice reputation on this and other boards. And going back to food love but spending a bit less money, Senderens and les Elysées are my personal picks -- that's where I would go if I only had one meal in Paris and "only" 200 eur per person or even less. To be fair, I haven't been to Ledoyen yet, but I intend to fix that soon, and I am heading for les Ambassadeurs at the end of the month (haven't been earlier cos, as suggested in the above post, didn't like Piège's cuisine when it was labelled Ducasse's).

Ducasse, le Grand Véfour. Actually, to echo a recent thread, every meal I had there were always plain mediocre foodwise.

It's true that mediocre meals are not really exciting to write about. But on the other hand, in my experience, balanced reviews are not exciting to read, and even when they are balanced, people's memory tend to turn them into unbalanced ones, only remembering the punch line. You take time to explore what the specificity of a restaurant, who it might please, how it is best enjoyed, and then all many readers want to hear is like "so good or bad? how many stars? out of 20? Is it worth it?". I wrote a long review of l'Astrance in which I considered the restaurant and it style in detail, explaining the kind of experience it offers and the kind of food it makes. In four pages, one sentence was about how this is not a restaurant I want to go back to and that is all everyone remembers.

Also the boulangerie in the rue des deux ponts is quite good. Their pain au chocolat in particular is very perfect, airy but tasty, a nice contrast of textures between the crust and the inside. Really great, actually. Not to mention the most adventurous may cross the bridges through the ile de la cité and reach for the Maubert jungle.

End of this story, Meneau back from the deads. On dec 18th, the appalate court cancelled the first instance decision: Meneau is officially not bankrupt anymore, officially open, and officially reinscribed in the 2008 Michelin.

I feel that way too. In many restaurants, first courses are exciting and mains not nearly as much. I wonder why that is, but I often thought that the mandatory structure of roast+vegetables had still some pregnance which maybe explained that.

I agree with that. Fresh, quality ingredients and precise cooking are making their way in the American culture, but reasonable portions still have to. Except of course in Connecticut.

I guess there's only one way to keep a place secret then: it should not be too good. Though even that did not work wiht Padova and a number of other places.

We're all flabbergasted by the downgrading of the Michelin site, but, in my case, it reached its probable objective: I bought the book again. Does anyone know whether those search features we all miss are available on the Michelin GPS?

Only 130kg exchanged at the third Lalbenque market of the season (350 last year). Yet prices remained acceptable, between 400 and 700 (wholesale for professional) and actually a tad lower than last year. The season has been bad for veggies, then for mushrooms, then for white truffle, and no miracle happened for black truffle alas. It is surprising that prices were not higher given the volumes, that said. Another thing that this number remind us of, is that great truffles specialists are not only good at cooking them; they are very good at buying them. Obviously it is easier to generously shave 40g of truffle on a dish when you pay 400e/kg for it than when you pay 1000€, as we mere mortals do. Still, not sure that it is the good year to have the Feuilleté Belle Humeur at l'Ambroisie or the truffle menu at Rostang.

I know we usually share, but I was hoping that, for this time, Racines could stay a secret for a little while. So much for unreasonable expectations.

I just said that I hated it (in a slight departure of my motto of objective and positive criticism), not that it wasn't good or amazing.

Good call. Rooms are a really special experience.

I feel less alone now. Let me come out. It is not only that the Bras experience is soulless. Its cooking is self-absorbed und inaccessible. His house is a scar on the side of the hill that feels like a funerary chamber with his raw concrete and long empty corridors. The staff is as unprofessional as it gets and the dining room feels like a sad train (with a great view). Aaahhh I feel better now. That said, I respect Bras and he has some of the best ingredients on the planet, especially meat-wise. Where can I buy the same "veau des lucs"?

As I said somewhere else, would vote against lunch menu at le Bristol or le Meurice, which I find very sub par compared to their "usual", very expensive, food. Apart from les Ambassadeurs, would strongly advocate Les Elysees and l'Arpege, who really play the game of the value menu for lunch, not compromising on taste and quality. Less exceptional food but great restaurant experiences also, offering lunch menu which is not an ersatz of their usual cooking: Savoy, Rostang. Anyone tried the lunch menu at Le Doyen? Anyone want to?