Lucas Carton → Alain Senderens

[Pan]

Hi Pan, yep, they shoved me around too - being an American girl and all. Definitely not as much were I a guy, but yes. Especially since I started in pastry and pastry kitchens tend to be smaller - you get a lot of people rushing around, working elbow to elbow, fridge doors and cabinets at everyone's knee-level and there's bound to be some - even polite - pushing aside. What's crossing the line for me is any kind of deliberate physical contact that can't even be remotely masked as par for the course in working in a close environment.

I'm understanding this a little better.

[Bux]

I'm glad Lou said it. It's France and it's a restaurant kitchen. I've heard all sorts of stories, even about French restaurants in NY. Personally, I don't approve, but if you want the experience, you'll put up with it. If you want to be treated with respect from the start, try the army.

[BigboyDan]

The French push each other around instead of actually hitting each other. The all-out kitchen fights that I've seen happened here in the US. Also, a woman should consider herself lucky to have the chance (this is good) to work in a France three, twenty-five years ago, no way. Learning to handle abuse will be a valuable part of your resume.

Remember, you can leave France; they, never.

[edm]

Of course we can ! Here i am in Canada, a tiny bit frustrated though :

shopping for good stuff is outrageously expensive, and turns out to be something between a marathon and a pilgrimage !

Yeah, most michelin-starred restaurants are tough working environments.

I remember being 20 and starting in a good place, and my mom, because of my harsh stories, would end up dreaming about me slaughtering the chef with a boning knife !

Take what's acceptable, but do not let them become too personal. Being insulted is beyond the acceptable. And eh, you know, they're not used to have people answering back. So if one day you do, choose your words, show some wit and make it clear you're here to work hard, not to be treated like shit !

I've always tried to keep my mouth shut, but at times exploded verbally, and made it clear this was the last time i heard "abruti" or "idiot". They've always been surprised, speachless for a few seconds but got the message. Although sometimes that's enough to loose your job.

The less people accept that shit, the less they'll do it. THEY NEED STAGIAIRES ! (whatever they can say about it). Someone's gotta peel those grapes, debone those pig trotters and clean those bones to make stocks !

An important thing though :

when you'll look back at your painful experience, you'll also realise how much you've learned.

My hardest job was in Avignon, a 1 star, as a cdp viandes. Stayed a summer season, held on to it. Gained a passion for top produce and more skills than any other job since.

Good luck from Vancouver !

Damn, i miss those tough but passionate chefs !

[Louisa Chu]

Being insulted is beyond the acceptable. And eh, you know, they're not used to have people answering back. So if one day you do, choose your words, show some wit and make it clear you're here to work hard, not to be treated like shit !

I've always tried to keep my mouth shut, but at times exploded verbally, and made it clear this was the last time i heard "abruti" or "idiot". They've always been surprised, speachless for a few seconds but got the message. Although sometimes that's enough to loose your job.

The less people accept that shit, the less they'll do it. THEY NEED STAGIAIRES ! (whatever they can say about it). Someone's gotta peel those grapes, debone those pig trotters and clean those bones to make stocks !

edm, I'm sorry but personal insults are completely acceptable - in this context. But again, it depends on who it's coming from. If it's your executive chef - you keep your mouth shut and take it - everyone does - even the sous-chefs. But if it's your sous-chefs on down, you can talk back to some degree. Oh man, you just have to know your kitchen! And at the three-star level, they have people around the world begging to be stagiaires - they might like certain stagiaires, but they don't need them necessarily, and they certainly don't need a troublemaking stagiaire. If one cannot work without upsetting the flow of the kitchen - like most jobs - you're outta there. Service is no time to be making a social statement.

[seanw]

sure, that's your choice !

every kitchen is different. And if you fucked up, well... no excuses.

But there are limits. Stagiaires shouldnt be treated like shit. For many reasons, et a smart chef should understand that :

there's a lack of staff in France,

You gotta pass on that passion and that love,

you sometimes gotta take some time with an employee to explain a few things.

Yelling and bitching at someone and going away isnt likely to serve both the employee and the chef's interests.

Look at a chef like Veyrat. I wasnt allowed to have trainees for a couple of years (if i recall correctly), because he was going nuts on stagiaires... He got a bad rap amongst professionals, as well as amongst lycees hoteliers ( to a certain extent).

Who wants to work 100 hours a week, be insulted all day, eat your staff meal in 2 mn (gone off produce will do) on the line and have a shithole as your staff accomodation ?

Anyone ? Well, maybe you'd still get spanish chefs. It's amazing how much crap they can put up with !

I got insulted too. I took it, most of the time. But i was 18, new to the job and had alot to learn (still have !).

Your choice anyways !

Bonne continuation.

[Louisa Chu]

Sean, sorry, but there's no lack of staff in France! The school's are cranking them out - so much so that it's almost impossible for an American to legally work in France.

You worked for Veyrat? That's so cool! What did you do? Can't wait to see his stuff someday - and what he's going to be like in Paris.

And you got shithole accomodations? Lucky.

[patrick]

Oscubic,

Great to hear your staging at Lucas Carton. I was a stagiare at Lucas Carton in 1998 and i believe a number of the staff from '98 are still in the kitchen.

M. Senderens kitchen is a fantastic learning ground and they will rotate you around the sections regularly. I worked on the Amuse-bouche, garnish, hot starters, meat, pastry and bread/chocolate sections during my time there. I agree about the staff meal..it certainly made the difference when you are working 16 hour days.

The cdp's and sous chefs are defienetly strict but they were all well travelled and i learnt alot from them. As for shoving, shouting etc..well..i got it in the first few weeks, but nothing unreasonable. Once the senior chefs have noticed your work and willing attitude everything should settle down. I did find though that the chef, sous chefs will push talented juniors hard, but this will be rewarded.

If you can mange to eat in the dining room, then i strongly recommend it. On the last night of my stage i ate at Lucas Carton and was treated to many extra courses..the food is stunning and the recommended wines are mind blowing!

I'm sure you have found Alain Senderens to be extremely passionate about his work..i found him a true inspiration...dishes such as Canard Apicius and Homard a'la vanille are still fresh in my memory!

During my time there i was fortunate to be sent on various errands, including visiting the Maison d'izreal close to Chatelat...if you can, pop down for a visit..they stock some fantastic spices, herbs and exotic aromatic/seasonings.

I will try to find the exact address, but i'm sure other board members will know of it too.

Good luck with your stage..i would be very interested to hear of the dishes you have been preparing and how the stage is going.

[Bux]

Is this it?

gastronomie: produits exotiques

Izrael

30 RUE FRANCOIS MIRON

75004 PARIS

01 42 72 66 23

01 42 72 86 32 fax

Les Pages Jaunes--The French Yellow Pages online is a source you should know, although as with most search engines, correct spelling is essential.

[patrick]

Bux

Yes, this is the address... thanks...and thank you for the info on Les Pages Jaune

[admajoremgloriam]

After much thinking, at least as much browsing through the different three-star restaurants websites and after reading some distinguished eaters' reports, I decided to go and have lunch at Lucas Carton as my first experience in a three stars. As a bit of background, I should say that I am 23, French, and have tried many restaurants over the years and about two years ago it became a true passion and I started going to one and two-star restaurants as often as I can. Actually, it all started in Yamazato restaurant in Amsterdam but that’s another story.

I had sky high expectations for this first meal, so high in fact that I half expected to be disappointed. To clear the suspense, I was not, I was blown away, this was one of the three best meals in my life (the other two being in my family and in Yamazato).

This is such a beautiful and calm place. It figures that one should have to cross two sets of doors before entering the restaurant. Something like a decontamination room. I was seated on the left, on one of the purple sofas, at a very nice table, probably designed for single diners. And here it began:

As an aperitif I ordered the Manzanilla sherry, intrigued by a sherry announced as “salty” or even having a sea shore feeling. I know that in single malts but have never seen it in a sherry. Also, the belon-jabugo-sherry combination was one of the classical, signature ones according to the website, though not exactly in this form.

The sherry was perfect and a very interesting match both with the soft textured belon oyster and the more rigid squid, highlighting the sweetness in the squid and the nut in the oyster. It was a match in which putting two ingredients with a strong common flavour (sea salt) face to face made all the subtleties of each other come out in full light.

The jabugo ham was a nice idea as well but I think would have benefited from not being on a toast and being served warm, which is the way it is supposed to be done. A couple of shavings on the side would have been nicer, as the bread took away from it without giving it anything else than some not really needed structure.

As a starter I obviously went for the foie gras au chou as it is a classical creation of Senderens which has started at least one famous and successful carrer in eating.

A fantastic dish, perfect association. There are so many contrasts in restaurants today that people seem to have lost the idea that contrast is easy whereas a true association is where real culinary pleasure lies. Contrast is putting mango in a cabbage salad. It will only use the sweetness of one of the ingredients to flatter one’s palate and make the other one seem original. A true association, like Senderens’, is a dish where both ingredients reply to each other. The soft foie is evidenced by the crunchy cabbage but the cabbage is revealed as a noble ingredient by its proximity to the foie. Both are wrapped together in a symbiotic manner. And the cabbage is outside, no bragging here, you cannot see the foie. To me this is very interesting, it shows that the chef does not try to impress using chip tricks and fancy displays, you have to come to the dish for it to reveal itself in all its glory.

The Jurançon was a fine match, just by smelling it while eating the starter one could lengthen the taste of the foie for a full minute. However, the wine was so strong and original in taste that I had some trouble getting my palate out of its sweet, siren-like tail and it lasted well into my main dish, despite my efforts to Chateldon it out of taste (sorry if you cannot use a trademark for a verb).

The main dish was probably the least interesting one, though it was still one of the very best ducks I’ve had. For pieces of perfectly roséed duck served with glazed carrots and some unidentified green leaves (I meant to ask but forgot, maybe spinach) and a little ‘aumonière’ of duck ‘abats’ on the side. This dish was matched with a domaine de Trevallon (half cabernet half shiraz). A dish I enjoyed a lot but not as much as I normally would have because of the shock of the starter. I remember that the carrots were particularly interesting though, because they were glazed in a way that made their colour stand out and melted in your mouth revealing a taste of carrot so perfect that it cannot be achieved without a lot of work. What I mean by that is that I have often noticed that a taste, to be perfectly clear, has to be put in perspective and that there is a lot of hard work in making ingredients taste their best while appearing simple. Again, this is not show-off cuisine at all.

By then, I had already had the chance to talk to the sommelier for a good half hour and since I felt like eating some cheese and especially some comté he offered to have me taste some Cote du Jura (20% savagnin, 80% chardonnay). Then again, a perfect match, the lighter wine being soft on a 1999 comté that would probably have been overshadowed by a young vin jaune.

For dessert, a dacquoise with citron confit and ginger ice cream. A nice dessert but one that became truly great with the paired wine. This dessert without the wine is meaningless. This was true of every dish of the meal actually, except for the duck (the only one for which they had a choice of matching wines actually). The sommelier tried to get me to guess the wine and I managed all right, with a lot of help from him when I was going astray. I t wa a moscatello de montalcino and made me understand fully what the sommelier meant when he said they were often building the dish from the wine rather then looking for a wine to match the dish. This dessert was fabulous taken as a whole, but what was on the plate was clearly there to allow the wine to shine at full potential. And it was a star. Actually, this was also the most expensive one I had (30 euros).

I ended up paying 210 euros, not regretting one euro of it, whereas in brasseries and small restaurants I often do regret paying 20 for a dish not worth 3 in my mind.

All the wines were refilled (though in quite different quantities depending on the person doing it) except for the dessert one because the sommelier had given me a really huge glass.

Another consideration: the level of service was just perfect. Not a single mistake. The waiters were nowhere to be seen and appeared out of nowhere the moment I wanted to get up or had emptied my glass. The very opposite of what you so often see in restaurants full of waiters walking fast and never bringing you anything you ask for. It seems you now have to pay 200 euros to be able to have really good service.

I will post this report on the board I more usually se but since your two contributions here have helped me so much in making my choices I felt it was appropriate to post here first. Thanks again!

I will try a few other three stars at lunch soon (Gagnaire or Véfour, probably) but frankly I do not see how I could fairly compare them when they do not have this wine-dish matching system. So now I’m torn apart between returning to Carton and trying some other place. There are worse dilemmas!

I would also find it interesting to find out which dishes are created "from" a wine, with its characteristics in mind (the dacquoise), and which are crafted on their own, and then matched with a wine (clearly the case of the foie gras). I believe it would then appear that the latter category is mostly constituted by the more recent dishes, therfore showing some kind of radicalization in Senderens' approach to pairing, a shift of power of kind.

[Bux]

Thank you for that report. I found it fascinating for what it told me about the restaurant, about you, but most of all for the universal issues you raise and points you made. You have a good palate and approach food with great passion and intellect for a 23 year old. I gather from your comment that one of the best three meals of your life was in your famiy, that you were raised on good food. I ate well as a child, but food was never subject to such discriminating thought as my wife and I now give to a meal.

[pedro]

As an aperitif I ordered the Manzanilla sherry, intrigued by a sherry announced as “salty” or even having a sea shore feeling.

Manzanilla is a type of wine, made from the same variety than Fino (Palomino), but instead of being made in Jerez, where Fino comes from, it's made in Sanlucar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María, both towns by the sea. As Fino, it's a biological aged wine. Both Fino and Manzanilla, pertain to the same D.O..

And yes, at its best, Manzanilla can display subtle salty flavors.

PS: Good post.

Edited November 29, 2003 by pedro (log)

[Bux]

Manzanillas are not vintage dated and unfortunately, are really best when fresh. A good fresh bottle of manzanilla may be among the best buys in the world. They may also be one of the least appreciated wines. I suppose that keeps the price down. Outside of Andalucia, they don't seem to be all that popular even in Spain.

[pedro]

Manzanillas are not vintage dated and unfortunately, are really best when fresh.

That's starting to change, Bux. Now you can find some Manzanillas that indicate the date when they were bottled, i.e., Barbadillo Saca de Primavera (Winter retrieval, meaning that the wine was extracted from the barrel).

And you're right, these wines from Jerez are a total bargain. Not only Manzanillas and Finos, but the rest of Andalusian Vinos Generosos, like Olorosos, Amontillados, Pedro Ximenez (PX), Palos Cortado, ... .

[admajoremgloriam]

Thanks for telling me you enjoyed the post! The Manzanilla was a great discovery and I am currently looking into places in Paris where one can buy some bottles of it. The one they served me was "El Rocio, Gonzalez Byass", a large producer from what I have looked up on the internet but it did not seem to interfere with quality on this wine.

[pedro]

Gonzalez Byass is a large producer, but also produces great wines. Jerez producers often get their largest part (inmense part, I'd say) from products not specially good, as cheap brandy and so, but they still produce authentic treasures in a much more reduced scale.

Just guessing here, but have you tried Lavinia to get some of these wines?.

[admajoremgloriam]

I will try Lavinia, thank you for the advice (I always seem to think rare wines and small producers can be found in small shops only, whereas I know, but keep forgetting, that it is the other way around and that small shops are often full of the same few wines while large shops can offer much more). Other places I will check include la grande épicerie du Bon Marché and Bellota-Bellota. Looking for Lavinia's catalogue (which I seem to have misplaced) I found La Maison du Whisky's and they have one: Manzanilla Senorita, Valdespino. Any good?

Edited November 30, 2003 by admajoremgloriam (log)

[paulbrussel]

I will try a few other three stars at lunch soon (Gagnaire or Véfour, probably) but frankly I do not see how I could fairly compare them when they do not have this wine-dish matching system.

Thank you very much for your interesting report!

That makes me curious to read the coming reports on Pierre Gagnaire and Guy Martin.

(In a way, I don't think at the top I can compare - in my view all the chefs have their own personalities, and meals are quite different. The only very rough distinction I make myself is between classic cuisines and innovative / creative cuisines. Nevertheless, as is said quite often here on the board: PG doesn't cook to match with wines. On the other hand: Alain Dutournier, who is not mentioned by you, is well known for his outstanding wine list.)

[luismi]

I have a reservation there for dinner next week with my wife and wanted to ask for your comments about the place, the food, the decor and whether it was worth it or not.

I have read great things about the place and am really looking forward to eating there as my Paris-great-dining-experience. I had dinner at Lasserre many years ago and loved it too, is Lucas Carton as good as Lasserre?

L

Edited November 21, 2004 by luismi (log)

[BigboyDan]

I have a reservation there for dinner next week with my wife and wanted to ask for your comments about the place, the food, the decor and whether it was worth it or not.

I have read great things about the place and am really looking forward to eating there as my Paris-great-dining-experience.  I had dinner at Lasserre many years ago and loved it too, is Lucas Carton as good as Lasserre?

L

←

Yes.

D

[fresh_a]

As good as Lasserre as in that they are both vastly overrated.

[patrick]

Although i haven't eaten at Lucas Carton for a few years, i can definetly reccommend it based on past experience of eating and working there. The food and wine marriages are a must and take dishes to a new dimension! I can personally vouch for the vanilla lobster, any foie gras dish, the red mullet in salt crust, Canard Apicius, chocolate coulant, poached quince with Tokaji, and peppermint meringue with liquorice ice cream.

The decor is grand, in the art nouveau style with plenty of marjorelle wood and mirrors. Service is or at least was very professional and there was an army of chef de rang and commis waiters. The wine list is one of Senderens great passions and there are some fantastic options. I believe they still offer a number of dishes served in two parts with two different complimenting wines or champagne.

As for value and price...it was and still is extremely expensive...probably around 300 - 400 euros pp. The lunch menu which i think is 76 euros is definetly well worth it. The website www.lucascarton.com is also worth a look.

It would be interesting to know how Lucas Carton is fairing after about 20 years in the same site.

IMO...definetly a gastronomique temple to experience

[DCMark]

I have been lucky enough to eat at both and LC is better than Lassere, of course the roof does not open.

My father and I had impecible service there in 2000 and a wonderful meal.

[fresh_a]

What is a "gastronomic temple to experience"? Anything like a "temple to gastronomic experience"?