Mirazur

[robert brown]

It was in the late 1980s that the Guide Gault & Millau began trumpeting the culinary talents of the young chef Jacques Chibois, who was then in charge of the cuisine at the Royal Gray restaurant in the Gray Albion Hotel in Cannes. I was fortunate to have a lunch there in the early 1990s, and I have always remembered the meal as being one of the most light and effervescent ones I had ever had. Soon thereafter, Chibois disappeared for what seems like close to three years as he looked for a suitable spot for his own hotel-restaurant. The result is the Bastide Saint-Antoine on the outskirts of Grasse where the kitchen has remained a two-star one for close to ten years. My three meals there have never been bad, nor have they been as good as the one I had at the Royal Gray. While a few dishes pleased me, overall I have never sensed the excitement and the brilliance of my first Chibois meal in Cannes. In fact, I find visiting the Bastide a rather cold and not-embracing experience. Thus, it was with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity that my wife and I went the other evening to Menton to have dinner at the recently opened “Mirazur”, which bills itself as “Le Bistro Contemporain de Jacques Chibois”.

We arrived at Mirazur from Italy by way of the upper road from Ventimiglia, as opposed to either the continuation of the coast road or the Menton exit of the Autoroute. No sooner had we passed the now-abandoned border crossing at Menton were we at the restaurant parking lot. I estimated that Chibois’ restaurant was French by about 10 yards. Formerly a “bar de la frontiere” that also was called “Mirazur”, the two-level white concrete structure appeared to be 1970’s Le Corbusier “brut”. Its situation, however, is anything but. From its perch high above the Mediterranean, the diners view the lush vegetation, typified by palm and cypress trees, peculiar to the area between Ventimiglia and the border; the lights of Menton; and the coastline as far as Cap-Martin, a few miles away. Built on a slope, you can enter Mirazur either from the lower entrance where there is a bar, or from the top level where there is a large terrace that works its way around the building and an indoor dining room. When we were there, the terrace tables were all taken while the interior dining room was all but unoccupied.

Just as Mirazur virtually has one foot planted in France and the other in Italy, so does it in terms of traditional fine French dining and the international style of new restauration. In the mode of most of today’s new restaurants, Mirazur offers this summer a fixed 60 euro menu called “Tomates et Herbs Fraiches” comprised of an appetizer, fish course, meat course and a dessert. Yet, as if the restaurant had an old-fashion large kitchen brigade, Mirazur puts forth ten appetizers, a dozen main courses, and nine desserts as well as an unspecified vegetarian menu on request. Other than a few dishes that carry a supplement such as the various catches of the day that are roasted and served in olive oil (15 euros extra), each diner chooses an appetizer, main course, and dessert for 40 euros. In other respects, the restaurant is ‘ a la mode”. The wait staff is young and matter-of-fact, but well-informed when questioned.The wine list is mostly French, but with quite a few of its nearly 100 choices being Californian, Australian, Italian and New Zealand. The large majority on the list is low-to-medium priced. The range is 16 euros for a white Cotes de Provence to 160 euros for a 1998 Lynch Bages. About a dozen Champagnes and eight dessert wines are also offered, with a Cristal Roederer ’94 in magnum for 400 Euros and a half-bottle of Villa Pillo, a Vin Santo from Chianti for 80 euros leading the price brigade.

Cote d’Azur cuisine in the hands of the right chef at the right restaurant has a certain quality that I have always thought of as “light and bright”.(If I had to guess where stylish Cote d’Azur cuisine started, I would say at the Moulin de Mougins in the hands of Roger Verge more than 30 years ago.) Unlike the rustic, soulful food of some of other regions of France, great Cote d’Azur food glistens and sparkles from olive oil, fresh fish, vegetables (particularly tomatoes and zucchini) and herbs. The dishes are often conceived with a multi-color palette, shiny surfaces, and several main and secondary ingredients cobbled together in “gateaux”, “tians” “terrines” and “fondants”. Although my wife and I had a small percentage of the available dishes, the menu lists some Italian influence with beef carpaccio in pesto oil and a vegetable focaccia; polenta with olives and squid; and a risotto with shellfish, none of which we ordered.

As for what we tasted, which was the tomatoes and herb menu and two savory dishes a la carte, we had mixed results. However, there are two kinds of mixed-result meals; one that can tell you that the restaurant in question will never be better than average, and another that strongly suggests there is more interest than with what your palette has met. Mirazur definitely falls into the latter. My wife’s first dish, “Presse de Morue et Jus de Tomates Rafraichi a la Corianre, Crème Glacee a la Moutarde was served in a glass and consisted of three layers. With your spoon, you are meant to do what I call the “Adria Dive”—digging your spoon through to the bottom of the glass and lifting out all the layers: in this instance pressed codfish, tomato juice with coriander, and a cold mustard cream. It was cool and refreshing but overly sweet.

The second dish of the menu was roasted Daurade on a bed of zucchini, tomatoes and basil. It offered nothing great, but nothing offensive either. However, the best dish of the menu, if not of the evening was minced rabbit served on a peeled, de-stemmed, and unseeded tomato with a salad of coco beans and confit of tomato, a vinaigrette of tomatoes and juice of pureed chives. The flavors and contrasts of textures and ingredients were worthy of a much more expensive dish at Chibois’ flagship restaurant in Grasse. Her “menu” ended with an interesting, but not memorable dessert of a tomato gazpacho that included the juice of red fruits, goat’s milk sorbet and peppery mint.

While my wife’s dinner was a mixed affair, my smaller a la carte style menu was winning. It began with a quail served in quarters accompanied by a side of creamy celery and a salad of almonds and shallots. It was an earthy conception that went down easily. This was followed by a piece of “maigre”, a small fish similar to bar, roasted on a lemon-scented bed of wild fennel heightened with a “jus” of onion and roasted cumin. The fish was impeccably fresh and perfectly cooked and the flavors around the wild fennel perfectly matched. My meal ended with a relatively simple but clever dessert: The famous Menton lemon in four preparations--two scoops of lemon sorbet, a citrusy sour lemon cream, a confit of lemon and two long, wide strips of a lemon meringue biscuit.

My instincts tell me that we will be seeing many more of the kind of restaurant Mirazur is as upper-class, luxury dining finds itself with fewer and fewer takers: modern, casual, and offering innovative food at medium-level prices. I look forward to having at least one more meal before this summer is through. In so doing, I hope to reach a more definitive opinion as to just how satisfying it is. In my book, however, Mirazur is off to a promising start.

[Bux]

Thanks. I really enjoyed that report for your thoughts about restaurants and dining trends as well as for the information on Mirazur and Chibois. We ate at the Royal Gray many years ago. I believe it was in the mid-late eighties. Do you remember if it had one or two stars? I think it was one and I was quite conscious that it seemed expensive for a one star place. We had just begun to start traveling again after a hiatus of about a dozen years. Funds were tight and I was very aware of our budget. What I remember is a meal that consisted of inexpensive cuts of meat prepared in simple country fashion and an array of fresh flowers that must have cost more than the ingredients on the plates. The bouquets were truly memorable, but so was the food. For all it's apparent simplicity it was superb and we were impressed by the quality of the cooking. I have not spent much time in that part of Provence, but the Bastide Saint-Antoine has been on our list. I've heard mixed reports, but they've ranged from good to excellent.

Someday I may return to that part of the world and your post will serve as a consumer report on Mirazur, but right now it's abstract and your comments about modern, casual restaurants offering innovative food at medium-level prices are more interesting. I think haute cuisine has a good bit of life in it, but I agree that talented chefs, including those who already have a luxury haute cusine restaurant will be opening the sort of restaurant you describe at a faster pace. I think there's a demand and I think chefs find it a challege worthy of their time and effort. The latter may be affected by the fact that there is a demand and that there's a public ready to appreciate and support such restaurants with their mouths and their wallets. Mouths in this situation may mean eating as well as speaking, but what any creative person really wants is a bit of verbal praise for his ego and enough financial support to continue his endeavors.

My only question before I wholeheartedly endorse reporting this as a trend is to be sure it's a trend and not just that I'm finding these restaurants because I'm looking for them. Then again, if enough of us are looking for them, they'll arrive to meet the demand.

[Matthew Grant]

We had a good/interesting lunch at Mirazur although not reaching the heights of lunch at Louis XV. What a great view from the room over the ocean, especially with blue skies and waves crashing on the beach as they were.

We chose the degustation though a little bird had made the reservation for us so there were a few extras.

Standouts for me included the Langoustine in Dashi, the soup poured over the raw Langoustine at the table, local flowers on the surface adding interesting sweet and bitter flavours to the dish. Another simple dish of Garden vegetables with salad leaves and Rocket was also very good though completely reliant on good ingredients. Carpaccio of cepes with rocket salad /flowers and parmesan and balsamic also highlighted great ingredients. The smoky sauce accompanying the fish course worked very well indeed, delicate but distinct at the same time it worked with well with the fish. Less successful was a pork dish of pigs tail with mustard sauce, capers and apple salad. The jus was a little over reduced and even then carried little flavour, the pork tail itself though interesting didn’t really help the dish, it was nice and crispy but didn’t carry enough pork flavour. A pineapple sorbet with shiso jelly and la reine du pres (?) mousse was outstanding and displayed beautiful balance.

Full meal:

Shallot Cream, apple, mint, algae cream(?)

Tomato martini (a tomato jelly with wild flowers)

Smoked Mackeral with coquillage, turnip and turnip oil

Langoustine with dashi broth, local flowers

Carpaccio of cepes, rocket salad, local flowers, Parmesan and balsamic

Garden vegetables, with leaves and Parmesan

Foie Gras with beetroot and lemon

Ruccole (a local fish?) celery puree, smoked fish sauce

Pork tail, mutard sauce, capers, apple salad

Pineapple sorbet, shiso jelly, la reine du pres (?) mousse

And another dessert which I can’t really remember except that it contained a tea sorbet but, for me didn’t have enough sweetness

A good meal if a little off balance for a total meal but this was mainly caused by the extra dishes, perhaps a little over reliance on the local flowers which did add interest but were utilised in too many dishes.

[John Talbott]

Host's Note: I've moved over the existing topic on Mirazur to here and appended this by Robert Brown, June 3, 2007, from here so we'll have all the info in one spot.

Mirazur may be the closest to a culinary "buzz" in-the-vicinity restaurant in the present-day, what's happening now sense. I posted that I had a mixed experience. It's worth going to since the young Argentine chef here is being followed and has a good pedigree. I am quite certain I'll give it another go.

[Scottf]

I ate here in May, I suspect with your little birdie, and I concur with you, whilst a good meal not a great one. My impression was chef may have been trying too hard to impress. Really good ingredients particularly the gamberi (head meat amazing), cod, foie gras and mushrooms (cepes and orange caps). However main course Slow grilled simmenthal beef flunked as the texture was too chewy and it was tasteless. We were also served 5 raw vegetable dishes which was a good two too many.

In saying that next time I go to Louis XV I'll pop along for a return. I'm sure he'll improve greatly over the coming years.

[felixhirsch]

Had an interesting meal here in late September.

Compared to what I had two years ago, it was disappointing. Compared to other 1*/17p restaurants, it was pretty poor too. Service was rather hectic, outnumbered, bread was cold and dull, as was most of the food (although not cold, at least not when it wasn't supposed to be warm). Furthermore, the list of basic technical errors was rather long, and the whole menu felt a little tired, like something you have seen and eaten a couple of times before (often in better versions).

It's a shame, but if things don't change, I guess that I have to write this off my Riviera list of places to visit.

The lamb main and the pictures turned out to be very good that evening.

[glauer]

I ate there two weeks ago. Agree fully with felixhirsch. Waitstaff and the chef were quite nice. Food was much less impressive than the view. Bread was stale. Most dishes were pretty bland and the style was a little bit like last years fashion, with a bit of foam here and a bit of air there. Main course was veal, texture suggested it might have been done sous vide. They must have sucked the flavor out right with the air. Zero taste, including sauce and sides. Dessert was decidedly weird, almost as if a kid had thrown some goodies together. It consisted of chocolate truffles, chocolate shavings, something like roasted hazelnuts and some ice cream. Only thing missing was a spoon of Nutella.

This was a place I really wanted to like, but there was not a single dish that gave me any indication that bigger things could happen here.