The Zero-Six Fete de la Gastronomie:

[cabrales]

Robert -- What rationale could there be for certain restaurants in France (albeit not in the majority by any means) sometimes decant white Burgundies? Is it specific to particular wines or bottle sizes?

[robert brown]

I can only think that given the magnum-size bottle at Le Louis XV, the sommelier thought the wine was still too young, but would then be ready after decanting. At Ducasse NY, the sommelier said that a 1998 Grand Cru or Premier Cru Chablis was ready, and it was. But he didn't decant it. (I'll check at home which one it was and report back to Steve and others).Decanting good white Burgundy seems like such a rare event. In my experience it must be one in a thousand.

[Steve Plotnicki]

I decant white Burgundy all of the time. Especially Grand and Premier Cru with a little age on them. First of all, lots of them have Burgundy stink and it blows off. Second, I find that a 17 year old Chevalier Montrachet often needs a good 30 minutes to an hour of air to open up. As for the wine getting to room temperature, I have them put the decanter in the ice bucket.

[cabrales]

Steve P -- Do you use the same decanters for white Burgundies as for red wine? What decanters are those? Also, how does one determine whether white Burgundies should be decanted, and how long they might be decanted for, if one is at home?

[Steve Plotnicki]

I'm going to post a decanting thread on the wine board.

[Jeanne Geraci]

Friedel-I have been too busy writing a thesis on Loulou (which I hope to post soon) so I haven't had time to respond here. First of all, I've been buying the Guide Gantie for years. In fact I picked up a copy of the 2001 guide in nice this past weekend in Nice. I wish the 2002 was out but, for some reason they release it late in the year.

As for Bacon, I thought lunch was fine. My foie gras was delicious, and my St. Pierre en papillote was good too, if a bit overcooked. Still, as much as I can say that I like Bacon, I also think that in many ways it is the most overrated restaurant on the coast, if not one of the most overrated in France. And this extends to their bouillabaisse as well. I tasted the broth and it was fine and rich. But it was missing the real oomph that I like in my bouiilabaisse.

I'll take Loulou any day of the week over Bacon.

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Absolutely Loulou is a better pick over Bacon. We ate at both in 2003 and the meal at Loulou was so fresh and the service so lovely. It was a lively atmosphere as well.

Bacon, on the other hand, didn't seem to have our reservation, even though I had the faxed confirmation in hand. The food was actually pretty good, though, for all the hype, the bouillabaisse, while fine, was nothing to rave about.

You can't beat the setting and the view, however.

[Jeanne Geraci]

In sports page lingo, there’s an expression “From first to worst”, invoked when a team falls completely apart between one year and the next. This is the way I now consider Restaurant Jacques Maximin after my meal last weekend with my wife, Cabrales, and Steve Plotnicki, with the reason we decided to dine there being that I felt it to be the best of the several two-star restaurants on the Cote d’Azur.

No doubt some eGullet readers, younger ones most likely, are unaware that Jacques Maximin was one of the most revered chefs in France during the 1970s and 1980s when he was the chef of Restaurant Chanteclair in Nice’s Hotel Negresco. Since he left there, his career has been plagued by failed ventures and personal demons. In fact, I recently compared him on this site to David Bouley, though their exact circumstances are not really comparable. By opening his own restaurant (filled with some good works of Nicois artists and decorated in good Provencal taste) on his residential property in Vence in the mid-1990s, he again was trying to strike out on his own. It was clear from the beginning that this was not an attempt to become a three-star chef or even to regain the 19/20 Gault-Millau rating he used to have in Nice. The prices he charged were not high (at first) and the dishes he made were often well-conceived, but almost never virtuoso-like or luxurious. In fact, he has always relied on the “menu” format, offering three or four at every meal and just a handful of a la carte dishes such as the ones the four of us had during our visit.

I sensed trouble before we arrived. Madame Maximin first refused my wish to bring my own wine, not unusual in and of itself, but it was the offensive “how dare you ask” tone in which she said I could not. Then on the morning of our dinner, a woman from the restaurant woke us up at 09:11 to ask if we would be a party of three or four. Upon arrival at the restaurant, the parking attendant was “hors combat”, nowhere to be seen. Then en route to our table, I saw Maximin standing on the steps to the kitchen watching us walk by. When I asked him how he was, he gave me a cold stare and said nothing.

Once at our table, we met consistently with the “politess” and flexibility of a military mess hall. Madame Maximin almost seemed to delight in frustrating us at every turn as we tried to compose an interesting meal by seeing if we could take dishes from one menu and combine them with those on another menu, or order an a la carte dish along with menu ones. When we wanted to order one duck that was meant for two for the four of us so that we could try another dish, she made us order two ducks without giving us the chance to say that we would not mind if we were served only two legs. The sommelier, a young and obviously green one, even though he was working from a list barely appropriate for a local bistro, didn’t seem to know the wines very well, and when I told him clearly that our bottle of red Burgundy had become “chambre” (room temperature) and to make it cooler, he decanted and poured it instead.

Our food was all over the lot in terms of quality. (See Cabrale’s post above for the exact names and composition) The “amuse-bouche” was a small portion of a duck terrine en gelee served in a tiny ”ramequin” which as Steve aptly said was a use of the “amuse-bouche” to rid the larder of leftovers as opposed to give a sense of anticipation as to what is to follow. The eggs with asparagus was excellent, (but extremely overpriced at about $90 for our four half-portions), each aspect of it, such as the tiny pieces of tomato, having an individual taste of its own. Yet, the scallops in the salad of St. Jacques a la Catalan were clearly a day or two old. Finally, our duck service of the aiguillettes was seriously marred by slices that were a good distance beyond the “rose” that we asked for. Had I not seen Maximin in the flesh, I would have thought he took the night off and that some “stagier” had cooked the ducks.

As I left, Madame Maximin and two waitresses were seated in the reception area waiting patiently for me, the last to leave. I suddenly recalled that Maximin had named his outdoor dining area “Terrasse Alain Chapel”. The potent remark to Madame Maximin would have been that the legendary chef would never have allowed an experience like ours to have ever taken place in his restaurant. As the four of us reassembled at Steve’s car, I told the other three that all I did was say a quick “bonne nuit” without stopping. Cabrales said that all of our perfunctory farewells were an adequate showing of disapproval, and Steve felt that the staff knew English well enough to have certainly heard some our negative comments during the meal. My wife did give a slight benefit of the doubt saying that Maximin may try harder during the high season. Unfortunately our bill of 650 Euros would be the same regardless.

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Robert,

Wow - that was like reading a replay of our own horrid night. Had I been part of e-gullet back then, we may never have gone there for the first time in 2003. But, as I had said, that night was magical (hence the mistaken desire for a repeat experience_- interesting food presented with care (although the chocolate eggplant was a little nauseating). The service had also been lovely. I guess they don't last long working for Madame.