Parisian Cuisine today

[paul o' vendange]

Restaurant choice is not so great though.

It strikes me that the places listed here that you can actually get into are designed to be part of a guessing game as to which country you're in. Not a single bistro that the French would go to in search of their own familiar cuisine.

Russ Parsons once wrote (in these pages I believe) of

...the growing uniformity I find in restaurants around the world. It gets to the point that I sometimes can't tell which city I'm in - Paris, London, Alba, LA? Roughly the same ingredients prepared in roughly the same way."

That would certainly apply to MacRobuchons.

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Felice kindly moved this thread to a good home.

I am a romanticist and, wistfully reading through Le Ventre de Paris, I've been thinking on this; Felice, John, John, Dave, Ptipois, any who live or work there - how would you characterize the state of Parisian cooking generally in this light? Is Russ' comment a fair assessment of Parisian cuisine today? Of French cuisine, to include regional, historically significant places?

Secondly, along these lines, I can't help but also think on the nature of "molecular gastronomy" in the France of today. Reading of Bernard Loiseau, and his assessment that he "couldn't do [this type of] food," I must admit my profound sadness. If the author is correct, and so much is driven by the desire to "refresh" the palates of critics "dulled" by a surfeit of world class, haute but traditional French cuisine, then I feel we have lost a good deal. As I said, I'm a romanticist.

Thoughts? Is Paris, and, beyond, France, on a move to another place generally?

Edited December 28, 2006 by paul o' vendange (log)

[John Talbott]

Great question Paul. We’ll see how much heat gets generated on this one. Like all answers on the bac or elsewhere I must answer in several parts.

…how would you characterize the state of Parisian cooking generally in this light? Is Russ' comment

...the growing uniformity I find in restaurants around the world. It gets to the point that I sometimes can't tell which city I'm in - Paris, London, Alba, LA? Roughly the same ingredients prepared in roughly the same way."

a fair assessment of Parisian cuisine today?

Is Paris lagging other cities? Well if you mean Seattle, South of Torino in Alba/Albi and around Rosas, I’d say yes. But compared to Baltimore, Venice and Valencia, I’d say no. But the ingredients here are of higher quality and greater consistency (except for West Coast places and hugely expensive NYC ones). The meanest of Parisian Thai or Viet Namese restos have great product.

Secondly, along these lines, I can't help but also think on the nature of "molecular gastronomy" in the France of today. Reading of Bernard Loiseau, and his assessment that he "couldn't do [this type of] food," I must admit my profound sadness. If the author is correct, and so much is driven by the desire to "refresh" the palates of critics "dulled" by a surfeit of world class, haute but traditional French cuisine, then I feel we have lost a good deal. As I said, I'm a romanticist.

First off, I think that's slamming the French critics unfairly; as Simon and Pudlowski have said in their respective books, they largely call them as they see them and if anything I find them and other critics not critical enough.

But, like JFK, I’ll answer the original question I want to answer, “has French food changed?” Sure, from my early visits, when admittedly I was on a bike and thought La Vache Qui Rit, boiled eggs and tinned paté were the tops, through nouvelle cuisine, ingredients and pairings of the month (kiwis and catsup, purées and millefeuilles to pumpkin soup amuse-bouches,) onto the sons and grandsons of Point, Bise, Bocuse, Giradet and the Troisgros, things are different.

Is Paris, and, beyond, France, on a move to another place generally?

Well, there’s been a great effort to import foreign (read Asian) spices and newer (read El Bulli and Japanese) methods; Francois Simon just last week lambasted the French for their rejection of “Slow Food;” and Sebastian Demorand, ex-Zurban, Alexandre Cammas, Le Fooding, and Luc Dubanchet, Omnivore have tried to promote change.

But to go OT for a sec, when I made a valiant but vain effort to learn to speak French 17 years ago, my teacher in the “cultural issues” section asked the class about the “modern” “improvements” to the city such as IM Pei’s pyramid at the Louvre and Johann Otto von Spreckelsen’s Grande Arche at La Defense and I said I thought they were an abomination. His query “Do you want Paris to remain a museum?” Well, yes.

And so it is with food. If I want cutting edge American, I’ll go to Seattle/Portland; if I want Adria I’ll go to Catalonia – but if I want cassolet, pied de porc, foie gras sautéed, tripes, huge tranches of veal liver, sweetbreads, etc, etc., even plain old duck, pigeon and wild boar, one cannot do better than the hexagon.

One more point. You take Daniel Rose, ex-Chicago, (to me not Broadway Danny but downhill Montmartre Danny) and with stages at Constant, Alléno and Aizpitarte you’ve got great classical stuff done with a new flair. Is French food dead; no; is French food getting edgier; yes; should they (here) be moving, indeed. But is there a better place if you're not rich to live, love and eat? Nope.

Once again, great question Paul. Thanks.

PS Ferrà has rejected molecular cuisine.

[BigboyDan]

First of all: if you can't tell that your in Paris... well, Chowhound is for you. Second, even if you remove from consideration "foodie" restaurant destinations and those establishments that cater to tourists you will still do well to eat in any large city, the same, if not moreso in Paris.

It's Paris! Yoo-whoo! Paris!

[Ptipois]

PS Ferrà has rejected molecular cuisine.

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Ferran Adria, from an article in Madame Figaro, March 2006, roughly and quickly translated:

"Judging by some questions I am asked, everyone must think I'm the pioneer, the creator or the main representative of so-called molecular cuisine. But I have never mentioned molecular cuisine of any kind at El Bulli. We never attributed a scientific origin to our creations, which all were born from purely culinary research — attentive observation and curiosity being part of our baggage as cooks. Please allow me to be radical: I believe this is all a marketing operation and I think we should not cheat people into believing that so-called molecular thing is a form of cuisine."

At the time (March 2006) I observed that these statements were closely following some other public statements by Professor Hervé This, who was posing as the inspirer of "gastronomie moléculaire" and particularly of Ferran Adria's work, thus minimizing the latter (in a "he owes me everything" fashion). It was pretty clear to me that Ferran was setting things (and, I believe, This) straight.

As for "Parisian cuisine", this is a much tougher subject than molecular gastronomy because of its complexity. I seem to remember there was a thread about it here.

Parisian cuisine: is there such a thing? Yes, but it is awfully hard to define, chiefly because it is a historically diluted concept and it needs some research. It is much more difficult to grasp than, say, Marseillais or Lyonnais cooking, chiefly because

1) most landmarks of Parisian cooking have become part of an indistinct repertoire of cuisine bourgeoise-cuisine de bistrot, with a direct pipeline to haute cuisine, all of that labeled as "French cuisine" without any mention of origin; therefore some of it has become international, some of it national, but very little remains labeled as Parisian.

And 2) After the French Revolution, when it recuperated the classical Ile-de-France aristocratic tradition from former château chefs recycled as restaurateurs, Parisian cuisine probably had more defined contours than it has today. But with the Industrial Revolution, the "exode rural" and masses of people settling in Paris from the Provinces to work as factory workers, home servants, artisans, café, brasserie and bistrot owners, cooks and waiters — Parisian cuisine became a patchwork of dishes, many of them taken from the Auvergnat and Alsatian répertoires. With the added influences of home cuisine bourgeoise and festive brasserie cuisine that culminated during the Belle Epoque (1870-1914, to be generous), it took the aspect of an interesting mess, which it still has today. It does exist, but it has no logic.

[cigalechanta]

I dislike the trendy presentation of food such as The piled high, the dribble on the plate edge, and the servings in things like test tubes.

[John Talbott]

PS Ferrà has rejected molecular cuisine.

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Ferran Adria, from an article in Madame Figaro, March 2006, roughly and quickly translated:

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Luckily or unluckily, I'm not the first person to misspell his name, which is given as Ferran Adrià or Adrian Ferrà or Adrian Ferran; equally I mess up Inaki Aziparte.

It's interesting that it took Jean-Claude Ribaut in Le Monde, six months after Ptit's reference in Le Figaro to report on his statement, of 23 November in Saint-Sébastien "Agacé par les récupérations et les imitateurs en tout genre, le chef catalan récuse toute relation avec la cuisine moléculaire," very amateurly translated in the Digest as "Ferran Adria renounced the movement because of who was attracted to it."

[paul o' vendange]

This is all so very interesting and valuable - thank you all for your generous thoughts and sagacity thus far.

If I read the timbre more than the literal attribution of "molecular gastronomy" in Rudolph Chuminski's bio of Bernard Loiseau, it is a bit of wistfulness at a world that needs to be ephemerally dazzled over deeply pleased, and, if Loiseau was from a line deeply rooted in history (and I can't know that it was, but can only parse the answer), I can't help but wonder where things are going and be sad at the prospect of a lost, good thing.

Interesting, too, on Chef Adria's disowning of the putative title "molecular gastronomy." Following on the 23 November Figaro quote, I wonder if he feels like Paul Bocuse, Michel Guerard and the other "fathers" of nouvelle cuisine - just doing their work, when something is ascribed to them; the work itself becomes a "thing" that leaves them, and the intended essence of what they do, behind.

Edited January 1, 2007 by paul o' vendange (log)

[John Whiting]

I'm delighted to see this thread given an independent life. Here's my first response, which I wrote for a private forum (not web-based) that I'm a part of:

The “Statement on the New Cookery”, signed by (inter alia) Heston Blumenthal, firmly

disassociates itself from molecular gastronomy:

> The fashionable term "molecular gastronomy" was introduced relatively recently, in

> 1992, to name a particular academic workshop for scientists and chefs on the basic

> food chemistry of traditional dishes. That workshop did not influence our

> approach, and the term "molecular gastronomy" does not describe our cooking, or

> indeed any style of cooking.

But Shaun Hill, during a Guild of Food Writers workshop on January 14, 2002, told a

different story. He went to the first of these workshops in Sicily,

> …where they looked at the science of food….It had two Nobel Prize winners. There

> was an American chef called Fritz Blanc and Pierre Gagnaire—it was very

> high-powered—and Harold McGee, and the rest were all physicists. I didn’t go to

> the last one and I gave my place to Heston Blumenthal, who became completely

> besotted by it. It is fascinating, but it’s important to keep your eye on the main

> thing, which is that the food should taste all right.

[Dave Hatfield]

Great topic Paul here's my two centimes.

First, a qualifier or so. I don't live in Paris so don't pretend to the expertise possessed by those who do concerning the current restaurant scene. Also, I'm very suspicious of 'cutting edge' cooking a la today's big name chef's. Also, like Ptipois I'm not sure exactly what Parisian cuisine is.

If I consider cuisine in France I'm pretty happy with what I find to eat and what I read about. If anything I think I detect an overall improvement over the past ten years. A move back to real food, a move back to balance and above all a move back towards taste over innovation. Back to what I regard as the roots of French cuisine.

Great ingredients. Meticulous preparation. Appropriate cooking methods. Attractive presentation. Above all an intense effort to bring out the best in taste, flavour and texture possible with a given set of ingredients. I think I see this happening all around France as we try restaurants of all calibres and price ranges. Certainly at the high end, the starred places, we see some sublime evolution more than revolution. Even the unpretentious places seem to 'have a go' at something new and out of the ordinary.

Within the context of France's culture we find that most natives don't want too much change in their food. They seem to like continuity. They appreciate innovation, but are suspicious of novelty. Thus change happens relatively slowly or at least it seems to to us. I'm sure things happen more quickly in the cities. Paris is almost a different country - yet. I would suspect that a very high percentage of Paris restaurants have menus based upon regional French dishes. The French, like so many of us, hanker for their roots and one way to revisit them is via food.

I guess what I'm thinking is that there are at least three restaurant Paris's. The tourist Paris of big Mac', chain or semi-chain restaurants & the like. At the opposite end the starred, reviewed, talked about cutting edge places of interest to the really dedicated food lovers & adventurers of any nationality. Then there are the restaurants which to me form the heart of 'Parisian cuisine' solid, traditional yet innovative in their own deliberate way. Obviously, these are the bulk and long may they live.

Do I know I'm in France when I go to a restaurant? Maybe not always, but...

I do know when I'm not in France while in a restaurant? Yes! Try though they may nobody I know of seems to be able to truly replicate the ambience of a real French restaurant.

[BigboyDan]

Wow, Dave! That is the best interpretation of the subject that I've read.

I would add that France still has greater access to the best of ingredients available than most nations and the most mature of cooking techniques. This will allow "Parisian cuisine" to advance and flourish for the reason you state for the foreseeable future.

[Felice]

I guess what I'm thinking is that there are at least three restaurant Paris's. The tourist Paris of big Mac', chain or semi-chain restaurants & the like. At the opposite end the starred, reviewed, talked about cutting edge places of interest to the really dedicated food lovers & adventurers of any nationality. Then there are the restaurants which to me form the heart of 'Parisian cuisine' solid, traditional yet innovative in their own deliberate way. Obviously, these are the bulk and long may they live.

Do I know I'm in France when I go to a restaurant? Maybe not always, but...

I do know when I'm not in France while in a restaurant? Yes! Try though they may nobody I know of seems to be able to truly replicate the ambience of a real French restaurant.

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I think I would add a fourth type of restaurant to Dave’s list, which are the see and be seen ‘branché’ type places, which are probably more the kind of restaurant that was referred to in the opening post in which Russ Parsons said he had a hard time telling what part of the world he was in. Places like Budda Bar, La Maison Blanche, Hotel Coste, Georges, Kong, Man Ray, ect. I think if you were to eat in any of the above you might be left with the impression that Paris can seem a lot like New York or any other world capital. Thankfully, these places do not personify the restaurant scene in Paris and don’t seem to be the big trend for the future. If anything, as Dave points out, the most talked about restaurants, since I have lived here anyway, have been what is referred to as ‘néobistros’ or ‘bistronomique’, relatively inexpensive bistros whose chefs have worked in some of France’s top kitchens but decide to forgo Michelin stars to open a place where they would want to eat, with a kitchen that uses top quality ingredients and produces carefully prepared food that manages to be innovative while staying true to French cooking traditions. Places like l’Ami Jean, Avant Goût, L’os à Moelle, Chez Michel and many, many others.

And I agree with Dave, try as they might to replicate a French restaurant back home, there’s nothing quite like eating in the real thing.

[Dave Hatfield]

I guess what I'm thinking is that there are at least three restaurant Paris's. The tourist Paris of big Mac', chain or semi-chain restaurants & the like. At the opposite end the starred, reviewed, talked about cutting edge places of interest to the really dedicated food lovers & adventurers of any nationality. Then there are the restaurants which to me form the heart of 'Parisian cuisine' solid, traditional yet innovative in their own deliberate way. Obviously, these are the bulk and long may they live.

Do I know I'm in France when I go to a restaurant? Maybe not always, but...

I do know when I'm not in France while in a restaurant? Yes! Try though they may nobody I know of seems to be able to truly replicate the ambience of a real French restaurant.

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I think I would add a fourth type of restaurant to Dave’s list, which are the see and be seen ‘branché’ type places, which are probably more the kind of restaurant that was referred to in the opening post in which Russ Parsons said he had a hard time telling what part of the world he was in. Places like Budda Bar, La Maison Blanche, Hotel Coste, Georges, Kong, Man Ray, ect. I think if you were to eat in any of the above you might be left with the impression that Paris can seem a lot like New York or any other world capital.

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Spot on! Thanks for the great add.

[Ptipois]

his name, which is given as Ferran Adrià

This one is right. I'm just lazy with accents

or Adrian Ferrà or Adrian Ferran; equally I mess up Inaki Aziparte.

Which is Aizpitarte (much nicer to say out loud, too).

Edited January 2, 2007 by Ptipois (log)

[Ptipois]

I think I would add a fourth type of restaurant to Dave’s list, which are the see and be seen ‘branché’ type places, which are probably more the kind of restaurant that was referred to in the opening post in which Russ Parsons said he had a hard time telling what part of the world he was in.  Places like Budda Bar, La Maison Blanche, Hotel Coste, Georges, Kong, Man Ray, ect.  I think if you were to eat in any of the above you might be left with the impression that Paris can seem a lot like New York or any other world capital.

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Also, those places are notoriously the least interesting, foodwise. At Costes restaurants the food is correct but standardized and unremarkable. But they don't cater to people who care for food, their point is elsewhere. If these were considered the epitome of the "Parisian" restaurant, there would be some reason to worry about "Parisian cuisine".

I'd also add many, many more categories to the ones you and Dave defined, or rather say that some places fall into categories, some happily don't. If Paris restaurants could all be defined in categories, the food scene would lose much of its interest. You know it's alive and healthy when each of many places is a category in itself.