Paris – the gastronomic capital of the world. City of fabulous and fabulously expensive restaurants, we sampled one and I will describe the experience. But you don’t need to spend a fortune to eat well, and among the thousands of simple bistros serving steak and chips with salad, there are also those that offer imaginative, well-priced food. I will tell you about some of those too.
The first, Aux Lyonnais. A booking would be needed when times were good, but in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, times were not good for restauranteurs either, and we didn’t need to book. The decor was all mirrors, art deco tiles and mosaic floors, old style chairs and tables covered with linen cloths. I felt like I was in the Manet painting at the bustling wine bar, La Serveuse du Bar au Folies Bergère, before the crowd has arrived. Waiters dressed in black and white, and not only waiters, but more than one wine waiter (the sommelier), distinguished by their leather aprons.
Being Paris, the bread (no butter) was delicious. At this restaurant, it was not served alone, but with a complementary appetiser of dip. We kept eating the bread with our entrée – lettuce soup for me and pickled vegetables and rillettes (pork paté) for Steve. The paté was served in a small preserve jar all to himself.
My soup was a bit salty, but flavoursome nevertheless, and arrestingly green like seaweed. These clean, tasty beginnings could do me for lunch.
There was more though, for this lunch would be our main meal of the day, and we ordered a main course to follow. Both dishes were served in Le Creuset cooking pots, boiling from the oven: milk-fed lamb with roasted vegetables for Steve; and fish with baby carrots, leeks and shallots in a tasty broth for me. I experienced a small mishap: I bumped my hand on the burning pot and flung my forkfull of food at the wall to my left, but luckily not at the diners to my right. No harm done. We tucked in, and both dishes were delicious, though I couldn’t manage so much for lunch, and it was all I could do to finish. The sommelier didn’t get much value out of us either: I didn’t drink any wine, and Steve just ordered the cheapest white.
As we ate, we couldn’t help noticing the diners beside us. One young man in his twenties, his friend was older, perhaps early forties, and both arrived at the same time as us. They got through even more food and drink than we did: not only the same appetiser followed by an entrée and a main course, but also dessert. To drink, an apératif then two glasses of wine each, one glass of coke for the older man (he said he needed it to help his digestion), then coffee. The miracle was not only that they were able to consume such a lot so effortlessly, but also that they were both defiantly slim.
The second meal I’ll describe was very different to this. For a start, it was a takeaway picnic on the canal outside our summer home. Also, it was Cambodian, and at 10 euros ($18) each, it was less than half the price of Aux Lyonnais.
We arrived just before it opened at eight, and joined the queue out to the road. Is this what August would be like, queues even for takeaway? No, thank goodness, the restaurant hadn’t opened yet. When it did, most of the people ahead of us were not there for takeaway, but walked straight in to the tables inside.
Why would you go to the restaurant, when the Canal Saint-Martin is just around the corner and you can settle yourself on its banks and dangle your feet until they almost touch the water, the picnic lunch from Le Cambodge by your side.
The service was speedy too: it seemed like only fifteen minutes until our name was called and our carry bag was placed in our hands, the docket containing the order, time of order, and time of delivery stapled efficiently to the outside. The bag was full: for me, a vegetarian feast of rice vermicelli, vegetarian balls, tofu and vegetables. For Steve, a ‘Pique- Nique Angkorien’ of thin sautéed beef with vegetables and noodles. We both received little sauce containers which we poured over our meals, and a re-sealable plastic bag containing stems of mint, lettuce leaves and handfuls of bean sprouts. The idea was that you made packets of the lettuce leaves, filling them with these goodies. The food was so fresh, and there was so much of it. Next time we decided, we’d order two between three, or even one between two with spring rolls. But we wandered by a few weeks later, in early August, and like many restaurants we found it was closed until early September. Maybe next time we’re in Paris. . .
The last meal in this gastronomic journey was in a French restaurant, Ledoyen. Opened (inauspiciously) in 1792, its high ceilings were striking, the space was still decorated regally (was it so in 1792?) in plush carpet, golden drapes, large, round tables, each linen-clad and topped with a pot of orchids, and furniture that exuded class and ostentatious taste.
We took the metro there and I noticed a young Asian woman standing on the platform with us. At first I thought she was a nurse wearing a nurse’s uniform, but when she appeared in the same carriage, standing up because all the seats were taken, I had time to look at her more closely. I saw that she was wearing a modest, knee-length dress, not a uniform, with small pearl earrings and a thin string of pearls. I amused myself by wondering whether her outfit was actually very expensive haute couture, styled to look like a functional uniform. When to my surprise I saw her later at Ledoyen, settling in to a neighbouring table, I wondered even more.
She and her companion sat opposite us, closer to the windows overlooking the spacious gardens outside. Inside was also spacious: the restaurant was not full and the tables were spaced well apart. Staff were numerous and attentive: a doorman greeted us at the door, the concierge checked our booking at her post at the foot of the staircase, and a waiter appeared and showed us up the stairs to our seats. You know you have struck a high quality establishment when even your bag has its own footstool. Other signs were quickly apparent: my (the lady’s) menu was printed without prices, and the wine list was a thick volume, handsomely bound.
We were not there for the equally impressive à la carte menu, but for the cheaper ‘menu of the season’, offering a choice of one of three entrées, mains and desserts for the sum of 85 euros ($150) each. Even this price was a bargain. As the restaurant proudly proclaimed, the TVA tax had recently been removed and Ledoyen had chosen to pass on the savings to customers rather than paying staff higher or investing in advertising, crockery or décor. And this was not just any restaurant, but a Michelin 3 star restaurant, the highest accolade awarded. What delights awaited us, what textures, what astonishing works of edible art?
First, a choice of two types of home-made bread rolls, then an ‘amuse-bouche’ (appetiser – literally ‘palatte-tickler’) that played with flavours, shapes and colours: explosions of foam and crunch, morsels of delicate concoctions that delighted and intrigued.
Entrée followed: lobster pieces set in jelly, refreshed with feathery sprouts in an elegant bowl.
Another palate-cleanser, then main course. I had a pink and green terrine of salmon with tiny edible flowers, mayonnaise and a single peeled and stuffed small tomato which slipped down the throat.
Steve’s dish was perfectly cooked suckling pig with crispy crackling in a rich brown sauce, complemented by pieces of shaved artichoke and crunchy, thinly sliced cooked ham.
Next, the cheese tray was wheeled out. Of the ten or so on offer, we selected some blue cheese and Brie de Meaux, creamy and ripe. Even after this it wasn’t all over, there was a plate of small sweet treats: a small macaroon and coffee éclair each, baked pineapple on a stick, dipped in soft white pineapple meringue, and squares of grapefruit mousse topped with delicate, tiny, glistening pink balls.
This was the promise of dessert, but not dessert itself: dessert was Peach Melba for me, a simple poached peach dish with strawberry ice-cream and toasted nuts, while Steve had a more elaborate strawberry and lemon cream, foam and ice-cream creation.
Coffee with tiny dry biscuits, then it was all over. Despite the multitude of courses, the experience wasn’t too rich or excessively filling, but an experience to be savoured, and worth every centime.
In sum, three dining experiences in Paris, all offering fresh food in vastly different price brackets, but all well-presented, well thought out, and highly recommended.
It remains for me to ponder that great mystery, how French people keep so thin with so many varied temptations to threaten the body’s energy balance. Having eaten the food and observed diners in such establishments as these, I can only agree with the arguments in Mireille Guiliano’s French Women Don’t Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. With apologies for over-simplifying, what I saw is consistent with the argument that it’s a combination of eating small quantities of unhealthy food (on the whole); walking up stairs and to and from the metro rather than car travel as an integral part of life; and a healthy respect for well made, seasonal fare. The nutritionist’s mantra: make good choices easy choices. And tasty.
Bon appétit.
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