Yes, I have been incredibly moved by all the footage of indomitable veterans still able to journey to Normany for the D-Day anniversary, whilst wondering why we have seen so little from the French perspective. It seems so wrong that Sunak has dominated the headlines for all the wrong reasons..
However, the real reason for my French flavoured Substack this week is that my predictions about ‘The World’s 50 ‘Best’ Restaurants’ have been largely vindicated. Not only was Bruno Verjus LE TABLE up on the podium at number 3, what makes his success even more exceptional is that he only opened this, his first restaurant in a then unfashionable part of Paris in his mid 50s and has been awarded this, serious accolade, plus 3 Michelin stars in his 63rd year. My chap TheSconeMan is certainly not the only 60 something to be thriving as a mature food entrepreneur (see my recent article in Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/over-60-food-business-entrepreneurs/)
I am not alone in questioning the definition of ‘best’ and wondering if those restaurants that are so concept and experiential focussed, as one esteemed critic confided in me about the new Spanish number one, ‘impressive and different, yet not exactly enjoyable’ nor I suspect the kind of restaurants you would want to return to, even if you could afford it. Avant-garde, yes, homage to El Bulli (as all DISFRUTAR chefs worked there) perhaps. Of course, there always should be trailblazing in any art form, but ‘best’, really?
I was delighted to see this morning after writing my substack, that Pete Wells in NY Times takes a similar, eloquently expressed stand asking whether ‘The World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ are, above all, ‘monuments to ego and spectacle’. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/07/dining/what-makes-a-50-best-restaurant.html
Even more thrilling, if unpatriotic of me to say so, but I AM a committedFrancophile is that it is the finest year yet for French restaurants: SEPTIME, PLÈNITUDE as well as LE TABLE & L’ARPÈGE all feature in that Top 50. By contrast, the UK can only boast Kol and Ikoyi in these listings.
It seems the judges haven’t bothered visiting anywhere beyond London, ditto only Paris. I wonder why? Too much for these judges who behave rather like masons.
I could recommend a few British places that should be contenders such as Simon Rogan’s L’ENCLUME, Mark Birchall’s MOOR HALL, Pam Brunton’s INVER or RESTAURANT SAT BAINS
I am especially pleased to see Alain Passard’s L’ARPÈGE re-enter as it made such a huge impact on me, and, I know it has been a guiding force for Bruno Verjus too. Passard pioneered veg-centric, ‘my mission is to elevate vegetables to grands crus’ plot-to-plate cooking back in the late 1980s, when it was considered outrageous for a haute cuisine chef to give vegetables their due. To quote Passard from my article written back in 2018 after meeting him in Singapore. I gather too that I have the rare distinction of being one of the few journalists ever invited in to dine at his ambrosial and fabulously expensive Paris restaurant (with my son). Says Passard: ‘My mission is always to make ingredients taste like the essence of themselves’. The set lunch menu is currently E185, far less than many on ‘the list’.
Indulge me in sharing my article in The Economist 1843 Magazine six years ago.
Where Alain Passard eats breakfast, lunch and dinner
As chef-proprietor of L’Arpège, he pioneered veg-centric, plot-to-plate cooking. His fantasy day of eating would take him from boiled eggs in London to peas in Paris
Jul 25th 2018
Breakfast
It’s the most important meal of the day for me, a real ritual. Ideally, I will be in my garden at my farm in Normandy and pick fruit to eat. The seasons are fundamental to the way I think and cook – when we opened L’Arpège 31 years ago it was groundbreaking to let them dictate your menu. If I can’t be in my garden, I adore breakfast at The Savoy in London. I like how it feels charged with a sense of history, and the service is extraordinary – warm, welcoming and impeccable. I will order simply: York ham, boiled eggs and soldiers. Eggs were an important part of my childhood; I enjoy the ceremony of breaking the shell. I like my toast sliced very thin – aiglette style. I would have some drizzled with olive oil, and some with salted butter and a little curry powder to dip in the egg. I find the perfect oval of an egg so pleasing and sensual. I’ll drink Japanese green tea. I prefer to have breakfast on my own and plan my day, while observing how others start their daily ritual.
Lunch Clamato is the coolest place I know in Paris. I love the chef, Bertrand Grebaut, who worked for me for a year and a half. He has a lovely sensibility when he cooks and is so thoughtful and cerebral. My favourite dish is cabbage, shallots, olive oil and fine herbes. It’s just three little steps to prepare and has great beauty and simplicity, with perfect taste, texture and seasoning. If it’s in season, I’ll order seafood; I adore fresh anchovies and grilled langoustines. To finish I’ll have a raw-milk camembert which they buy from the fromager Marie-Anne Cantin. Clamato is lively and noisy with seats very close together. I’ll take my 80-year-old mother, Marcelle, a couturier who lives in Brittany. She relishes the atmosphere. We’ll talk about creativity, and about fabrics. She still sews and recently made me a beautiful white cotton shirt that is so wonderful to wear.
Dinner I adore Singapore – a country where people live to eat. Restaurant Gunter is perfect, especially their poulet Bresse, though I would also eat chilli crab from a hawker stall. Otherwise dinner has to be at Le George, an Italian restaurant within The Four Seasons George V hotel in Paris. The chef, Marco Garfagnini, has great talent and passion. The dishes are seasonal, perfumed and so full of flavour. The ravioli with green peas, young onions and fresh mint is sensational with a glass of wine. I adore peas – I serve them with strawberries at L’Arpège, a surprising yet incredible encapsulation of summer. My mission is always to make ingredients taste like the essence of themselves. The light at the restaurant is very beautiful, too. I’d eat there with my brother, Hervé, who lives in Normandy. We’d talk about gardens and I’d feel content. Alain Passard was talking to Sudi Pigott
Very much in the vein of Passard’s elevation of vegetables, I’m most impressed by Ceri Jones’ first book, ‘IT STARTS WITH VEG’ published by Pavilion,’ which will definitely widen your vegetable horizons. I like the way it is divided into vegetable families such as brassicas, pods and leaves, with some smaller recipe/serving suggestions, and advice on how not to waste any part of the vegetable. Most of all, I love the wholly enticing and original recipes that are quick to prepare and use the kind of ingredients that you are likely to have in a well-stocked kitchen such as feta, various kinds of beans, an assortment of nuts.
I made the ambrosial summer minestrone featuring asparagus, carrots, celery and shallots with some especially good long life chicken stock from Parson’s Nose for Saturday lunch. I used pasta and olive oil from my recent Sicilian trip to stay at Susafa and it was so good that I have invited friends over to cook it again today.
Other dishes that especially appeal include roasted radishes with cumin on whipped feta (pictured above); kohlrabi and apple remoulade with horseradish mayonnaise; grilled radicchio wedges with lemony gorgonzola cannellini beans and flat bean; radish and cannellini salad with miso dressing.
Raymond Blanc, TheSconeMan and I at Brasserie Blanc Fulham Reach
Vegetables were very much in the spotlight at a dinner hosted by our national treasure Frenchman, RAYMOND BLANC OBE, famous for the scale of his exquisite vegetable gardens at Le Manoir aux Quats Saisons and work as President of The Sustainable Restaurant Association as well as his many TV series and books. He was celebrating summer, the new rosé RH Mumm Champagne (which was poured unsparingly and impressed with its floral, raspberry notes )and the opening of the riverfront terrace at Fulham Reach BRASSERIE BLANC which looks over to the enormous Harrod’s depository red mansion on the other side of the River Thames. One of the starters was a ravishing expression of summer: a tomato, pepper and courgette puff pastry tart that was pure Provencal. I was most impressed by the flavourful yet delicate menu including Chalk Stream trout tartare with plentiful chives, a monkfish braise with clams and mussels and an exceptionally good lemon tart. My chap, TheSconeMan is thrilled that RB recalled how learning how to make scones was one of the first challenges he faced when he took over running the kitchen in the first restaurant he worked in. He resorted to Constance Spry. RB has challenged Stephen to a scone-off. Will they actually dare/find time for such a gentlemanly duel?
Returning to France proper, I’d been keenly anticipating the arrival of ‘AMUSE BOUCHE’ by France specialist Carolyn Boyd, published by Profile Books. It’s a culinary guide to exploring France mixing history, food traditions, anecdotes and recommendations and a contemporary update to my much cherished and greatly used Patricia Wells THE FOOD LOVER’S GUIDE TO FRANCE, which remained for many years my indispensable guide to French shops, restaurants and routes. I just wish there were photos in Amuse Bouche too, as well as the gorgeous cover and some addresses, but I appreciate that is not so easily possible in today’s publishing climate. Fortunately, it is wonderfully devourable with all sorts of enticing gems, new and familiar speciality foods such as Tielle Sètoise from Seté, wonderful pastries filled with baby squid and spicy tomato, plus a new address to check out in Seté, Giuletta for an open topped vegetarian version with tomato, pepper and aubergine.
I particularly like the anecdotal details on charmingly idiosyncratic local food festivals from figs in Solliès-Pont, Provence to Castagnades in the Ardeche and the strawberry museum in Plougastel, Brittany and Saucisson Morteau museum in Franche Comté, It is very much a bible for Francophiles that I know will accompany me on and anticipating every trip to France.