Kangaroo Island Saffron

Kangaroo Island Saffron

2 Sept 2011

Dictatorial Dining - Le Meurice, Paris



Conquerors rarely opt for the worst digs in town after they’ve finished the business of invading. When the Germans rolled into Paris in June 1940, they didn't move into the deserted slums of the city, but instead the eighteenth century building on 228 Rue de Rivoli which housed – and still does - Hotel Le Meurice.

This is the sort of endorsement you simply can’t pay for. We all know Dictators just love grandeur, and it speaks volumes about the place. Today, it’s all the more fabulous thanks to its recent restoration and the fact it's now Gestapo-free. (Although  management don't seem too particular about guests’ Human Rights credentials, as the sons of Dictatorial villain du jour Muammar Gadaffi recently shacked up there for several weeks.)



Le Meurice doesn't only welcome homicidal dictators. In fact, the 3 Star Michelin Restaurant le Meurice within the hotel is the only restaurant on earth where I’ve walked in and been greeted by name. And I don’t mean after we’d gone through the pleasantries, I mean as I actually walked in. This also impressed my wife-to-be, until it dawned on her this was the by-product of my afternoon reconnaissance to ensure all was in order for our impending visit. But, at least the maître d’hôtel had remembered me - in one of only four hotels in Paris granted palace status by the French government.

Having earlier farewelled the girls and our babysitter (whom I procured over the internet….) at our apartment on the Ile de la Cité,  the short taxi ride had us arrive at the embarrassingly early time of .  After my ego-boosting greeting, we were escorted through the hotel foyer and into the dining room where there are only about fourteen tables spaced over several acres.  And yet, the room is even higher than it is wide. The entrancing opulence of the Philippe Starck restored interior (inspired by the Salon de la Paix at the Château de Versailles) is quite breathtaking, with its chandeliers, gilded mirrors, several mints worth of gold on the walls and ceilings, enormous artworks, and floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Tuileries gardens.

Once seated, we had pleasant chats with the mostly English-speaking French staff about our origins and travel plans. A few gags were thrown in which lightened everyone up, and the waiter offered to photograph us before the culinary onslaught commenced. A small Hermès stool - which appeared tailored to provide a resting place for a poodle - was brought to the foot of my chair to house accoutrements such as handbags and notebooks which threatened to destroy the aesthetics of the table setting.



Menus in both French and English (offered without the slightest whiff of condescension) presented the option of à la carte, degustation, or a combination of both. Knowing the sommelier and chef would be better equipped than us to generate a superior combination (there are 1100 different wines in a cellar of 30,000 bottles), we ran with the eight course degustation and matching wines.

Having announced our decision, house-made butter (lurking beneath Le Meurice-emblazoned wax paper) was unveiled with a flick of miniature silver tongs, and accompanied by a choice of three different types of rolls. This was like a quick warm up for the staff. Every one of the main eight courses which rolled out over the next four hours was ferried to the table on a large silver tray supporting two cloche-covered plates. Each plate was placed simultaneously on the table by a different waiter. Each retained a hand on the cloche as their superior stood by and described the lineage of what we were about to eat, before the waiters theatrically revealed the contents at the precise moment the story concluded.



The genius behind the food appeared before our meal started, and he toured the room, greeting every table. Chef Yannick Alléno is a bit of a rock star in France, and is annoyingly handsome. If he ran off with your wife after the coffee was served, you’d be left shrugging your shoulders without any great degree of surprise. He was granted 3 Michelin Stars four years ago aged just 39.  His team of more than seventy staff work predominantly with classic French ingredients and techniques, but combine them with modern flavour twists, methods and presentation. He came back a bit later and kissed a lot of people, but inexplicably by-passed our table.



While his food is particularly “French”, and despite spending his career almost entirely in French kitchens, the maitre de explained he has been influenced by Japanese colleagues and this was evident in our first course, Delicate Jelly of Turnip Broth with Yuzu - yuzu being a small, distant relative of the mandarin, used in Japanese cooking to impart its unique citrus flavour, and as a base for teas and preserves. This jelly “broth” was served with seabass tartar and scattered with clippings of iodized seaweed. This first course arrived after a complimentary amuse-bouche of salmon mousse under a canopy of spinach puree, embedded with a mouthful of fresh salmon in a miniscule wafer sandwich.



The next dish displayed a simple use of new-in-season ingredients (it was autumn). Chanterelle Mushrooms with Vin Jaune was exquisite and unimaginable to anyone whose experience of mushrooms extends no further than the button variety. These gorgeous fungi were cooked in little more than butter and parsley, and served with a superb salad leaf stuffed with pork fat, Swiss chard and veal juice. Unfortunately I was so enamoured with the dish I forgot to photograph it.

The hint of delightful richness nestled in the salad leaf was brought to a crescendo in the subsequent course, Roasted Duck Foie Gras, served with mango juice and spiced thin biscuits. Four plump wedges of perfectly cooked, rosy foie gras, adorned a plate punctuated with half a dozen tiny mango balls crowned with micro-coriander, nestling in puddles of mango juice. The wafer thin, ginger and clove-flavoured biscuits, helped the fruit lance the liver’s wonderful fatty richness. My dining partner found the intensity too much to defeat. I did not.



The fish following the foie gras was my favourite dish of the evening. A superbly cooked Fillet of Turbot Braised with Thinly Sliced Parisian Mushrooms in a juice of soup herbs, was simply delightful. A magnificent piece of this firm-fleshed fish was enhanced by the most exquisite herb, butter and wine sauce (which the head waiter happily delivered more of in a beautiful silver saucepan, and confessed to an afternoon of consuming several helpings of the sauce with nothing but bread).



The next course presented the only choice to be made from the degustation menu. Demonstrating the chef’s capacity to adroitly merge the traditional and the contemporary, Scottish Grouse with Aged Malt was presented in a most unlikely rectangular slab, with layers of grouse leg and foie gras cooked sous vide, while the Larded Fillet of Beef Marinated with a Seaweed Jam (accompanied by braised vegetable compressions and polenta balls stuffed with fresh cream) was cooked to perfection; but not by sous vide as is often the case now with such cuts. We opted for both and shared. The flavours and textures of the grouse were intense and terrine-like. This was accompanied by buttered rat potatoes, a masterstroke in which this fingerling, heirloom variety (La Ratte) was presented in silky pureed form, with tiny, crunchy, round, potato-crisp type pieces layered on top like dinosaur scales.

                                   Above: Scottish Grouse served with Buttered Rat Potatoes

                      Above Larded Fillet of Beef Marinated with a Seaweed Jam


A cleanser of Tomato and Mozzarella with Basil was served after the meat course, and consisted of three miniature pouches of mozzarella balls topped with tiny fresh basil leaves. The balls disgorged liquid mozzarella onto a plate dotted with basil oil and discs of tomato jelly.



The tomato dish seemed designed as a sort of cleansing anti-venom to what we’d eaten, and what was to come – which was two pre-desserts, prior to the two desserts proper.  At this point a stroll was in order.

The most acute manifestation of the staff’s intuition is evident at the time one is required to attend to one’s lavatory. That first faint crackle of a signal from bladder to cerebral cortex seems to be hot wired to a small bell, in wherever it is the waiters mingle to recuperate in between service. The split second one commences a flexing of thigh, to launch the derriere from it’s station, a phalanx of waiters immediately assemble at the rear, ensuring the diner never has to undertake the unpleasant task of propelling the chair backwards unassisted.

One waiter is then empowered with the role of toilet guide. Simultaneously majestic and subservient, I followed while a path was cleared by my gesticulating overseer – through the dining room, out past the hotel’s “other” restaurant, past the guitarist in the bar, down the corridor before being delivered into the bathroom’s welcoming embrace. Surprisingly, the facility was free of staff.

I felt relieved I’d been empowered to navigate the return journey unassisted, as I was slightly disappointed with the performance of my new shoes I’d purchased in London. Specifically, their cheap rubber soles did not create what I deemed an appropriate cacophonic accompaniment to their majestic surroundings. I’d been able to mask this inadequacy on the outward journey by veering towards carpeted areas, but whenever I deviated too dramatically from the wake of my leader, a quick turn of his head pulled me back into line. Each time I squeaked onto hard ground (polished marble I think), I felt as if the room collectively observed and derided the absence of leather on my soles. Our proximity to the restaurant’s entrance fortunately kept this a secret from my fellow diners as I scurried back to our table.



Mercifully, the first pre-dessert was designed to cleanse, and a bowl of fresh figs in light syrup with gold leaf garnish, was accompanied by another bowl of pink grapefruit in a fairly neutral citrus foam. This led into a daunting array of petit fours which we simply couldn’t conquer whilst burdened with the expectation of the ensuing two actual desserts.



The first, was a lovely simple serving of Roasted Pear Hearts with Caramel and Liquorice accompanied by a light vanilla chiboust cream and crunchy “arlette” biscuits wedged like sails in the cream. This was served with a Hungarian Tokaji, not something I would ever have chosen, proving why it’s worth putting yourself in the hands of a great sommelier.  


The final dish was a masterpiece in appearance, texture and taste. Warm Soft Chocolate Mousse Cake with bourbon vanilla ice cream, was a rectangular offering no bigger than a playing card, built about half a centimetre high from thin chocolate cake encasing an epicentre of soft chocolate mousse. On top, a wafer thin, crunchy, gold leaf-decorated toffee roof supported the ice cream.



As the clock approached midnight there was time for a quick brandy and a €12 cup of coffee to aide the digestion - which I needed when I received the bill, as it came in at just shy of €1000, or about $1600 AUD. Plus tip.

Footwear aberrations and slight budget blow out aside, it was impossible to fault the experience. We ate majestically and were looked after as well as even the most ruthless Dictator could hope to be. We arrived home to find our children bore no visible scars from an evening with the web-sourced babysitter, and I fell asleep, not with the bitterness of a $20 cup of coffee in my mouth, but the sweetness of twelve perfect courses and a $1600 bill. I hope to go again.





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