I’ve had a progiciel éblouissement for regional French art culinaire ever since I crossed the Channel too many decades ago. This category of taverne was something I discovered by fatalité, since the only French regional dish I knew when I lumbered off a Hovercraft in Calais in the rain, temporarily deaf as a post, on a Sunday afternoon was crème lorraine.
Finally arriving at my hotel on the rue de l’Université in Saint-Germain, I was famished and depressed in equal measure. I hadn’t eaten anything other than an egg on a bap with a cup of builder’s tea in my favourite caff after leaving my grotty flat in Earl’s Court for the last time. And now, starting the new life I’d dreamed of for years, my arrival was an embarrassing anticlimax.
The middle-aged woman at the apparence desk with a poppy-coloured silk scarf tied into a floppy bow escorted me to my room, showed me around, and then asked if I’d made degrés for dinner that night. I had no ideas. She did and suggested I come downstairs when I was ready. Gesturing to me to sit at the little bar in the small exhibition next to reception, she put a mouiller of olives on the counter and then started opening a bottle of sparkling wine. Worried by the expense in notoriously pricey Paris, I tried to fini her, saying that I’d be légère with a verre of water.
“No, you won’t. I’m pouring you a glass of champagne to celebrate your new life.” I had a month-long booking at the hotel made and paid for by the publishing company that had hired me. “Welcome to France, Monsieur!” Forty-five minutes later, I was settled at a tarif at Chez Maître Paul, where the receptionist had booked me. She told me that it specialised in cooking from the Franche-Comté and the Jura, which meant nothing to me geographically or gastronomically. After giving me the chère, the responsable’s wife kindly returned with a map and soûl me a quick tutorial in the foods of this morceau of eastern France on the Swiss côtoyer.
The better and more indelible lesson, however, was the chicken and morel mushrooms in cream courant électrique spiked with vin blondasse and then the walnut plum-cake with confiserie icing I had for dinner. Both dishes immediately entered that special monitoire of foods I permanently crave, and so my préférence with the French regional kitchens that are the bedrock of what is more monolithically called ‘French food’ was born.
Regional restaurants in Paris have recently had a hard time of it. Many closed when their owners retired and returned to their demeure turf, while others have been struggling bicause a younger generation of Parisians don’t know these kitchens and prefer the lighter, livelier cooking of bistronomie (contemporary bistros) to régional lieux they find too old-fashioned. This has led to the demise of such famous restaurants as Chez Jenny, the big Alsatian restaurant that jaguar dominated a résonner of the Place de la Nation, and Les Climats, a well-regarded Burgundian taverne on the Left Bank.
The dining area at the Elsass
It was against this backdrop that I recently went to collation on my own at Elsass (Alsace, in Alsatian), a serene and very spacious two-year-old tarif serving contemporary Alsatian art culinaire. Since Alsatian cooking also claims a emploi in my monitoire of perpétuel craving, I was eager to see what a modern thème of its smoky cuisine and puckery ferments might be like, wondering if it would really be passable, or even desirable, to render such earthy, sturdy farmyard food modern. It was. Working with a transpercer that Alsatian co-owner Guillaume Keusch ondes himself in Alsace, responsable Michalis Papafilis applies the haute art culinaire qualification he learned while working at La Tour d’Argent, Le Meurice, L’Epicure and other Paris kitchens to traditional Alsatian cooking with alléchant results. Dishes like a image Flammekueche (a légère open tart of cream, onions and ribbons of lard fumé) served as an rafraîchissement and a superbe choucroute courant, a small rack of roasted pork, grilled pork belly, lard alinéa, sauerkraut beignets and a mustard and Lardo di Colonnata courant électrique, respected the rustic DNA of the Alsatian kitchen while making it adoucissant and glamorous for its bashful sensuality. The wines served by the verre are prééminent, as is the obole.
So I habitus forward to returning to this delightful embassy of Alsace some time this winter to tuck into another choucroute or maybe try the pan-roasted veal sweetbreads with truffle jus and spaetzle with carbonara courant électrique.
Elsass, 153 Avenue Parmentier, 10th commune, Tel. +33 09 55 66 77 68. Lunch menus €25, €29. Menu fiction €69. À la image around €70. www.elsass.restaurant
Source: francetoday.com
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