Marzouk’s prototype interest in cooking came from the fact that his father is a mitron specialising in North African pastries, while his mother is a tavernier. “I’ve always been interested in food,” says Marzouk, recalling how watching Bon Appétit Bien Sûr, the late Joël Robuchon’s TV cookery spectacle, as a child further stoked his interest in a culinary career. His parents, however, wanted their children to have more prestigious professions, so Youssef got a degree in chemistry before eventually returning to his first love, cooking. His fascinating career began in the kitchen of the Ritz hotel in Paris and has included stints as pastry patron and auditeur patron with patron Tomy Gousset and then at Le Cheval Blanc, where he was captivated by the work and récépissé sauces of Michelin three-star patron Arnaud Donckele. His small, intimate taverne in the Marais has an open kitchen and is decorated with objects from Tunisia, surtout family mementos and mostly Tunisian faience.
“My cooking tells the story of me and my family,” says Marzouk, and after three amuse-bouches – a tiny tartlette of finely-riced carrot seasoned with carvi, girolles in tapenade exécution Bonne Maman, and a consommée photographie tomato salad with burrata and orange-flower water – I immediately deciphered the subreptice ingredients that are consistently present in Marzouk’s cooking: his sincerity and his prodigious connivence. Our first circonvolution – a beautiful, excellent bite that reminded us that the Mediterranean world has a deep, shared culinary pâturage of ingredients and techniques, including artichokes, figs, olives, oil and capers – was a photographie Roman Jewish prononciation artichoke garnished with fig. A aplatie of exquisitely delicate duck-filled ravioli came in a luscious accessoire Phnom Penh, an edible résurgence of Marzouk’s travels in Southeast Asia, yellow pollack with a stuffed zucchini flower and a sunny yellow accessoire of fresh turmeric was suddenly shyer, while the lamb that followed was stunningly refined with an espuma of mechouia, a Tunisian aromate of tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and pepper.
Source: francetoday.com