I recently ate at a place where the chef seemed to be cooking the same way he did when he started cooking over 55 years ago. It was not even charmingly ancien, just tired ancien.
In one of my futile attempts to learn French (David Sedaris of "Me Talk Pretty Someday" has nothing on me) I got into a heated discussion with a much younger French teacher who was trying to stimulate us to speak more French and launched a discussion about new monuments in Paris. The latent Prince Charles in me rose to the surface and I said I thought the Pei pyramid was a disaster that wrecked the Louvre, the Grande Arche a horror that ruined the grand alley from the Champs-Elysees, and the Tour Montparnasse a monstrosity that ruined the sky. “What do you want” he said “Paris to remain a museum?” “Exactly” I replied.
And sometimes the museums of restaurants or cooking from old times are wonderful. From the original Chez Catherine on the Rue de Provence, where the Colvert duck and the sautéed foie gras entier might have come from 1950 to Guillaume Delage’s Jadis, where a young guy cooks old recipes, you revel in the familiar, yet fresh.
I think the Italians carry it off best. I recall going with Colette to two places along the French border, the first the Maison de Filippo in Courmayeur just through the Mont Blanc tunnel, where the mounds of bread and charcuterie were Medieval and then after two weeks in the Piedmont and Lakes winding our way up for our last meal in the ski resort of Sauze d’Ouix off-season where the lady chef came out and asked how we liked our lamb (that was it, no choices) and her husband asked “Red or White?” On that same trip we went with Italian friends to a Mom & Pop trattoria in the old city part of Bologna where Mama made the sauces the same way for 60 years, taught by her mother and grandmother. And it all was wonderful.
Now as the world knows, at least those who read the New York Times Magazine, the center of gravity of post-modern cuisine has moved to Las Roses in Spain and I would maintain that at present it’s poised between the cities of Girona/Barcelona and Bilbao, where some of the most exciting cooking imaginable is happening.
I often ask myself, how can such consistently amazing new dishes come out of an unknown kitchen in Northern Spain prepared by chefs I’ve never heard of compared to the often-disappointing meals the innovation-driven media-lauded well-known French chefs like Loiseau, Aizpitarte and Marx give/gave you? Are the French guys trying too hard to be new, are the Spaniards more Mediterranean and laid back? I don’t honestly know.
Do you remember the first meal you had in France in 1953? Of course you don’t, you weren’t born then. But I do, and it was a marvel. Simple, good product, sautéed, flavorful with an oomph that left you satisfied without stuffing yourself. The first vine-ripened tomato I bit into, the first Camembert I savored, the first Vouvray I sipped, it was all there.
And sometimes today, the old stuff a la Catherine, is just right and sometimes like my tired chef’s, it too is just tired. So as the Lone Ranger show’s announcer used to say “Let’s return to those thrilling days of yesteryear,” but only when they’re thrilling not washed-out.
For such, return to:
Jadis
208, rue de la Croix-Nivert, 15th, (Metro: Felix Faure)
T: 01.45.57.73.20
Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays
Menu-carte 32 €
In one of my futile attempts to learn French (David Sedaris of "Me Talk Pretty Someday" has nothing on me) I got into a heated discussion with a much younger French teacher who was trying to stimulate us to speak more French and launched a discussion about new monuments in Paris. The latent Prince Charles in me rose to the surface and I said I thought the Pei pyramid was a disaster that wrecked the Louvre, the Grande Arche a horror that ruined the grand alley from the Champs-Elysees, and the Tour Montparnasse a monstrosity that ruined the sky. “What do you want” he said “Paris to remain a museum?” “Exactly” I replied.
And sometimes the museums of restaurants or cooking from old times are wonderful. From the original Chez Catherine on the Rue de Provence, where the Colvert duck and the sautéed foie gras entier might have come from 1950 to Guillaume Delage’s Jadis, where a young guy cooks old recipes, you revel in the familiar, yet fresh.
I think the Italians carry it off best. I recall going with Colette to two places along the French border, the first the Maison de Filippo in Courmayeur just through the Mont Blanc tunnel, where the mounds of bread and charcuterie were Medieval and then after two weeks in the Piedmont and Lakes winding our way up for our last meal in the ski resort of Sauze d’Ouix off-season where the lady chef came out and asked how we liked our lamb (that was it, no choices) and her husband asked “Red or White?” On that same trip we went with Italian friends to a Mom & Pop trattoria in the old city part of Bologna where Mama made the sauces the same way for 60 years, taught by her mother and grandmother. And it all was wonderful.
Now as the world knows, at least those who read the New York Times Magazine, the center of gravity of post-modern cuisine has moved to Las Roses in Spain and I would maintain that at present it’s poised between the cities of Girona/Barcelona and Bilbao, where some of the most exciting cooking imaginable is happening.
I often ask myself, how can such consistently amazing new dishes come out of an unknown kitchen in Northern Spain prepared by chefs I’ve never heard of compared to the often-disappointing meals the innovation-driven media-lauded well-known French chefs like Loiseau, Aizpitarte and Marx give/gave you? Are the French guys trying too hard to be new, are the Spaniards more Mediterranean and laid back? I don’t honestly know.
Do you remember the first meal you had in France in 1953? Of course you don’t, you weren’t born then. But I do, and it was a marvel. Simple, good product, sautéed, flavorful with an oomph that left you satisfied without stuffing yourself. The first vine-ripened tomato I bit into, the first Camembert I savored, the first Vouvray I sipped, it was all there.
And sometimes today, the old stuff a la Catherine, is just right and sometimes like my tired chef’s, it too is just tired. So as the Lone Ranger show’s announcer used to say “Let’s return to those thrilling days of yesteryear,” but only when they’re thrilling not washed-out.
For such, return to:
Jadis
208, rue de la Croix-Nivert, 15th, (Metro: Felix Faure)
T: 01.45.57.73.20
Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays
Menu-carte 32 €
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