Le MaZenay in the 3rd has pleased us since it opened and for some reason we go in the fall when game (grouse, pigeon, partridge), mushrooms and figs or mirabelles are on the menu. As I’ve noted before, Chef Denis Groison's culinary education included stints in Viet Nam and Singapore, which certainly informs his cooking, as do the dishes of his grand-mother.
In any case, I started off, as I did on my first meal here, with wild snails on top of cream on top of a sable on top of a huge green salad composed of greens, arugula, baby spinach and herbs.
Then Colette had a plate of sautéed fall mushrooms with fall vegetables and chopped chestnuts and I had the perdreau with figs, haricots verts, a walnut sauce and a perfect spicy sauce.
To finish up, Colette ordered up and ate the house specialty, the millefeuille with bourbon and vanilla, and surprise, the chef sent me out a dish of his grand-mother’s gouere of poires Williams, which as I told him, was the best preparation of pears this decade.
Our bill, with a bottle and glass of wine and two intense coffees, made like they are in Naples, was 128€. Just as after my first visit, the chef came out to inquire (sincerely) how we liked our food. With some chefs, one suspects they’re just going though the motions or fishing for complements but Chef Groison, I sense, really wants to know. And we did.
On the way home, in a louche part of town I saw this walk in place that raised suspicions:
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