Paris: Dazzling Gagnaire

[Pigging by Wilfrid: May 4, 2009]

I made my advance reservations for Paris restaurants for eight in the evening, which seemed a reasonable sort of time.  It turns out that, with French rigor, everyone dines at 8.30.

Which meant that everywhere, including Pierre Gagnaire in the Hotel Balzac, I was confronted by a startlingly empty dining room upon arrival, which was full by the time I was picking at my appetizer.

In fact, despite taking the metro from Rue Rambuteau to George V, from which it's a short uphill step to Gagnaire, I'd arrived excitedly early.  The Champs-Élysées is not my favorite avenue, and it's certainly not seen at its best early on a weekday evening.  Packed with wandering gaggles of tourists, it's a bit like a version of the Ramblas with nothing to see or do.  I had enough time for pre-prandial refreshment, but not enough to wander far, so finished up standing at a tiny bar at the back of some cacophonous pizza restaurant, nursing a pastis and hoping for a transcendent - as they say - gastronomic experience.

Gagnaire did not disappoint.  It's a surprisingly dark, two-level room, beyond a dark bar area.  At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to see the food, but perfectly placed lights illuminate the table exquisitely.  Service was multi-lingual and more relaxed than I'd anticipated - jocular even.  I plunged into a flute of Bugey and wantonly ordered the tasting menu de printemps.

This is the type of restaurant which surrounds you at all time with refined little bites and nibbles, and it was a struggle to keep pace.  A rich, anchovy-flavored butter arrived with an array of bread - brioche, chestnut loaf, a sort of olive-flavored crispbread.   The amuses were a mixed bag, ranging from a hot ball of melted cheese with white truffle which exploded with flavor to long, slightly spicy, crisps which were to be dipped in olive oil to no particular effect.

This was merely the launch-pad.  The meal soared through the succession of savory courses which followed, coming back to earth again only with the dessert.  Oysters were sourced from Guillardeau, a long-established family business on the west coast of France.  Fantastically fat and meaty, they were garnished withsheets or  seaweed jelly as dark as the water in Gericault's Raft of the Medusa, and some gold leaf just to remind you what you were spending.

A filet of sea bream was enlivened by its "robe" of liquified sea urchin, and lapped by a sauce subtly flavored with endive and blue cheese.  If that sounds good, the third dish was sensational.

Pomposity aside - a "declenscion" of champignons de Paris, no less - this was perhaps the dish of the trip.  The humble local mushroom, inventively framed by ingredients of extraordinary quality.  The shrimp were osiblues, a prized blue shrimp caught in the waters of New Caledonia (I looked it up).  As sweet and juicy as L'Ambroisie's langoustines (see last week).  The new season green asparagus were from Mallemort in the south of France.  The texture was unusual - tender but extra-grainy - and quite luxurious.  The tips were tossed with slivers of pistachio, and this, along with a refreshing almond ice cream, enhancing the nuttiness of the mushrooms and the sweetness of the shrimp.  The final balancing touch of acidity came from a delicate, fence-shaped grapefruit crisp.

Not that there was anything shabby about the  crab crêpe which followed, in a red onion soup touched with clementine juice with a brunoise of chioggia.  At this point, our server's English faltered, but it seemed to be pickled beet.  Looking it up, it's no ordinary beet, of course, but a ninteenth century Italian heirloom varietal, distinguished by red and white striping.  Great crab, by the way.

Roast veal kidney arrived with dried Nora peppers from Spain, and, according to the menu, something I have only been able to translate as "vagrant's marmalade" - it was a cider marmalade, anyway.  Diced green and black olives in attendance too.

Customarily, one meat dish follows another, but in this tasting a terrific cabbage dish interposed itself.  Not any cabbage of course - pan fried red cabbage with romaine leaves, united in the cause of smuggling little nuggets of creamy foie gras into the menu.  Not only foie, also shreds of crisp lardons, fragments of Morteau sausage, and strands of abalone.  Young abalone, in fact.  And a dash of balsamico to spike it up.  This is cabbage for the ages.  This is cabbage to make you forget every heap of boiled, green mush from your schooldays.  Is abalone a fine accompaniment for bacon and sausage?  Does the foie make the dish remarkably rich?  Yes and yes.

The climax of the savory procession was a piece of lamb so young and precious, I can hardly bear to describe it.  From Lozère in the Languedoc, near the Massif Central, this milk-fed lamb perishes unweaned after a brief, hopefully happy existence.  This is the kind of meat one imagines being served in Stanley Ellin's short story, "The Specialty of the House" - although that does turn out to be human flesh.  Suffice to say it's somewhat delicate, rubbed with a mild Vadouvan spice mix, served in an "oriental" broth with three accompaniments: semolina flavored with saffron, tamarind pâté and a slice of eggplant.   Staggeringly good.

For myself, I prefer my cheeses left alone, and the composed cheese plate offered here was not entirely successful.  I very much liked the coarse black wheat galette stuffed with warm Emmenthal and a sweet gentian butter.  Reblochon was overwhlemed by a vin jaune-flavored rhubarb mousse and a celeriac remoulade.

One was slightly stuffed by this point, and of course there were too many desserts for my not-so-sweet tooth.  I was impressed by the pre-dessert - essentially a saffron blancmange.

I didn't find a very white and sticky mélange of marshmallow and ice cream at all appealing.  It's hard to imagine a palate which would appreciate both this, and the series of amazing savory courses which preceded it.

Have some chocolate?  No, I couldn't possibly.  A bottle of 1999 Pontet-Canet accompanied most of the meal, and was at least not priced at three-times retail (about double, I'd say).  Although this was a tasting, the overall cost of the meal was slightly less than L'Ambroisie, but that may be attributable to wine choices.  It's in the same stratospheric bracket.

Diversion was provided toward the end of the meal by a customer at an adjacent table pocketing something valuable and being more-or-less arrested by the maitre d'.  All in a day's work at a Michelin three-star, I suppose.  I have thought about ranking Gagnaire against L'Ambroisie, and the best I can do is this.  Both restaurants were superb.  Gagnaire featured many more surprises, much greater inventiveness, and an almost bewildering wealth of ingredients.  Unlike L'Ambroisie, not everything was perfect.  Take your pick.  Or go to both, it's your money.

More outrageous expense next week.