L'Aquarelle - A Pearl in the Oyster

If you are headed down to the Charente Maritime region of France (La Rochelle, Rochefort, Royan, St. Palais-sur-Mer, Santes et al.), there are probably two things on your mind: oysters and wine. Once you get beyond the seafood, however, this is pretty much a gastronomical wasteland. One glaring exception is the Michelin-starred L'Aquarelle, a pearl in the tiny village of Breuillet, a hop, skip, and jump outside of St. Palais-sur-Mer, home of the alleged best zoo in France.

Co. and I happened to be in these familiar stomping grounds for a pre-holidays visit, just in time for the latest sou'wester tempest to hit. With 120km/hr winds and torrential rain lasting the night before, we were just hoping the restaurant would still be standing for our Friday evening reservation. Sure enough, there it was, all aglow in the quiet, quiet still-rain soaked streets of Breuillet, not another human, animal, or vegetable in sight. Upon entering the restaurant you get the feeling of being home, a nice refuge from the imposing climatic forces of a late December by the sea.

L'Aquarelle details all are available at their informative website, once you get past that weird condom transforming into a dinner plate introductory motif. Twenty years my junior, chef Xavier Taffart brings his strong credentials to the kitchen and flaunts his creative skills well (be sure to check out the food images there). Tapping into our collective unconscious, Taffart's cooking seems to draw from the Jungian archetype of the circle - yin/yang, anima/animus - which is apparent in several dishes. That he has more up his sleeve than is apparent at first glance was clear when we ordered the 6-dish 55€ menu degustation and found that it consisted almost entirely of items that were not available on the regular menu. (For another 20€ the menu degustation is accompanied by five glasses of pre-selected wines.) When in Rome, or in this case, Bordeaux country, order a local wine. And so we did, and this turned out to be a real gem, a 2009 Villanova rouge. Fruity and midway between light and strong, this wine reminded me of some of the top riojas I have sampled in Spain.



The meal commenced with a three-part amuse bouche: a bettrave mousse, cigarette lardons et creme, and a celery mousse, all outstanding, but the highlight was the beet mousse, which was served in a candied shell resembling an egg (yin). My photo shows what it looks like when you crack the egg before snapping the picture.



The first official dish was a warming combination of a couple tender gnocci in a soup comprised of onion and cheese. There is no photo, which demonstrates what happens when you completely eat the dish before thinking of snapping a photo. Up next was a circle of foie gras pot-au-feu (yang), with herring eggs and haddock mousse. This is what it's all about, really put me in the holiday spirit - or was that the third glass of Villanova?



Dish 3 was comprised of a creative combination of cabillaud 1/2 sel, pulpe de topinambours, mayonnaise vanille, and citron. Yes, the topinambour raises its ever prevalent (in French restaurants) head again, with some flowers and mushrooms thrown in to round out the (this time) square-shaped dish.



The next dish was my personal favorite (Co. would vote for the foie gras hands down) lotte curry (anima), with sweet onion, asparagus and seminole, betraying my predilection for Asian spices.



The obligatory interlude before dessert was next on the agenda, as the fully-stocked chariot of cheeses was brought to our table. I savored a few choice morsels, the slab of comte, strong and essential.



Next, we were informed by our attentive yet not quite ready for prime-time waiter (youth!) that our next dish was not dessert, but pre-dessert, which was a way to tell us that there were, in fact, two desserts. The pre-dessert was less ordinary than it may have appeared - mango creme sandwiched between a wave of sugared potato (quick: potato. Fruit or vegetable?), its delicate curves reminding me of the turbulent waves of the sea a couple kilometers to the west. This was damn good.



Not to be outdone, however, was the actual dessert, or dessert no. 2 for those of you who are counting - a trio of edible, miniature geodesic domes (animus): a candied shell encapsulating jasmine creme, with a couple faux cherries to boot, the latter composed of crushed apple. Visions of Futuroscope, the science theme park 60 or so kilometers to the north, entered my mind.



Along with the post-meal cafe came a cart jam-packed with any child's fantasy of stocking stuffers - candies, cakes, macaroons. At this point, no sense overdoing it, but what harm can a couple of little cakes on the house create?



So, overall, I am more than satisfied that the tempest did not blow away L'Aquarelle before my scheduled visit. The price/quality ratio is a deal closer: a six-course meal, a bottle of wine, coffee, and some extras thrown in came to a mere 138.50€. It's hard to find fault with anything food related, but if there is a nit to pick it would have to be the piped in music that further confirms Frank Zappa's famous quote that people wouldn't know good music if it bit them on the ass. Muted, but not quite enough, just go with the subdued baroque under these circumstances. And that white concept spoon - I go one way, it goes the other - really needs to be rendered to the trashbin. But these are minor quibbles. L'Aquarelle is truly deserving of its Michelin star. It's not around the corner, but add this venue to your reasons to venture southwest of Paris, even during the off-season.

L'AQUARELLE
22, rte Cande
17920 Breuillet
tel. 05.46.22.11.38
website: http://www.laquarelle.net/accueil.html

Notes:

1. According to Aurelie Taffart, our proprieter-hostess, the restaurant's current location is a rental and the couple is in the process of building a permanent home for L'Aquarelle, which will remain in Breuillet, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

2. Thanks to LB, whose Google search was better than mine, and who recommended L'Aquarelle as a can't miss option.

3. With one of our mainstays by the sea in Royan - Le Petit Bouchon - closed for the season, Co. and I gambled on La Jabotière, which sits next door to the casino - and lost. Nice waitstaff, a view of the sea, and they really seem to try, but the food just wasn't up to snuff.

Le Chateaubriand - Movin' On Up

That's what I'm talking about - originality, surprise, subtlety, outrageousness. What am I talking about? Last Friday night's dinner at Le Chateaubriand (let's say LC, for short), quite possibly the best meal I've had in Paris all year. LC has been on my radar for some time, but each time I came close to reserving, something held me back. 'You'll either love it or hate it!' 'Noisy and crowded!' And this one from Le Fooding: 'Impossible to get a table. Impossible to get a table: need further explanation?' And also from Le Fooding: 'Gourmet works of art.' There you have it, yin and yang, to go or not to go? Well, when someone tells me 'impossible to get a table' I immediately reach for my phone. Let's face it, if it were truly impossible, how could the restaurant make any business? And sure enough, I was offered a table two Fridays away without difficulty. 'Impossible to get a table' -don't believe it.

LC sits on a busy section of avenue Parmentier in a funky area of the 11th, and that funky atmosphere follows you into LC, an old-style Parisian bistro that once was an old-fashioned grocery, remnants of which appear in their antiquity here and there on the otherwise unadorned walls, save the obligatory chalkboards announcing the available wines by the glass. This is a roomy bistrot that starts feeling more intimate once the room fills, and believe me, it doesn't take long for the place to fill up. Nonetheless, Co. and I were ushered to a cozy corner in the back room, apart from the more hustle-bustle of the larger front room/bar area. And it does get noisy, but in a quasi-bawdy way that adds to the atmosphere, if you get my drift - this is what a Parisian bistrot is supposed to be all about.

But all that noise and crowdedness is for a reason - the evening's 50€ set menu created and prepared by chef Inaki Aizpitarte, who emanates from the French Basque country, and previously held court at La Famille. Alexander Lobrano (Hungry for Paris, Random House) put it very well when he described Aizpitarte as 'a brilliant miniaturist, composing original origami-like compositions of taste that are often potent and pretty.' Our menu for the evening was explained by a young, bearded waiter, slowly, with questions saved for the end. We started off with a set of five amuses bouche, wham bam thank you ma'am, one after the other. First up, a small plate of four gougères - savory little puff pastries, with what may have been subtly embellished by pomegranate seeds sprinkled on top. (Photo thanks to the great eye and camera of gourmet traveler.) A low-key start, with hints of the miniaturist concoctions to come. Our empty plate was soon replaced by two small bowls of cheviche with tiny scallops in their liquid, which our spunky waitress informed us should be consumed in a single gulp. Up next came a dish of two grenouille enveloped by a mysterious sauce with bread crumbs. If frog turns you off, never fear, this looked nothing like aforesaid amphibian. The string of amuses bouche continued with a bowl of miso-like bouillon with small cubes of foie gras. And that was followed up by a plate of tiny crevettes grise with berries and pineapple. Bear in mind, this was all to wet our appetite for the set dinner, which hadn't started yet! I suggested to Co. that this wouldn't be a bad time to pay for the wine (an adequate, but rather light, 36€ Bourgueil) and leave, our stomachs filled with the pre-meal tapas selection, but of course, this was solely in jest, as both us really wanted to see what was next.

What was next was a mulet noir, perles du Japon, huitre, cresson dish. My blurry photo will give you some idea, but the photo really doesn't do justice. Next, a cabillaud, pil pil, betteraves dish. Pil pil reflects the Basque origins of this recipe (i.e., the dish was prepared in a special sauce originating in the Basque country), which was highlighted by a delicate, sweet lump of beet, which really brought the steamed cod alive with flavor. Well, it's been two years that the betterave has been showing up in one way or another in finer restaurants around the world (see my Finland reviews), and when this much maligned root is cooked right, it can't be, sorry I can't resist, beat. But I'm starting to get that 'been there, done that' attitude about the beet. With 2011 right around the corner, I say, 'Next trendy vegetable, please!'

At this stage of the festivities, Co. partook of the boeuf, beurre noisette, racines offering, while I was granted an appropriately bloody portion of canard in lieu of the beef. The dish worked well with either meat, and this was just fine. Up next, two desserts, a dish of pommes, butternut, rose, obligatorily consumed before the crunchier chocolat, celeri invention. (You have the option of going with the desserts or the fromages du jour.) And that was that. Each dish reflecting the confidence and skill of the artisan in the kitchen, not a false note during the entire epic meal.









Don't take my word for it, just go. With Rino and LC under the belt this month, I feel like we're movin' on up quality-wise. Yet in both cases, the set menu approach keeps the prices down, with LC topping out at 139€, including one post-meal cafe and the wine, and how many courses, if you include the amuses bouche and two desserts? I count 10. While I also liked Rino very much, if I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one of the two bistrots with me, it would be Le Chateaubriand, hands down.

Note: other than my pitiful photo of the appetizer (Mulet noir), the other food photos from the aforementioned gourmet traveler; others from qype and The New York Times.

LE CHATEAUBRIAND
129 ave. Parmentier
75011 Paris
tel. 01 43 57 45 95
website: can't find one

P.S. There's another Le Chateaubriand restaurant in Paris, in the 17th. That's not the one I'm talking about.