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Full house at the Meurice
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Patricia Wells IHT
Thursday, March 4, 2004
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PARIS Yannick Alléno is one Parisian chef that is more than content. "Complet! Complet! C'est genial!” he says with satisfaction at the thought that, since he arrived on Sept. 1, the Meurice Hotel's dining room has been playing to a full house at lunch and dinner.
This lean, muscular, 35-year-old chef seems more than at home and at ease in this grand hotel, where he oversees no fewer than 72 chefs in a series of three kitchens spread out side by side in the hotel's vast underground workshops.
But it is clear that his focus and his pride shines upon the 50-seat dining room, a gracious and elegant room filled with shimmering crystal chandeliers and antique beveled mirrors that reflect large bay windows framed in rare marble. The youthful staff, dressed to the nines in morning coats, with hair slicked back and the posture of ballet dancers, whirl about as if they are part of the show, and they are.
The Meurice - long the hotel of the aristocratic, where you are encouraged to accept luxury as a birthright - is the jewel in the collection of the city's grand hotels. A special meal orchestrated by Alléno (who was awarded two Michelin stars in 2002 while at the restaurant Les Muses in the Hôtel Scribe) and his staff was magical.
While not known for its bargains, the Meurice dining room's E55, or about $66, lunch menu is a good place to cut your teeth: The choice is vast but not overwhelming and offers a good look at Alléno's fare, which I find a surprising jigsaw puzzle, served with grand elegance and a distinctly modern sensibility.
As soon as Alléno arrived at the Meurice he overhauled the kitchens, adding state-of-the-art ovens and a rotisserie that flatters his top-quality ingredients, including a gorgeous, moist roasted duck that is paired with wild cèpe mushrooms and baby turnips infused with the wintry flavor of juniper berries.
His food has style (lots of rounds upon rounds, squares upon squares), and while flavors are generally soft in texture, there is always a touch of crunch at the end, fulfilling the desire for a bit of snap, crackle and pop on the palate.
Luncheon specialties may range from the purely simple - a superb mound of tiny girolles mushrooms cooked in the sherry-like vin jaune from the Jura - to the wonderfully complex - a wintry fricassee of suckling pig, anointed with sage butter and a fresh artichoke mousseline.
I spent a morning with Alléno in his kitchen and snapped up some recipes that have already been incorporated into my own repertoire, including a winning gratin of Swiss chard stems: Poach match-stick-size stems in chicken stock, layer in a gratin dish with sprinklings of grated Parmesan, heat beneath a broiler, then finish it all with miniature cubes of Parmesan, tiny bits of celery leaf and bay leaf and a shower of well-toasted pine nuts.
No matter the menu, his food combinations are always out of the ordinary, but never go over the edge toward wackiness. For instance, thin slices of abalone - ormeaux - cooked in salted butter seem right at home with the earthy nature of fresh white shell beans and wild cèpes.
A favorite at a recent dinner was his rotisserie saddle of lamb from small farmers in the Languedoc with those classic white shell beans, here slow-roasted in the oven in stock, with a touch of garlic, sherry vinegar, parsley, tomatoes and the almost-smoky, just-right-spicy red pepper from Espelette in France's Basque Country.
The wine list can get pricey, but the sommelier David Retif keeps a small selection of wines priced from E34 to E49, also available by the glass. Selections might include the marsanne-grape-based white Saint-Péray from the Voge vineyards or a Loire Valley red from Château de Fosse-Sèche. Le Meurice, 228 Rue du Rivoli, Paris 1; tel: 01-44-58-10-55; fax: 01-44-58-10-15; Internet: www.meuricehotel.com. Closed Saturday lunch and all day Sunday. E55 lunch menu; à la carte, E100 to E155, including service but not wine.
Patricia Wells can be reached at her Web site: www.patriciawells.com.
International Herald Tribune
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