ut white hat and romantic dinners with violins. Out as well the beef Bourguignon, veal Marengo or frogs legs fricassee. In: the "nouvelle cuisine" and a new art of cooking. These last five years, a lot of restaurants proposing this "nouvelle cuisine" appear in Paris. Common points: a trendy decoration, an extremely selected clientèle, exorbitant prices, but especially a more exotic, mainly oriental gastronomy. Would French be tired by the contents of the plate, which they would consider too ordinary? Would they have enough of the Lorraine and its quiche, Strasbourg and its sausages, Burgundy and its snails, Auvergne and its hotpot or still Bayonne and its ham? It's unlikely considering the quality and variety of the French cuisine. They might just need holidays...
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Last night
Marrakesh
tonight
Phuket
To have dinner in a Parisian brewery or in a great gourmet restaurant as La Tour d'Argent is not anymore the highlight of a "trendy way of live".
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Xu |
The menu and the excellence of the flesh are still just as good, but not the clientele. Under 40 years old, it's not "hipe" anymore to savour a lobster stuffed with cepes in Les Grandes Marches . To stand out (to be noticeable), book a table at The Shozan, a trendy Indian restaurant of the eighth district, where you get the sake in a stalk of bamboo. Obviously, it is more exciting than a simple Dom Pérignon served in a crystal flute by an immaculately dressed waiter. Don't look for the new generation much longer, you meet it in The Xu, The Zo, The Tanjia, The Buddha-Bar or The Montecristo. These days the Parisian West is the HQ of the young gastronomes.
Some great Chefs get the wave and took the initiative to propose this kind of cooking. Alain Ducasse opened last year the Spoon, on Marignan's street, where in a very fashion ambiance one can sample sushis with foie gras, chicken cooked with coca cola and Malabar chewing gum ice for only 120 $ !!
There's a lot of restaurant like the Spoon . The Buddha Bar is one of the most frequented (crowded), because all the ingredients are gathered to make it a success. |
Here as in all the new restaurants, the decoration is conceived by a designer: sieved light, incenses, lamps octopuses, wooden sculptured rails, Indian house music, all this under the too wise eye of a huge Buddha. Finally, the cooking is not the first choise, it's good but not Himalaya. For 90 $, you have one short stay in a Tibetan temple.
Another trendy place: the Tanjia . The Guetta's, the famous couple, conductor of the Parisian nights, dropped the Club Les Bains Douches, to open an oriental restaurant. Alcoves, embroidered pouffes, kilims, sofas, couscous and tagines are for the meeting. The traditional sauerkraut of Colmar would probably have had no same success! VIP, models, producers all the jetset have rendez-vous in this exotic place. In the kitchens of the Nirvana, Matignon's avenue, whom Chef is Maurice Guillouët himself, former of the Ritz, the speciality is the "fusion food": wraps (pancakes of South American wheat), tandoori, tagine with pastas in dates, or still makis of goat and gingerbread. Once again, the paradisiac decoration is in the recipe. The pink and purple walls, the Indian totems and the balcony of the Rajasthan from the XVIIth century guide us on the roads of Katmandu.
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Zo
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Escape from
the everyday
One does not count any more Tanjia, Korova, Poona Lounge and other Nobu who opened recently.
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An exotic and more colored kitchen seems to have been preferred to the French gastronomy. Restaurants, of course, are supposed to provide escape from everyday. But lately fashion, furniture, food, have all been moving away from austerity, and toward a richer, more colourful, more emotional kind of design. The rule: maximalism, at crossroad between luxury, emotional and exotic. In edgy places, steel, glass and discreet spot lighting have been replaced by Moroccan rugs, chandeliers, velvet wallpaper. The new esthetic and cooking may be most accurately likened to a souk or extreme Orient room - and it doesn't gat anymore maximalist than that. Other element of recipe: music ambiance and the possibility to gaze at diners. And that the true Paris visual pleasure: looking other people and ... been looked!
Camille Delon - © 2002
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