Alain Ducasse is the Tom Douglas of real cuisine -- with five or six restaurants world-wide (depending on how well the Russian stock market is doing at any one time.) His signature dining room is in Plaza Athenee Hotel in Paris with red flowers crawling all over the outside (and inside.)
About 20 tables. Probably about 50 multi-lingual waiter-types with a neckware heirarchy. Staff also included mystery people who would appear and disappear to perform their one and only task (fromage cart pusher and dome opener, rest room escorts, purser.) Staff included one woman who might have been in charge from what we could tell. Crowd was more couples than business people and less than 10 percent American.
Stunning room more modern than ornate by Paris standards. Chandeliers surrounded by scores of individual crystal droplets hung from the ceiling in oval pattern. Wait staff precisely trained with varying levels of "client contact" and discretion among each other while getting stuff done on their marks all over the place.
Chairs are too modern for Margee but are admittedly comfortable slabs of leather and melamine including the fold-out purse tray on the right side of each seat. One young 30-something femme across from us whipped her's out when she sat down like she was the daughter of Alain Ducasse herself.
The least expensive appetizer on the menu is 85 euros to give you an idea of what was going down. Only the man's menu has the prices. Lucky for me, Margee is paying (thanks Margee!)
We each order the "collection printemps." Here's how the next three hours go:
1. Champagne, geranium and pink caviar cocktail. (I have the water with gas.)
2. Spinach tarte amuse busche. Almost too small to grab or fork -- but you get two of them. Served on very large plate.
3. Salted butter arrives in spiky cone, unsalted butter has the Alain Ducasse logo impressed into it. Knotty sliced bread in the basket.
4. Langustino twists of increasing size with green caviar on skid of tan sauce. Warm langustino juice shot. (Langoustines rafraichies, nage reduite, caviar oscietre, bouillon parfume.)
5. Round, gnarly, spiky spider crab shells steadied upside down on sea salt bearing surface filled with crab and veggie stew capped with pink-brown foam shaped to a perfect mirror roundness of the crab shell beneath it. But you can't tell there is crab and veggies in there because the foam looks impenatrably more nerf like than food like. I wait until the waiter team leaves to start laughing. But once you bust through the foam, the stew is pretty tasty.
6. Twisting shelled lobster claw pirouette with edible curving black barricade separating it from a line-up of asparagus on a black and green sauce chekerboard.
7. Next is the surprise from the chef -- more foam! This time a whipped asparagus parfait with foam served in a large martini glass -- three layers of varying tints of green. We are dying to know if the staff goes back each time and cracks up that they can get rich but otherwise sensible people to eat stuff like this. Margee is of the school that some in this room eat like this every day and she is probably right. Although I am not sure which utensil (if any) to use for a foaming asparagus martini, I use a small fork and dig into some more super good foam.
8. Very large sharp knife appears. All silverware throughout course of dinner is replaced upside down (knives presented on edge cutting edge down.)
9. Chicken breast surrounded by shelled crayfish with crayfish sauce pouring ceremony.
10. Mixed greens in a cup.
11. Fromage dome -- as soon as it opens I take off my shoes. Margee of course has her phd in fromage so she and the fromagerist talk curds and I hold back on asking them to close the dome while the negotiation is taking place. We settle for a few choices each and consider what they do with the leftovers each night because it is clear that each cheese is "new" at the start of the night. Even a busy kitchen can't otherwise assimilate a pound a day of leftover stinkraybleu and the other selections. Maybe they give it to the homeless shelters -- fromage et spiral brioche en bum.
12. Crumb elimination team appears and disappears into the ether.
13. Old napkin slipped off your lap and replaced by dessert napkin fairies. Never had a dessert napkin before, but, of course, they are smaller than a dinner napkin.
14. The dessert we did not order arrives -- more foaming surprises from the chef. Very red berry marmalade served with tartlets, and fraglile paper thin cookies along with fatter chocolate cookies. The dessert sommelier also arrives with his bottled selections.
15. The dessert we did order arrives. I have the rubarb and strawberry glaceel which is like candied potato chips of fruit with a brioche and red puree.
16. I ask for a cup of coffee and faux pas for the team. "You want coffee now?" he asks. They oblige me with a french press of blue mountain jamacian -- worth the embarrassment. There are four types of cream offered and four types of sugar cubes.
17. The post dessert caramel cart arrives. There are twenty different types of varying consistencies so I order one of the small wrapped ones and put it in my pocket.
18. Margee asks for matches which arrive on a silver tray. Although she asks for matches in other places along our journey, no one else obliges her with such metallic finesse.
19. As you leave the dining room and re-enter the hotel lobby, they give you a copy of the menu -- but of course nothing we have had is on the menu (other than number 4 above.) Thankfully, no english version is available (neither are the prices shown.)
21. We may still look hungry or at least friendly because the lady in charge insists that Margee take a full loaf of bread with us -- Margee later gives it to our chambermaid.
So, there you have it. Alain Ducasse -- a nice place for dinner unless you have something against foam.
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.