After a ten year hiatus, 6000footdrop.com returned this week to Alain Ducasse's Le Grill at the magnificent belle epoque Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, Monaco. Le Grill (on floor eight) remains a wonderful companion to Ducasse's signature (main floor) Louis XV restaurant for those looking to spend less than $1000 for dinner. You can see the windows of Le Grill in this photo top center.
Our last Alain Ducasse review of his signature Alain Ducasse at the Plaza Athenee in Paris showed Ducasse's ability to be completely over-the-top, cuisine-wise. Our polite lunch-time 86 from his Le Jules Verne restaurant in Paris (for wearing shorts) showed his ability to enforce a dress code -- and that was in effect Thursday evening as we watched a Russian oligarch and his painted girl get the 86 from Le Grill for failure to wear a dinner jacket (returning 20 minutes later with a jacket still with tags.) Tuxedos are not required for the patrons, although the staff sports at least seven different types of tuxes -- denoting who is who (e.g. white vest, white bow tie and tails means you are a busboy.)
About 25 tables mostly eurocouples, a few japanese, the sloppy russians, and even a quite well-behaved child. The ghost of Andy Warhol was at the next table with Diane von freaking Furstenberg in a fur dress. This Double R had only a baby on board -- no other occupants (car-seat back-seat driver's side, no kidding.)
The "purse chair" seen at Ducasse's other formal restaurants (but not, for example, at his Paris "neighborhood bistro" Aux Lyonnais) was a welcome spot for the Mary Frances.
Le Grill opens at 8pm, although early-americans are offered the bar before 8. Ever had a cloth cocktail napkin? How about a blended fish tart topped with a quail egg slice the size of an olive? An asparagus puff? Perfectly octagon potato chips? A spinach tart smaller than any of your teeth? All for free!
Once seated, you can see the open kitchen and Le Grill's signature "grill" -- a vertical firewood prison six feet wide by four feet tall where the meats are hung vertically not even touching the hot metal. Little hanging rib cages were going around to many of the tables like we were in Borneo.
As in all Ducasse's restaurants, the service is perfect -- at least a three-to-one server-to-patron ratio, with each staff member executing perfectly or else being berated en francais (but being allowed considerably more fraternization than at Ducasse's formal restaurants.) Again, all silverware is presented upside down, so you can see the "HP" markings (Hotel de Paris, not Harry Potter, we deduce.)
They sensed our americanness and offered to rush us through --
-- but our wry two lead waiters realized we were there for the evening just like the eurodiners (including, for the second time we have seen at Le Grill -- a lone diner) so it settled into a nice europerfection.
Our amuse bouche was a shot glass pousse cafe of blended livers cross-spiked with green apple toothpicks. Although the wine list includes 8000-euro Chateaux Margeauxs and bargain 900-euro Opus Ones, we settled for Evian Pure with our appetizers -- grilled prawns and the 35 euro "lettuces". Our main courses included the Sea Bream, killed, gutted, grilled and presented (with the head, by tux #6) -- before our tux #2 waiter filleted it tableside and placed it naked on the sterno'd hot serving plate followed by tux #5 on the hot citrus sauce pouring ceremony. We also got the recipe for Ducasse's incredible "puffed" potato slices -- complicated enough for Nathan Myhrvold.
The Grand Mariner souffles were baked perfection. Although it had been sunny enough Thursday for this solar-assisted Fisker Karma, Le Grill's signature retractable celestial ceiling was, on this evening, on le fritz.
The triumphant Eva Peron windows are open tableside -- enough to sneak out on the marble balcony for an interlude. Stealthy, like a matte-black Porsche.
Even perfect dinners must come to an end, so we did depart, but it was satisfying to know that we would see Monaco-native Alain again the next night at his La Trattoria at Prince Albert's Sporting Club of Monte Carlo. We're working on our AD punch card!
See you there!