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Alain Dutournier's Carré des Feuillants
Paris -- Passion in life can take you a long way. As
the talented chef Alain Dutournier proves year after
year, meal after meal. He's one of the most well rounded
chefs I know, not only embracing his love of food and
all the products that go into creating a magnificent
style of cuisine he has the right to call his one. Beyond
food, he fires his passions for bullfights and rugby,
for cigars and wine. If this was America we'd call him
an "all-American" guy. Why does "all
French" guy just not sound the same?
At the age of 51, this native of France's fertile southwest
still has the enthusiasm of someone decades younger,
and he is a man full of pride. For his country, for
his native Landes region, for his own accomplishments.
A recent dinner at his warm and welcoming Carre des
Feuillants suggests he does not miss a beat, offering
up a truly harmonious cuisine full of maturity and complexity.
Fare that has the ability to surprise yet is actually
quite simple in its underpinnings.
While over the years his menu has stayed true to his
native foundation - there will always be foie gras and
corn bread, game and wild mushrooms, Pyrénées
lamb and the famed beef from Chalosse. But he lets himself
stretch beyond, dipping into Italy for exquisite white
truffles from Alba, to Brittany for sweet and plump
scallops and regal turbot, to the coast of Bordeaux
for oysters tinged green from the rich beds of algae,
to England for his own rich versions of fruit crumble,
and to China for Sichuan pepper- flavored sauces.
It is rare for a diner to work up the same enthusiasm
for every course, from first to middle to end, but Dutournier
has that rare talent - and evenness - to get us just
as excited about the gingerbread crumble (our last bite)
as we were about the plump Gillardeau green-tinged Marennes
oysters bathed in a sea water jelly and teamed up with
tiny open-face sandwiches layered with a fine slice
of foie gras (our first welcome bite).
A meal at Carre des Feuillants has the ability to move
along like a fine piece of music, carrying us along
on a fine rhythmical ride. Following the tease of the
oysters, we submerge ourselves into a wild mushroom
wonderland, a trio of cèpe preparations that
include gently marinated mushrooms, another version
that carefully pan-fried, all teamed up with Dutournier's
trademark "petit pâté chaude,"
a warming cool weather pâté that is a complex
and finely texture mélange of fresh cèpes
, dried cèpes , shallots, parsley, eggs, butter,
cream and walnut oil, all punctuated with a touch of
nutmeg, and gently baked in a soothing bain marie.
Soup comes in the form of triple alliance of a rich
pheasant stock enriched with sweet chestnuts. As a finish
the chef floats bits of smooth poached pheasant breast,
chunks of chestnuts and then gilding the lily in the
finest of manners, a final layer of Italian white truffles.
But I guess I hold the softest spot for his true white
truffle extravaganza, a beautifully composed, deftly
seasoned "galette" a rather complex mixture
of sliced raw scallops, arugula, artichokes, mushrooms
and Parmesan all layered and bound with a hazelnut vinaigrette,
then topped with a thick layer of fragrant white truffles.
Finally for a brilliant juxtaposition, Dutournier tops
the galette with a crispy sweet/salty cumin wafer. Bravo!
As if it could not get better, it does, in the name
of whole roasted poularde, a plump, moist fatted hen
from the Chalosse region, paired with a simple and sublime
mix of varied wild mushrooms.
Dutournier knows his wines and shows how he can play
the food-wine marriages with bravura: The oysters were
delighted to be paired with a 1997 Riesling from the
house of Kientzler, while the poularde was well escorted
by the 1995 Chapelle de la Mission Haut Brion. And the
gingerbread crumble could not have been in finer company
that that of a 1991 vin de paille, the rare sweet wine
from the Jura, this one from the house of P. Botin.
Carré des Feuillants
14 rue de Castiglione
Paris 75001
Tel: 01 42 86 82 82
Fax: 01 42 86 07 71.
Credit cards: American Express, Diners Club, Visa. Closed
Saturday lunch, Sunday and August. 320 franc lunch menu,750-franc
tasting menu. A la carte, 550 to 700 francs including
service but not wine.
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