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New Kid on the Block: Paris's Very Fine
Hiramatsu
Paris – Each season a new restaurant sneaks up
on us and seemingly overnight becomes the latest rage.
The restaurant of the moment is Hiramatsu, a miniscule
18-seat restaurant set along the banks of the Seine
on the Ile Saint Louis.
Since its opening last October, the restaurant has
had its share of fans and foes. The achievement of a
Michelin star on March 1st only helped fuel the flames
of controversy. There are critics who wonder how chef-owner
Hiroyuki Hiramatsu – who seems to have come out
of nowhere – managed to land such a beautiful site,
managed to become the rage, managed to garner a coveted
Michelin star in such a brief time.
And then there are those (like me) who say, who cares
where he came from, it’s what’s on the plate
that matters. And in my estimation, this Japanese businessman/chef
has brought an always welcome breath of fresh air to
the Paris dining scene.
The crisply elegant restaurant is a tiny jewel box.
With black and white tile floors, comfortable beige
leather arm chairs, crisp white linens, and lots of
ultra-modern Bernardaud china, Hiramatsu is ultimately
pleasing.
The menu is as diminutive as the site, with five selections
of starters, fish, meat, and dessert. And Hiramatsu’s
food has a surprising, dramatic, gee-whiz quality about
it, the kind of fare that can get even the most jaded
palates excited about the freshness of ingredients and
their juxtaposition on the plate.
Like most good modern chefs today, Hiramatsu is obsessed
with the quality of ingredients and several meals here
attest to his attention to those details. Currently,
diners begin the meal with a small plate of paper-thin
slices of Spanish ham drizzled with great olive oil
and sprinkled with pepper. Utterly simple and utterly
divine. The palate teaser is an equally excellent royale,
an alabaster-white pudding topped with a fragrant, intense,
truffle bouillon laced with matchstick slices of black
truffles.
Perhaps the prettiest dish on the menu is the first
course serving of duck breast, cabbage, and foie gras.
Strips of raw duck breast are mounded teepee- style
atop the cabbage and foie gras. At table, the waiter
pours boiling vegetable consommé over the duck,
allowing it to cook every so slightly.
On the soothing side, Hiramatsu offers a marvelous
modern ravioli --- a giant sheet of pasta enveloping
huge chunks of firm, white Saint Pierre (or John Dory),
teamed up with miniscule cubes of eggplant and zucchini.
An almost lactic, acidic sauce served to bind them all
together.
But I guess my favorite dish here is the turbot, pan-fried
on the bone, and presented at table before whisking
it back to the kitchen for the final touches. The turbot
is seared with a mixture of very finely chopped dried
orange rind and juniper berries, making for a fragrant,
pungent coating, and is served with an elegant, equally
pungent green mustard sauce.
A close second favorite would be his first course salade
de fruits de mer, a mixture of lobster, scallops, bar,
salmon, turbot, sliced mushrooms and strips of celery
root all set atop a porcelain grill. Beneath the grill
lie some 13 spices, all smoking away, giving the dish
a mysterious, delicately smoky quality.
Desserts include the obligatory molten chocolate cake,
which here runs like a veritable live volcano: I loved
the warm, oozing, river of bitter chocolate. Equally
pleasing is the millefeuille of orange confits, served
with a superb bitter chocolate sorbet.
Service is fine, often chatty. The wine list –
created by wine steward Hideya Ishizuka, formerly at
the Michelin two-star restaurant Chateau Cordeillan-Bages
in Bordeaux -- is excellent, with great variety and
a wide choice of half bottles, rarely seen and much
in demand.
So who is this mystery man? Hiramatsu has an empire
of elegant French and Italian restaurants in Japan,
and as he tells the story, he has had a long time dream
of having a tiny restaurant in Paris to use as a sort
of laboratory for testing and selecting ingredients
to export to Japan, as well as training kitchen and
dining room staff. He was walking along the Ile Saint
Louis one day, found that his current space was available,
and grabbed it. The chef spends half his time in Paris
and half in Japan, and plans to change the entire menu
and all the china four times each year. As he says “Food
does not change. Seasons do.”
Restaurant Hiramatsu Saint-Louis en l’Ile
7 Quai de Bourbon
Paris 75004.
Telephone 01 56 81 08 80.
email: paris@hiramatsu.co.jp.
Closed Sunday and Monday. All major credit cards.
45 Euro lunch menu, 92 euro tasting menu. A la carte,
90 to 140 euros per person, including service but not
wine.
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