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Lucas Carton: Where Wine is King
PARIS – Recently, I had two extraordinary food
epiphanies, and each time they included a slice of the
creamy golden, blue-flecked cow’s milk cheese known
as Forme d’Ambert.
The first happened this summer while I was both reading
and rather absent-mindedly eating a slice of Forme d’Ambert
as part of a dinner-time cheese course. I took a bite
of cheese, a sip of a red Cotes du Ventoux and suddenly
my mouth exploded with the welcome, wintry sensation
of fresh black truffles! I paused, was stunned and amazed,
inhaled and felt as though there was a truffle in my
midst. It was of course the earthiness of blue cheese
in combination with the almost truffle essence of the
wine that triggered the sensation, but I didn’t
want it to disappear. I savored the seconds of unanticipated
pleasure and only wished they could be turned into hours.
Alas, it was elusive, for a second morsel of cheese,
another few drops of wine were pleasurable, but no greater
than the sum of the parts.
A few weeks ago, Forme d’Ambert came into play
again, this time at the very end of an extraordinary
meal at Alain Senderens’ Lucas Carton. This time,
the first taste, the second and on to the end were far
greater than the sum of the parts. The creamy Forme
d’Ambert was teamed up with a rich, rosy, fragrant,
buttery toasted brioche laced with sweet cherries and
spice and moistened with a glass rich but not overly
sweet ruby Port wine. The trio was as good as a whole
meal to me, perfection multiplied by many, like a symphony
of rich colors and textures on the palate, as though
each was destined to share company with the other. The
cheese was just slightly chilled and its buttery coolness
loved the presence of the warm toast with its hint of
spice and sweet, the smoothness of the cherries, then
the rounding out of the alcohol on the tongue supplied
by Senderens’ choice of Rozes Vintage 1985 Porto.
Today much ado is made of food and wine pairing, which
is both a science and an art. As my two experiences
suggest, pleasure explosions can be accidental or planned,
but when the pairing works it is hard to find more satisfactory
gastronomic pleasure.
After 10 years of creating special food and wine menus,
Senderens decided to put wine before food and his choices
are thoroughly brilliant. They are not complicated or
complex, nor are they traditional. He looks for notes
in a wine – whether its one of fresh or dried fruit,
of toasted nuts, of wood or the woods, of iodine or
black cherries, herbs of the garrigue of Provence (fennel,
thyme, bay leaf), a touch of curry, butter and vanilla,
wet leaves from the woods and mushrooms, honey or a
confit of oranges. So when you find these elements in
wines, why not just match them up with the real thing?
Sounds simple, but if it was really that easy, we might
be dining that way every night.
The fireworks at the elegant Michelin three-star Lucas
Carton start with the appetizer menu, and such uncommon
starters as fresh Manzanilla fino sherry -- with its
hints of hazelnuts and iodine -- paired with soft and
elegant fresh anchovy filets marinated in olive oil,
the bones deep fried to a brilliant crisp, and then
a touch of salty, silken Spanish ham, Jamon Iberia Bellota.
The second act to this sherry-loving introduction to
the feast comes as a tangle of the tiniest bay squid,
or chipirons, stuffed with red pepper and smoky pork
lomo, and squid tentacles fried and lightly stained
with squid ink. The sea, the salt, the land all come
together here with felicitous agreement.
Equally amazing and satisfying is the white Savigny
les Beaune, 1997 from Domaine J. Boillot, with its elegant
hints of the woods, served with a tiny deep fried “beurreck”
of pastry-wrapped package of tiny petoncle scallops
set in a cream of wild mushrooms, all showered with
lightly toasted almonds. Here, the second act arrives
as a masterpiece of creamy risotto, laced with scallops,
lemon zest and ginger. Oh so complex in execution, but
so simple for our palates to understand.
And that is only the beginning.
What amazed me most about this multi-course feast was
not only the thought and care that went into creating
such a menu but the way in which we, as diners, react
to it. Conditioned to an avalanche of flavors and sensations
in a single meal, I realized that we rarely have time
to pause and reflect. To stop and pay attention. When
a single wine and single dish seems to merge as one,
we ARE forced to pause, stop, listen, taste, reflect
upon our reactions to the interplay of the wine and
the food.
Weeks later, what my taste memory recalls most vividly
(after the Forme d’Ambert explosion) is the puddle
of creamy polenta laced with white truffles from Italy,
a fireworks of smooth textures, intense fragrances,
rounded out by the cool Corton Charlemagne 1990 from
Domaine Bonneau du Martray, rich with truffle and woodsy
essences of its own.
Such a meal is not given away, and shouldn’t be.
But it reflects a lifetime of study for a chef who has
not stopped creating at the age of 63. Go and take advantage
of his research and the knowledge.
Lucas Carton
9 Place de la Madeleine
Paris 75008.
Tel: 01 42 65 22 90.
www.lucascarton.com.
All major credit cards. Closed all day Sunday, Saturday
lunch, Monday lunch. Lunch menu at 76 €, not including
wine. Dinner, wine included, about 230 €.
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