Vedat and I have taken a
particularly interest in visiting the up and coming French
restaurants or the so called espoirs to gain the coveted
Michelin 3-star rating. On a recent Paris trip I had Le Meurice
and Les Ambassadeurs on the program. It was not without some
skepticism I returned to Les Ambassadeurs to again try
Jean-François Piège's cuisine. Vedat and I ate there shortly
after he had installed himself after leaving Alain Ducasse at
Plaza Athénée. We had a very good meal prepared with superb
ingredients that we rated highly. What caused my skepticism were
several articles about Piège and his food and a few TV coverage
of him left me a little worried that the signs we noted of
overcomplicating things and turning the food into architectural
creations had gone a little astray.
I was more than a little
worried that the Cartesian style and perhaps we could say
somewhat baroque creations had become far too baroque. It turned
out that my fears were completely wrong.
It is easy to be impressed by
Jean François Piège's cuisine. I am not sure there is a current
Chef in haute cuisine anywhere that cooks with such precision
like the kitchen of Les Ambassadeurs under Piège. I don’t think
so. The technique is virtually flawless and from my point of
view clearly today’s benchmark. The used techniques manage to
cleverly balance modern techniques and traditional techniques.
The ingredients are throughout a meal as good as it gets or
close to and especially impressive is the now in most dishes
superb calibration of tastes and taste marriages, which Vedat
and I somewhat missed on our fist meal. I sense more creativity
on the two meals I had now than on the first occasions as if
Piège is more liberated from the influence of having been under
the Ducasse umbrella for many years and he is now finding his
own style. The said praise does not mean that I do not have some
issues with Piège’s cuisine. I do find some sauces a notch too
reduced or with slightly too much fat traces but this all fall
under the category of a matter of taste.
Many dishes bear a hallmark of
Piège’s playfulness and creativity without forgetting the roots
of French cuisine and without compromising the in so many places
missing rigor necessary to obtain a truly extraordinary result.
I had two meals there recently.
Both meals started with the amuse “Sur l’idée d’un plateau de
télé…..”. It is perhaps as far as one can get from most people’s
normal television snacks, but it is a very good start of a meal.
It consisted of Gateau de foie blond selon Lucien Tendret
version 2006 (A small glass of cray fish and chicken liver
mousse), Variation croustillante d’une tranche de jambon (a deep
fried crocquet), Comme un jambon/buerre à la parisienne (a
cigarette-like crisp filled with airlight mousse), Bonbon,
buerre de truffe noire a tartiner (truffles butter to spread on
a toast) and last and perhaps most impressive of all, salade de
betterave en lemonade (a beet soda with a clear and crisp taste
of beets).
The dish of the two meals I had
at Les Ambassadeurs was the sweetbreads done two ways with a
salad of endives and ham. One large chunk of pink cooked with a
superb outside crust was paired with smaller soft cooked pieces
and a superb endive and ham salad prepared with endive leaves
that had been trimmed from their most bitter parts. It is rare
to find sweetbreads on this level. Indeed I find it not really
worth eating sweetbreads if they are not of top notch quality.
Also somewhat disturbing is the fashion to cook them in smaller
pieces in order to caramelise them with the result of rather dry
interior albeit some crispiness or rather a not so desirable
crunchiness is obtained. I take my hat of for Piège´s
preparation. Bravo.
Another dish on the first meal
that was simply a superb dish flirting with perfection in my
book was a very large scallop from Erquy served with a leeks
compression with truffles, a fantastic vinaigrette and a truffle
foam. The scallop was superbly cooked showing both texture and
taste of the pan frying and the textural sensation of a medium
rare scallop meat. The vinaigrette was superbly balanced and
perfumed.
The dish that I was least
impressed with, although it still was a very nice dish, was the
“Casse-Croûte” de homard bleu a la Florentine. The truffled
sauce was slightly too powerful with too much fat traces for the
delicate lobster. But even so it is an admirable dish from a
conceptual point of view.
Most dishes had truffles
incorporated into them. Unfortunately the truffles somewhat
lacked in perfume, but they have most of this year and this year
goes to the history as a pretty bad truffle year. There were
astonishing truffles in mid-December up until early January and
then they faded quickly. Only once in early January did I sense
that smoky almost like toasted coffee and extremely pungent
flavours that is to die for.
The cheese service at Les
Ambassadeurs is heavily focused on cheeses from Bernard Antony
who is one of France’s premier cheese affineurs. Some of the
musts from him include his vieux comté, currently the 2002, his
superb fourme d’Ambert and l’Abbaye de Citeaux.
The desserts at Les
Ambassadeurs are perhaps the most complicated and complex
preparations from an architectural point of view. From a taste
point of view they were still very good even if they are
somewhat overworked for my taste. Desserts included a
Choco/pamplemousse en chaud/froid, which can be seen on the
first picture below and on the second picture below is the Comme
un vacherin, noix de cocos/ananas.
Jean-François Piège suggested I
should come back and try his Galician beef. It was hard to
resist trying a Galician beef killed at 7-9 years of age and
then matured for one month. The second meal shortly after the
first proved to be another superb meal. First the splendid
television platter one more time, then a very good big piece of
low heat cooked sea bass that was slightly overwhelmed by a
buttery truffle sauce. With the bass were also superb buckwheat
pancakes and crepes. The sea bass was followed by another
fantastic dish. A tarte of Cevennes onion and a clear soup of
Cevennes onions and small onion croquets. I adore Cevennes
onions if they are prepared carefully so that their fantastic
mild onion taste comes through clearly. Piège’s preparation was
a creative version of onion tarte and onion soup. Had I not
known it was Piège I may have guessed I was being served it by
Gagnaire on one of his better days. I think that this dish is
the dish I will remember most from these two meals in the
future.
So after quite a lot of food,
only a few hours after the first meal it was time for the
Galician beef. I was a little anxious since they had shown me
the piece in advance and it was a large cut, easily enough to
serve two people. It was the second cote from the basse cotes,
which is one of my preferred parts of the back of the beef. What
made me most curious in advance was that Jean-François told me
it was not very far in style from a very good Simmental, only
slaughtered when it is older and thereby had more flavour than a
Simmental. It was quite marbled even if I have had Simmental
with more marbling but it was a very very good beef. The taste
was quite gamey but not too gamey to loose its taste of beef.
On our first visit, Vedat and I
experienced some service glitches. This is all history and very
professional and friendly service is now provided by a well
trained and enthusiastic team. Wine service is particularly
good. The wine list is huge with some very interesting wines at
reasonable prices. A 91 Pommard Rugiens from Hubert de Montille
proved to be a lovely wine.
The dining room at Les
Ambassadeurs is in my opinion one of the more informal and
relaxed of the palace dining rooms of Paris and indeed Europe.
One does not feel the opulence of places like le Meurice or Le
Louis XV e t c.
I highly recommend Les
Ambassadeurs and based on the two meals I had there, Les
Ambassadeurs would get my vote as one of the top five
restaurants in Paris.
Gastroville rating: 19/20
/ MJ
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