Robuchon's rustic splendour
With table reservations already being taken for October, Joël Robuchon's move from his three Michelin-starred Jamin restaurant earlier this year to the restored art nouveau splendour of his eponymous restaurant has clearly increased the kudos of dining there.
Robuchon mischievously concedes that he came close to outraging many of his devotees. "My intention for the new restaurant was to wipe the slate clean. But my regulars became nostalgic, so I relented and brought several Jamin dishes with me."
Of paramount importance among his retained signature dishes is the heavenly rich purée de pomme de terre which contributed to his worldwide reputation. At the moment it is served with daube de pied de porc truffle - pig's trotter cooked in bouillon, brushed with mustard and stuffed with duxelle of mushrooms, black truffle and rillette de porc, then braised in pork stock and white wine 260F (£26).
He first introduced the purée "as a plainer antidote" to complement a pig's head dish back in 1981. It is made with La Ratte potatoes, cooked in their skins to keep their shape and puréed by hand in a mouli using warm milk and 250g of top grade chilled butter per kilo of potatoes. The purée is passed through a sieve with a wooden fork to achieve its almost silken, melt-in-the mouth finish.
His new à la carte menu also retains gelée de caviar à la crème de chou-fleur, a layer of warm cauliflower cream, fragrant crustacea aspic and the surprise of a mound of fine caviar at the bottom of the cup, which costs 410F (£41). "Some guests even insist on ordering this for dessert!" Robuchon reveals modestly.
While his sauces are legendary, his emphasis now is on coaxing the maximum intensity of flavour and texture from the ingredients he uses. "What is important is to respect the produce I am working with," he explains. "I fix in my mind its taste and flavour so that I recognise the precise moment when it is cooked to perfection."
Juxtapositions of unexpected ingredients have also been banished in favour of his own renditions of traditional rustic French classics such as lard "en pot feu" a l'embeurrée truffe, for 290F (£29).
He enthuses about his new rotissier, used to produce a saddle of lamb "of incomparable taste", or, as they say in French, "gouflé" - "something you can't achieve from simple oven roasting".
Twelve discreet cameras focus on diners' plates from the kitchen: "Food becomes heavy when it sits around. This way I can ensure each dish is only completed at the last moment."
