Have landed in Paris after warming up in Amsterdam for four days. Colin thought the best place to warm up for Paris is in Paris and has had a week’s head start on us.
We generally choose one place for a blow-out meal in Paris and Le Grand Vefour was it this year. Colin felt right at home as we entered the restaurant with all its Belle ’Epoqueness’ and there was enough Ramonet on the list to keep him happy. Rather than forsake a bottle of Ramonet by taking an aperitif we dove straight into a 2013 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘Morgeot’ Blanc. It was immediately generous with orchard fruit aromas and flavours, some spearmint and plenty of underlying minerality. It had Morgeot size coupled with Ramonet elegance and is a wine of good detail and finesse. It was good with an amuse of tuna with squid ink and avocado and even better with ravioli of foie with black truffle.
When presented with the luncheon menu the page is open to the a la carte section. Turn back a page and one of Paris’ absolute bargains presents itself. The lunch menu here allows a selection of an entrée, main course and dessert. You also get a couple of amuse, a cheese course and enough pre, post and parallel desserts to satisfy Augustus Gloop.
Our menu proper started with a lobster soup for the girls, that Colin suggested may have had at least 36 lobsters in the reduction. It was so intense. There was some ginger, coconut and coriander giving complexity and it was triumphant with the Chassagne. The boys all went for Foie gras de canard en terrine. It was super rich and gamey. Finely diced apple was soused in something exotic and spicy and there were a few dots of a parsley emulsion on the plate that were perhaps more decorative than integral to the dish.
The sommelier here is a good guy and intuitive. I started making noises that perhaps we’ll get a bit of a Ramonet vertical going and have a look at the ’12 Morgeot. He said ‘I have a 2010 ‘Ruchottes’ that’s not on the list, would you like that at the same price’. Not wanting to offend I quickly accepted his offer. The 2010 Domaine Ramonet Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru ‘Les Ruchottes’ is a rich, textural, pulpy wine of great intensity and presence. It has great power and shape and is crammed with orchard fruits. There’s a suggestion of apricot and plenty of mineral just below the flesh. It has Grand Cru size and complexity and was splendid with Turbot à la meunière. The fish could have been taken off the grill 20 seconds earlier but was still very tasty and came with an interesting mélange of red cabbage things including a foam and polenta made from said cabbage. Lily, Patrick and Heidi absolutely hammered their duck. A perfectly cooked duck breast came with an accompaniment of mushrooms and Jerusalem artichoke. There were plenty of orange and carrot flavoured things on the plate that worked well with the duck. We all got a little bowl of the creamiest mashed potato with veal jus and black truffle. One of life’s great things.
Heidi and I still had a bit of white left in our glass as the cheese arrived. Colin didn’t. I was on one of my long rants about how white wine really is the only option with cheese and red wine isn’t. Colin interjected and let us know that he’d just have to plough on with his glass of red. The 2012 Domaine Mugneret-Gibourg Vosne-Romanée is really a lovely drink. Plush, velvety fruit, floral spice and decent depth and volume for its level. The cheeses here are perfect. 48-month-old Comté is something to behold. Epoisse is at its gooiest best and Patrick’s ewe’s milk cheese from Corsica was indeed the best Corsican cheese made from ewe’s milk that we have encountered.
Just as desserts were about to come out Patrick got his hairy banana out and started to wave it around, much to the delight of the waiting staff. Desserts are splendid here. Apple is roasted in cider. It comes with a delicious Granny Smith apple and lime sorbet. The chocolate dessert is kind of like a Wagon Wheel that has been given the posh patisserie treatment. The exterior of chocolate has more shine than a first over Kookaburra and tempered chocolate to the side is piped with the most wonderful mousse.
After a coffee we took the hairy banana around the restaurant and let him sit at the seat where General Bonaparte used to dine. I think the staff were quite relieved when we eventually departed.
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