L'Arpege Back of the House (from a dude who worked there)

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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I had the chance to work as a comi and later chef de parti over the fish section at L’Arpege for a couple of months in 2005. My first night working at L’Arpege, I was shocked to see Alain Passard not only in the kitchen, but working the passe. I had worked at one other Michelin starred restaurant a few months prior and never saw the chef.

At the other restaurant only the sous chef worked the passe. The sous chef decorated things in a deliberate way, making the dishes look just so before he sent them out. As a comi if you dared to place something on the plate you would be fired, I’m sure. Not at L’arpege everyone collaborated on dishes. The dishes weren’t as precise as the other restaurant but they were full of energy. Nothing was stacked or placed in tight mold formations. The food was sort of Jackson Pollock-ed on the plate. It was beautiful. That first night I mostly chopped onions and did menial tasks but I did place rather clumsy dollops of curry flavored foam on a few plates of couscous and vegetables while they were on the passe. Passard and the other cooks bustled around as I did so.

After a couple of weeks I was asked by the sous chef, Anthony, to take over the poisson station after the chef de parti at the time left for another opportunity. I nervously agreed. For two weeks I trained for the position. Along with about 50 other things I learned how to grill monk fish and make sauce vin jaune for Passard’s signature lobster dish. Even with the training, my first night alone on the job was frantic. I was “dans la merde” the whole time. Passard saw me struggling and stepped in to help. After a couple of nights I began to hold my own.

If you haven’t seen the kitchen at L’Arpege, it is tiny. There is one white enamel and brass piano top stove which is shared by the viande, poisson and most importantly legume stations. So, everyone is on the one stove but the garde manger who is located on the wall that separates the front of the house (dining room) from the kitchen. A narrow passe, where all the food is dished, separates the garde manger and the other stations. Pastry is in the basement along with the walk in refrigerator, cave (cellar) and co-ed locker room. Oh and a private dining room for Chef Passard is down there too.

As many of you have expressed on epicurean exploits, L’Arpege is a great restaurant. Twice a week we received fresh vegetables directly from Passard’s own farm/garden. I worked there through the summer so we were getting lots of heirloom tomatoes and multi-colored baby carrots. We roasted small beets in salt crust which were so simple but extremely elegant. Visually I thought the vegetable dishes were the most beautiful. The most flavorful dish, keep in mind I didn’t order the dish in the restaurant but tasted spare pieces here and there, was a pigeon dish crusted with candied almonds and placed in the center of huge plate with a fond brun de volaille and the blood from the pigeon to thicken the fond into a glace. The most nuanced dish, I thought was one that I was in charge of (figures) lobster in sauce vin jeaune. That sauce is so soft and carried the perfect flavor for delicate lobster.

My favorite dish is a collaborative one. “Tomates Confit aux Douze Saveurs” was prepared by the entire kitchen. The pastry chefs skinned the tomatoes and stuffed them with the spice and nut mixture, all the stations at the stove basted them with the caramel mixture for hours and hours and the garde manger dished them and garnished the plate. Every ounce of spare time, and trust me the spare time only came in tiny ounce amounts we were supposed to baste the tomatoes; otherwise they crumple around the stuffing. The sous chef and Passard were constantly reminding “arose les tomates! arose les tomates!” baste the tomatoes!

There are a few things in life you wish you could do on a long term basis. Working at L’Arpege is one of them for me.

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OMFG. Great post!!!

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That is awesome!! L’Arpege was the first great restaurant I went to in Paris back in 2003. Couldn’t believe they could accomplish what they did that night without meat. The fish, the white wines!!! Great experience.

I remember we spent as much on that dinner alone as we spent for all other meals combined for 2 weeks throughout France.

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[notworthy.gif]

Wow – awesome post. I love the intimate description and insight. Please post more often. L’Arpege is my dream meal. We couldn’t swing it last time we were in Paris and I kick myself (although Gagnaire was excellent)…

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Passard was due to be cooking in Bangkok for a week last month with his enire team. Sadly, the event was postponed to 2012 due to the floods. Suffice to say, I’ll be there…

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Wow, that was a lovely read, thank you for sharing.

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A true Epicurean Exploit. Thank you for posting.

George

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Great post, thanks for sharing. Any chance you want to share the lobster with sauce vin jaune recipe? Please???

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Well, using the wonder that is google, I managed to find at least a version of the recipe. I am now thinking this may be part of Christmas Dinner.

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C - thanks! I believe i asked for this post back in July so thank you so much for taking the time.

I’ve eaten at Arpege 5 times now and it’s my favorite restaurant, anywhere, period.

I tell everyone I know that’s into food that you must try Arpege at least once - it is completely unique. Passard especially is an amazing host (he typically joins you at the end of the night!).

Thanks again for taking the time…if you’re up for it, please post on the harlequin of vegetables w/ argan oil!

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Kenneth, here is a recipe with some easier to find ingredients, like shrimp instead of langoustine. I have made this several times at catered events and at home it is every bit as good as the original.

Sauce Vin Jaune using shrimp and chardonnay
1 bottle chardonnay
1 lb raw shrimp (in shells)
1 Tbs minced ginger
3-4 Tbs hazelnut oil
2/3 lb unsalted butter (roughly 2 ½ cubes)

Step 1. Clarify Wine (This step makes a consommé out of the wine and infuses shrimp flavor into the sauce)
• Puree shrimp in food processor
• Pour shrimp puree into medium stock pan
• Pour entire bottle of chardonnay into stock pan over shrimp puree
• Heat on medium heat until boiling, lower to simmer
• Simmer for 10-15 minutes
Test flavor of wine. You sort of slurp the simmering wine aggressively to see if you get an alcohol flavor/feel at the back of your throat. If the alcohol is still there keep simmering. You want little to no alcohol flavor. The alcohol will make the sauce bitter and unpleasant.
• Once alcohol flavor is reduced, strain through cheesecloth or clean dishtowel

Step 2. Completing the sauce
• Pour clarified wine into sauce pan
• Add minced ginger
• Bring to a boil then lower to simmer
• Add butter
• When butter has melted add hazelnut oil
• Salt to taste
• Let sauce cook at very low simmer for 5 minutes so flavors combine

Note: If the sauce isn’t silky in texture add more butter.

Serve over lobster or blanched, pealed new potatoes

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ybarselah,
This was a response to your request. Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately, I don’t think harlequin was on the menu when I was there.
However, all of the vegetables are cooked at the Legumes station. They are as you know all brought in from Passard’s farm in Le Mans. They are blanched to perfection. The chef de parti blanches them en robe, or with their skins. Once blanched, they are cooled and the skins are pealed off by hand. Careful attention is paid to keeping the vegetables pristine. The root end of the carrots are peeled all the way down until the root becomes so fine it’s like a hair. The vegetables are then kept as mis en place. The new potatoes are handled the same way but before they are skinned, they are smoked in a small rectangular stovetop smoker. Upon an order being placed the vegetables are placed into a sautoir pan with butter and a bit of water until a glaze forms from the warm emulsion of water and butter. Then they are served. We did a couscous dish that was simply vegetables, couscous some curry infused foam and argan oil.

Keep going to Arpege. Maybe you will become known as a regular. There was a regular who dined every Wednesday for lunch. She was on a sodium free diet and loved sole. Even though sole wasn’t on the menu, Passard had suppliers send a sole specifically for her each Wednesday and all the food prepared for her was sans sel.

One other interesting thing about Passard: One of the comis I worked with was a girl from Argentina. She was hired on a whim. She ate at the restaurant and asked to speak to Passard after her meal. When she talked to him, she told him how much she admired him and that she was a cook who went to Paris specifically to meet him and eat at the restaurant. He offered her a job on the spot. She accepted and worked with a Parisian girl in charge of the Viande station. She was good, so Passard’s whim paid off.

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Thanks so much Chet, this is definitely going on the Christmas Day menu now. One question- in your recipe you specify Chardonnay. Langoustines are a bit harder to come by, so shrimp is a great substitute, but would something from Jura be optimal for the wine, or are you saying it really doesn’t matter too much, any Chard would work? The wine isn’t that hard to come by. Thanks again for taking the time to type that up for me. Cheers- Ken.

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Thanks again, Chet,

I have always been impressed with Passard when I’ve spoken to him. I wanted to bring him a gift from NYC once, but couldn’t think of any food item that would be worth it, so ended up with locally pickled okra – random, but figured he could not find that in Paris. He was blown away and ended up eating them out of the jar with some buttered bread towards the end of service at a nearby table. On another visit, we purchased a copy of the childrens cook book that he co-wrote and he illustrated the inside cover with a lavish cartoon of himself. He’s one of the rare amazing chefs that only has 1 restaurant and he’s there each night. I felt like an idiot when making a reservation one time and asked whether Chef would be in the kitchen on that night – the response: “Where else should he be?”

we love these posts, so please feel free to continue with other anecdotes.

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This thread is a perfect example of why I read this board. Thx.

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Wow, great post. Thanks for sharing!

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Fabulous read, thanks for sharing.

POTY.

(IMHO…).

18

Yes. No doubt. This is pure OMFG territory.

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Ken,
Unfortunately, I live in a state where you can only buy liquor and wine from state run liquor stores. [head-bang.gif] Finding a Jura for me is next to impossible. If I could, I would definitely use a good Jura wine for the sauce. I didn’t know that wines like Juras would be so accessible to you who live in the free world. Glad to hear it.

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Yaacov,

I love that story of him eating the pickled okra. I didn’t know that he was an artist as well but it doesn’t supprise me.

If you will allow me one more indulgence on the genius of Alain Passard. I’m sure those following the post are tired of my worship by now. But his genius, to me is quite unique. We know he takes vegetables seriously and has made a cuisine based on them. What makes him different from most is that most chefs take an item and embellish it with other things. Troisgros does, or did, a marinated cherry tomato fried in tempura then dipped in a molten hard candy made from simple caramel with infused spice. The tomato was then skewered on a long lollipop stick and rushed out of the kitchen piping hot. Damn good. It’s a tomato but an embellished tomato.

By contrast you take Passard’s Eau d’Oingon or Eau d’Eschalette or any of the vegetable consommes he does (which I was in charge of BTW) and it is simply one vegetable juiced and then clarified into a consomme using only egg whites for clarification. That is it. There isn’t any outside flavor to embellish the dish. It is pure in essence. Yet because of its simplicity the shallot consume, for example, is deep. You get the sweetness of a shallot its alum characteristics, some acid and tang and lots of other flavors.

Again, excuse my dramatic description here. But, in so many of Passard’s dishes, his consommes, the onion gratin, the salt crusted beets, etc. to me are expressed in a way reminiscent of the characteristics of wine. Wine is the essence of a grape. But it isn’t grape at all. It is leather, or smoke, or red fruit or orange blossom. But it is after all only grape and yeast. By finding a way to simplify and break down his ingredient Passard deepens what they are. It is quite the opposite of embellishment.

His Volaille de Haute Maine is another example. Just chicken cooked on a bed of hay but so much more.
.