It was September 1982 and Mrs. P and I were on a late afternoon flight from London to Paris. It was our first trip to Europe together, and after spending four days in London we had planned to be in Paris for three days. Though I knew very little about fine dining back then, I had been in Paris once before and I knew how good even the most simple food could be. Fortunately, an older colleague of mine knew Paris well and I had booked a few places that he had recommended (La Maree and Bofinger for those of you who like to know all of the details). But I had left our first night open, primarily because I was concerned that our flight would be late in departing London. Normally the lack of dinner plans would have had me worried. But on my first trip to Paris in 1977, I learned that it wasn't difficult to stumble upon a good place to eat. In fact if we got in too late to have a proper dinner, and we ended up eating crepes from a street vendor on the Blvd. St. Germain, washed down by bottles of cider at a bar, I would have been perfectly happy.
We were in mid-flight when Mrs P (actually the future Mrs P at that time), was reading the International Herald Tribune. All of a sudden she turned to me and said, "Hey listen to this. There is a story in the paper about the chef at the restaurant in the hotel we are staying at. The Michelin Guide has awarded the restaurant a second star, and he is the youngest chef ever to win that honor. Maybe when we check into the hotel we can ask them if we can have dinner there tonight?" Though I had never heard of the chef, I agreed that we would inquire about dinner upon check in. We marched up to the reception around 8:30, and it didn't take long for the person at reception to tell us that the restaurant was happy to take the two of us for dinner at 9:00.
I'm sure those of you who are old enough to remember, and who were into fine dining back in those days, know that I am talking about the Hotel Nikko in Paris's 15th arrondisement, which during that time housed a restaurant by the name of Les Celebrities. And the name of the chef at that restaurant, the one who was just awarded his second Michelin star, the youngest chef ever to win that honor, was none other than Joel Robuchon. And at 9:00 that evening my culinary life was born.
I had hoped they would seat us at a table where we wouldn't be too conspicuous. Well scratch that plan. They sat us at a two-top smack dab in the middle of the restaurant, as if we were on display for all the other diners to see. Menus were presented and then a wine list. I had three years of high school French and I could translate simple words like agneau being lamb and homard being lobster. But I didn't have a clue as to how to how these ingredients were being prepared. But then the Captain appeared at our table and he did a great job of selling the nine course degustation menu. It sounded good to me but that was to be expected because I was the adventurous one in our relationship. But back in those days, Mrs P didn't eat fish, cheese, nuts and a few other important ingredients. So with a bit of trepidation, I suggested we order the degustation menu and much to my surprise she went with it. For a picky eater, trusting my suggestion, in a foreign country no less, was the gastronomic equivelent of someone who couldn't swim agreeing to dive off the cliffs in Acalpulco. It was one of those perfect moments when life and gastronomy collide. Not only was it an important moment in my culinary education, it was an important moment in our relationship.
Need I tell you how fabulous the meal was. All you need to know is that the first thing they served us was one of those eggs cooked with cream and placed back in the shell and then topped with a large dollop of caviar. We were in heaven. Aside from a run-in with a veal kidney, something I dislike to this day (I thought that rognons were sweetbreads but I quickly learned otherwise), our meal was perfect. And boy were we lucky. A month later, Robuchon left the restaurant and began cooking at Jamin, an existing restaurant that he had purchased which was located in the posh 16th arrondisement. Over the next few years, Mrs P and I tried to renact our meal at Les Celebrities but we could never get a reservation at Jamin. Fortunately a few years later, after changing the name of the restaurant to Robuchon, and moving to larger quarters in a hotel, our luck changed and we had the pleasure of having two outstanding meals at the restaurant.
The one day in 1995, the newspapers were announcing that Joel Robuchon had decided to hang up his aprons for good at the age of 50. It was an odd announcement. Few people walk away from their careers at the top of the game. Bjorn Borg did it in tennis and Michael Jordan tried to do it in basketball but couldn't. But Robuchon made good on his promise and walked away from his restaurant at the top of his game. I don't think people knew what to make of it. Was he tired? Did he have too much money? Was it that you couldn't make enough money running a three star restaurant? Whatever it was, Robuchon disappeared from the fine dining scene and went to live in the South of Spain. He did appear on French television and he had cooking columns in newspapers, but one could no longer dine on his saddle of lamb with those fabulous pommes puree alongside it.
Robuchon's self-imposed exile from the French dining scene ended in 2002 when it was announced that he had signed a lease for the restaurant space in the Hotel Pont Royal in Paris's 7th arrondisement. But he wasn't planning on reopening his haute cuisine restaurant, instead his new restaurant, Atelier de Joel Robuchon, would offer a new dining concept that combined haute cuisine, brasserie food, Spanish tapas cuisine and a sushi bar. In addition the restaurant wouldn't have any tables and chairs. There would be 36 seats at a counter and the servers would hand diners the plates sushi style. Even more radical was a no-reservation policy. Reservations were taken for the first seating only. Doors would open at 11:30 and 6:30 and after that it was first-come, first-serve and you had to queue up outside the door. I'm someone who knows Paris and the Parisians well and the thought of Parisians standing on a queue to eat dinner was mind boggling.
The much anticipated opening came in August of 2003 and my first visit to the restaurant happened in October of that year. Between that October and June of 2004, I was fortunate enough to have six meals at the restaurant, and I came to have a pretty good understanding of the cuisine, what Robuchon was trying to do, and exactly what value it had, and didn't have, for diners. Now almost exactly 24 months from the date of his opening his restaurant in Paris, a version of Atelier de Robuchon, utilizing the same design scheme where diners are seated at a counter, but with the addition of about a dozen tables, has opened in the Four Seasons Hotel in New York City.
There were four of us at dinner and we were seated at a table. We scanned the menu and it was organized in a similar fashion to the Paris outpost, but with modifications for the availability of local ingredients. One thing that was different was the addition of a 7 course tasting menu titled "Menu Decouverte". After a short discussion as to whether there was enough food on the tasting menu to make us happy, or whether we were going to miss some of the delicious looking dishes that the table next to us was being served, our waiter convinced us that we could always order more food after we worked our way through the menu. With that proviso, we were happy to order four tastings.
After two amuse, a fennel gelee and a lobster salad served under a thinly sliced turnip, the festivities started with a veloute of avocado topped with a fondant of vegetables. Sort of like a spicy ratatouille topped with a cool avocado mousse. It was a nice dish but expected. The others at the table were served the sea urchin gelee with cauliflower cream which is the dish that people are talking about. I was lucky to have a large spoon of it and it was quite good. I typically find that sea urchin dishes are too subtly flavored, but the flavor was pretty intense. In fact some at the table thought it too intense. I thought it was classic Robuchon and reminiscent of the style that originally made him famous. Then a sandwhich of lightly smoked foie gras and caramelized eel with oriental flavors. Not a bad dish but something that is served in countless upscale Japanese restaurants. The one thing that distinguished the dish is the smoked foie gras. But I found that it was too lightly smoked. In addition, the dish is served cold and I think it would be better if the ell was warm. Cold smoked foie with warm, caramelized eel would work better for me. Then calamari with violet artichokes, roasted tomatoes and tomato water. The dish started slowly but the deeper I ate into the dish the more I liked it.
Softly poached egg and bits of chorizo served atop an eggplant stew that was spiced in a North African style had its moments. The egg was a superb speciman as well as being superbly cooked. And the bits of chorizo were perfectly balanced and added a nice touch. But the spicy eggplant stew dominated the dish. I played around with how much of each ingredient I should load onto my fork until I achieved what I thought was the proper balance. But in the end I was left with a pool of eggplant stew to eat on its own. Not a bad result but the remaining pool of eggplant stew was the evidence at the scene of a crime. Then cod in an aromatic broth with flecks of roasted tomatoes and herbs. Once again, it was fine but sort of standard issue haute cuisine. Then the savory part of our tasting menu was over with a foie gras stuffed quail served with truffled potato puree. Slightly more interesting than the cod, but in keeping with the same level of culinary accomplishment. Finally as some in our party expected when we ordered the tasting menu, we weren't completely satisfied with the quantity of food. So I ended up splitting what was supposed to be a 7 ounce Kobe ribeye (when the waiter served it he said that in actuality it weighed much more than 7 oz.) and which came with a pot of the famous pommes puree. Well it was fabulous. Perfectly cooked and lightly dressed in a perfect jus, it was intensely beefy and almost as rich as foie gras. In fact it was so rich that I couldn't finish my half and I sent a few slices over to the others at the table.
Desserts were pretty good. Something called "Le Macaron", raspberry macarons with mascarpone and rose cream and kirsch gelee, and something called "Le Sucre" which I just loved. A sphere of spun sugar flavored with violet and lychee stuffed with with milk ice cream, red currents and raspberry gelee. It comes out looking like a small ostrich egg and you crack it open and eat the cream out of the inside along with small pieces of the crunchy shell.
Fortunately the restaurant allows BYO and we drank extremely well. A bottle of non-vintage Billecart-Salmon Blanc de Blancs Champagne was very good if a bit austere for my own personal taste. I prefer champagne with a bit of residual sugar and a bit of oxidation. Then a 1992 Niellon Chassagne-Montrachet "les Vergers" which was pretty good but in need of drinking if you own any. Then a bottle of 2003 Andre Perret St. Joseph Blanc which showed superbly. Highly viscous for a St. Joe, with a super long finish, I wouldn't mind getting some for my cellar. Then a bottle of 1989 Les Cailloux Cuvee Centenaire showed lots of power, but is still a distant second when compared to the exquisite 1990 bottling. Finally a 1991 Hubert Lignier Clos de la Roche which showed like a '91 red burg. My favorite wine of the night but it is time to drink them up.
So the results for Atelier de Robuchon are mixed. Both in terms of how I evaluate the restaurant as well as how I feel about the path that Robuchon is on. It is quite a complex situation that I will attempt to unpack in order to explain properly. As someone who is passionate about dining, I am somewhat saddened that the most famous chef of my generation has decided to commercialize the fine dining experience. Let's face it, Atelier de Robuchon is in reality a luxury chain restaurant with branches in Paris, Tokyo, London, Las Vegas, and now New York City. And the truth is the cuisine shows it. While the execution of the cuisine is at a fairly high level, it is not at the same level as what you get at a top Paris restaurant, or at a place like the French Laundry or Jean Georges. But if I put my diner's advocate hat on, the restaurant is a huge improvement over the type of restaurant you are used to finding in your local Four Seasons Hotel and I am happy that the out of town businessmen who happen to stumble on the restaurant are going to eat better. So even though this isn't a restaurant that holds great interest for me from an haute cuisine perspective, it is a great addition to the fine dining scene of New York City.
But there is more than one story to tell about this restaurant. And it is the same conclusion I came to about the Paris branch of Atelier. Where I think the restaurant excels, and where it can have great utility for me, is approaching it as if it is a luxury brasserie. Because while bringing a less discriminating version of fine dining to the masses, Robuchon has upgraded the quality of simple brasserie fare by having it prepared by chefs who can execute at a level usually reserved for haute cuisine. And I'd be quite happy to drop in for a late dinner on a Saturday night after the movies, and sit at the bar while downing a plate of ham, a bowl of some super-rich soup with cubes of foie gras floating in the broth, and a hunk of meat or fish cooked ala plancha served with a pot of those ridiculously rich pommes puree. Or maybe that fabulous looking steak tartare with frittes that the table next to us had. In fact, I wish I had done that last night. If I had ordered a simple slice of foie gras terrine, the kobe steak with mashed potatoes and then dessert, I would have left pretty happy. C+ for the haute cuisine dishes and B+ for the ribeye and the desserts.
Thanks for such a great review! I am a big fan of Joel Rouchon cooking and go often in his restaurants in Paris and Monaco. I will need to try the NYC branch also :)
Posted by: Aiste | September 16, 2006 at 02:39 PM
Sorry I missed this comment at the time you posted it. How do you think his Monaco restaurant compares to the Paris location?
Posted by: Steve Plotnicki | October 26, 2006 at 01:11 PM
Where is Robuchon?While I openly congratulate you for your top 50 restauarant survey,I can openly challange any survey that does not include Robuchon in his varied forms to be in the top 50.The undisputed Top Chef in the 80s with his restaurant Jamin is still alive and so called artists such as Ferran Adria should stand in line to learn from this chef.Although, I certainly do not rate LATELIER in the class of Jamin, Robuchon in Las Vegas is close to that number 1 experience.When Wolfgand Puck and Spago are rated 50 for serving lox pizza and knowing how to really make $dough,and Robuchon is left off the survey, one can only wonder where the raters have really eaten.On the other hand, the raters which have kept France the Food Capital of the world should be congratulated on not being influenced by the critic hype of Spain,a false pretenter to the throne.
Posted by: gagit | July 14, 2007 at 12:39 PM
just a note, Steve Robuchon is at the MGM in Vegas .
Posted by: gagit | July 15, 2007 at 11:09 AM