Chic Cuisine for a Parisian? Just Like Mother Used to Make
By Alicia Drake International Herald Tribune
PARIS - When Ramdane Touhami threw a party to celebrate the opening of his new fashion store L'Epicerie, he wanted to create a cool and underground vibe. So he invited a select young crowd, organized a sit-down dinner and asked his mom to cook 190 plates of couscous.Getting your mom to do the catering might not be everyone's idea of cool cuisine, but in Paris right now there is a downtown trend for traditional home cooking.
In the Oberkampf to Menilmontant neighborhood, to the northeast of Paris, restaurants are springing up to match the already happening bar scene and every new self-respecting menu seems to boast a mother's or grandmother's favorite recipe. At restaurant/bar Le Kitch (10 Rue Oberkampf), the owner Caroline Gauci mixes a high-camp decor of paisley wallpaper, giddy patterned carpets and checks presented in plastic hair rollers, with what she calls cuisine française traditionelle. That means bistro fare which for winter includes plates of boeuf bourgignon, pot au feu or a hunk of warm olive and ham cake which is a Mediterranean recipe of her mother's.
''People seem to like rediscovering old recipes and things that remind them of their childhood,'' said Gauci, pointing to the red Formica tables and a dish of fried veal's liver.
Further up the street is Le Rif, a tiny Moroccan restaurant (112 Rue Saint Maur) specializing in tangines which is run by a young Moroccan couple, Naoual and Aziz. Formerly a chef in a French catering firm, Aziz went home to Meknes to take tangine lessons from his grandmother before opening the restaurant. His daily menu features at least one of his grandmother's dishes, such as a tangine of lamb, grapes and quince.
It is interesting that, while across the Channel London surfs a multicultural cooking wave of polenta, porcini and wood-fired ovens, Paris's youth should be contemplating going back to its roots. The reason for the culinary nostalgia is probably practical: many of these restaurants have been opened on a tight budget and are self-financed, with decor consisting of furniture picked up from the flea market or street, staff kept to a minimum and owners doing much of the daily grind themselves. So in a way it is logical that they start less ambitiously in the kitchen and do what they know best, it keeps prices reasonable.
Of course, in some cases, it is also a question of Parisian pride. Le Robinet Melangeur (123 Boulevard de Menilmontant) is a funky bistro with tins of dog food on the shelves (for display only) and an east Paris crowd. On the weekend they don't do brunch, but offer le gožter, the traditional French tea-time snack. ''Everyone around here does a brunch,'' says part-owner Jean Regnaud, ''but brunch is Anglo-Saxon. We are not, so we do something French instead.'' On the weekend afternoons, a patissier comes in to bake chocolate tart, pear tart and macaroons, then around 5 P.M., the après-clubbers stagger in for sugary sustenance.
Even among the more moneyed restaurants, there is still a gut feeling that Paris should offer Parisian food. Jean Louis Costes, who together with his brother, Gilbert, owns five café/restaurants in town, including the newly opened Grande Armée near the Arc de Triomphe, sees his role as providing something between a coffee shop and a restaurant, but above all a Parisian establishment. ''We are not into doing international, 'pretty' food,'' he said, tearing off a bite of buttery croissant, ''We are French. Paris has a tremendous tradition of brasserie and café culture, and that is what we are trying to represent in a modern way and, at the same time, service a Parisian public.''
He is also proud to point out that his menus are written in French only, and he has put a ban on any Anglo-catering speak among staff (no le booking, le manager, etc.).
Even Sir Terence Conran, who has made his reputation as a restaurateur with a slick alchemy of global cooking, is adamant that his Alcazar restaurant, opening in November (62 Rue Mazarine), will be resolutely French. ''It is not going to be that terrible word international,'' he said. ''It is a French restaurant, entirely staffed by French people with a French chef offering French cuisine.''
Sneak a look at the menu and, except for a stray British plate of fish and chips, the food is indeed chic Paris brasserie with dishes, such as grilled entrecôte and béarnaise sauce served with fat french fries or saddle of rabbit and bayonne with salad.
And it is not just the food that will be French at the Alcazar. The restaurant design, according to the architect Sarah Aldridge, is also suitably Parisian with dense banquette seating, angled mirrors and, as she put it, ''the sort of lively, busy pace you get in proper French brasseries.'' She sees the basic design concept of the two-floor restaurant as ''a modern interpretation of the traditional French brasserie.'' She added, ''We have a joke going around the office that it is a bit like taking coals to Newcastle.''
If there is an international influence on Parisian cuisine right now, perhaps it is in the speed of consumption as Parisians step up the pace toward faster food. And in a city where eating a sandwich for lunch is still regarded as somewhat subversive, this is radical.
Back in Oberkampf, Christophe Pauvers, part-owner of the cult Café Charbon, has taken over a nicotine-stained café just next door - Les Cimes (105 Rue Oberkampf) - and is transforming it into a bar serving bagels. ''The menu will have six different types of bread and a mass of fresh ingredients, then you pick what you want in the bagel,'' explained Pauvers, who has so far painted the bar in bubble-gum pink and aqua, reopened it, but is still looking for his bagel chef.
Suggest that this is fast-food and Pauver's face puckers in dismay. ''I hate the term fast-food because you immediately compare it with McDonalds,'' he said. ''This will be simple, clean cuisine but done in a typically French way. The music, the service, the presentation, the atmosphere and bread will all be very French.''
Over by the Opéra Garnier is the recently opened Sushi No To, a large and stylish noodle and sushi bar (27 Boulevard des Italiens). Although Paris has plenty of Japanese restaurants already, it is indicative of the void in sophisticated fast-food here that this is the city's first mainstream fast Japanese restaurant. It caters to the French changing eating habits by listing calories, offering a 65 franc (about $12) lunch menu, as well as serving food all day.
And above all, as the manager Haruo Kawachi points out, the swift service appeals to the new abbreviated lunch hour. ''The Parisian two-hour lunch is over, now everything is très speed,'' he said. ''It means you have to eat lunch, drink espresso and smoke that cigarette all in 45 minutes.''
ALICIA DRAKE is a fashion and style writer based in Paris.