Happy birthday to you both! I loved Jane’s recent book. I dined at La Tour D’Argent with my mother when I just got out of school. Back then, you had to write for a reservation and then call when you arrived in Paris to confirm. We dressed nicely, and arrived to find we were the only table of women. It was all businessmen and wealthy looking couples. We were originally given an okay table, but then maître d’ reseated us at a table against the window with a gorgeous view of Notre Dame. The food and service were terrific, and the maître returned to ask whether we enjoyed it. My mum put her hand on her heart and said dramatically, “Monsieur, I die happy.” “Oh, no, Madame!” he replied.
Happy birthday David and thanks for this delightful recounting of your celebratory lunch. I was taken to La Tour in my early twenties, so many moons ago now that I have barely any recollection of the experience other than being somewhat overwhelmed by it all. I didn't know much about food back then and in retrospect wish I had been able to appreciate it more. But the food looks beautiful, and being an egg person I especially loved the Mystery Egg. I wonder how they do that. BTW I read and loved Jane Bertch's book The French Ingredient about her cooking school in Paris. And all the best to you and Romain for the new year...:)
Hi David - for your and Jane’s birthdays, if you determine to do an adventurous trip and return to our San Francisco Bay Area, you should introduce Jane to lovely Cotogna in SF. I had an amazing dinner there last week, and everything was perfect. (I recall that you were seated at the bar). For dinner my wife and I started with a sformato- a sunchoke and pecorino Romano fonduto, then pappardelle wild mushroom and caciocavallo, then Half Moon Bay rockfish with mussels, squid, fregola and fennel. For dessert a yummy chocolate gelato. It’s great being a subscriber to your Substack.
I had an amazing lunch at Cotogna last time I was in San Francisco for another friend's birthday. Everything was absolutely delicious. One of my favorites
Two of my favourite people in a place I can only dream of eating! Thank you so much for taking us along for the ride! A shame about the wine (and odd they didn't suggest to replace?) but overall looks like a delightful way to celebrate your birthdays!
I went to La Tour for dinner ages ago before the renovation. The food was very good, but it felt a bit stuffy and tired, and of course, the experience was influenced by my dinner companion who LIVED for the pomp and the fanciness of it and made the experience stifling. I would love to go back and give it anther go. I, like you, have a birthday around the holidays. Mine was last week. I'm thinking it might be fun to go to La Tour next year for lunch for my 60th birthday so your review is timely and very helpful. Thank you. If we end up going we'd be able to see the end of our street from the dining room which would be fun, and it would be fun to share the romance of that with my husband. I really appreciate all of your reviews and posts. They are always filled with so much information, humor and most importantly, lots of love. All the best on your continued success, David
They really did a big refresh. It's hard for "legacy" businesses in Paris to update and keep what makes them special (Ladurée tried to do it, but expanded to U.S. and airports, train stations, etc, so it lost of its luster) but I like the redo at La Tour d'Argent and while it's pretty contemporary, the clean lines let you enjoy the view - and the open kitchen is rather gorgeous as well.
The wine is just as important as the feast and with all the theater that La Tour D’Argent brings—what a miss by the sommelier. I’m in the wine business and it crushes me if I’ve missed the mark on a wine. The somm puts that list together FOR the guests and should deliver at every turn. Never be afraid to speak up. Their job is their passion. Make their expertise and passion work for YOU. I always start a conversation with a somm with, what are YOU excited about. And if they’re good, they’ll light up and you’re off!
It was just a strange wine that needed to be explained to us before we ordered it. Like wines from the Jura, which I explain pretty clearly to friends/dining companions who aren't familiar with them, so they're not surprised or disappointed. They're quite different and I love them, but they're not for everyone.
I like trying new things and learning about wine, since I'n far from an expert, so I chalk this up to a learning experience - and shared it so readers who also might feel intimidated about wine, if they find themselves in the same situation, know perhaps they can/should do something about it. Thanks for chiming in as someone in the wine business. Friends in the wine business also said that same thing to us afterward.
Readers may enjoy another story about my haut cuisine dining in France in the 1970s hey day of the great chefs.
Part seventeen. A trio of stars
Our French trips were curated by my Brother in law, who read every article in every magazine about haut cuisine so he could select the crème de la crème. The plan usually involved three days in Paris before picking up a car from Hertz for a two week drive through the countryside, each night punctuated by dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant.
I either drove or navigated using detailed maps from Michelin or IGN. Barbara identified noteworthy places to see on our way. The drive also included lunch at Barbara’s urging, usually included foie gras, champagne, salad and such.
The days before GPS going from one place to another on the small back roads of France was a challenge. One day we spent too much time sightseeing and left little to cover a long distance to get to the restaurant Lameloise in Burgundy. The only issue was we had to drive on the A6 at 140 kilometers an hour for three hours in order to get to the hotel and restaurant and keep our table.
We made it by the skin of our teeth. We dropped off our luggage and headed straight to the dining room. Every once in a while you encounter something about a meal which is so different and so appealing compared to anything else you’ve eaten that’s what happened at this meal. The revelation was breast of wild duck in a light blood sauce. I had never eaten duck breast. It had the texture of filet mignon with the slightly gamey and beefy taste of a wild duck, which actually had been shot on the property and hung in the chiller box until ready to eat. Every bite had me moaning in pleasure. Ellen was happy with the fish dish. She reserved praise for dishes that really impressed her so when she said Yum I knew she meant it.
After breakfast we reviewed the route to the next great meal. This particular three day stretch was noteworthy in that the three restaurants we we’re going to experience were probably the three greatest restaurants in France at the time.
La Pyramide, made famous by the chef Ferdinand Point was being run by Madame Point, who was dedicated to preserving the exact and precise cooking her famous husband had developed. She sat on a stool at the doorway inspecting every dish that the the kitchen. We sat in a peaceful green garden under a pear tree.
It was interesting to see that some of the pears on the tree were enclosed in glass bottles. As the dishes were brought out one course at a time and laid out before us, domes were lited as if on cue to reveal the food all at the same time. Waiting for the next course, we notice that a beautiful ripe pear fell silently from the tree and landed softly in the grass. One of the waiters picked it up gently in a napkin and brought it into the kitchen.
When we finished the meal and it was time for dessert we all knew that the main event for dessert at La Pyramid was the marjolaine.
If I may borrow from a web essay, “ask any chef who is well-versed in classical French cuisine and it’s likely they’ll start going on and on about how delicious this layered dessert is. The marjolaine—made with nutty meringue, rich chocolate ganache, and vanilla and hazelnut buttercreams—was created by celebrated French chef Fernand Point.
Within the pages of his book, is the original recipe for marjolaine. Fans of the marjolaine include Bittman, chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se, Patricia Wells, and chef Frederic Morin of Montreal’s famed Joe Beef, among many more.
“Point says the marjolaine was a constant work in progress for him, always changing as he tweaked the recipe in search of the perfect cake, something he never quite achieved,” Keller writes. “I wanted what he searched for, a cross between a cake and a meringue, one that’s creamy, with a slight crunch, both chewy and cakelike, fully flavored... All those components in one bite.”
The waiter came to our table to ask about desert. “Do you have La Marjolaine?” I asked hopefully. “Ah Monsieur, La Marjolaine...toujours. Forever.
That desert, eaten in a lovey garden with my beautiful Ellen is one of those moments that add up to the joy of 61 years.
The second 3* meal awaiting us was at PIC, a superstar in haut cuisine in Valence.
Established in 1889 by Eugene and Sophie Pic, the restaurant first earned the prestigious 3 Michelin stars in 1939. André’s son Jacques Pic, decided to train as a chef in order to eventually take over from his father. Under Jacques, the restaurant won back its second star in 1959 and its third in 1973. We approached this place with reverence but extremely full bellies.
We sat at a beautiful table in a garden terrace. The captain handed us the menus which were as big as skateboards and listed many dishes of meats, seafood, shellfish, and vegetables. Bob recalled that a casserole of mixed shellfish and seafood including lobster was one of the specialties of the house. We were informed that the casserole was offered for two people at a minimum. Of course we ordered it.
I have no recollection of what else we chose but I do remember that Bob selected a Bottle of Hermitage from Chapoutier, considered to be the best wine of the region and ranked high up in France. Our captain wrinkled his nose at the choice, having pointed us to one or two very high priced Bordeaux, like Lafite Rothchild or Chateau Haut Brion.
Then he brought two gigantic balloon wine glasses to the table and made a big show of opening and pouring the wine for tasting. It was an exaggerated show to poke fun at our choosing a local wine, which he thought was a peasants choice versus Lafite.
The waiter approached to our table holding a large tray with a giant ceramic casserole. He carefully placed the tray on a serving table, lifted the cover and immediately we were enveloped with deliciousness.
There was no way we could do justice so this astonishing dish but we sure as hell we’re going to give it a try. It tasted so good that it was very hard to stop eating it but I think I had reached my limit.
I knew we were going to have to choose desert, and was happy to see one of the options was a bowl of fresh picked raspberries with I fresh. This was something I could manage since I could handle the quantity. No surprise when a casserole almost the size of the seafood dinner came to the table brimming with the most beautiful and delicious raspberries I’ve ever seen and on the side was a huge bowl of thick fragrant cream fresh.
Thanks, David, for another lovely, interesting, and well-written post. I particularly appreciated your comments about the wine, which I found reassuring. I generally know what I like, but always feel overwhelmed when handed a wine "book" at a restaurant. Glad to know I'm not alone. I also appreciated your comments about how to handle the wine at such a high-end restaurant when it is not really to your taste. I definitely would not have said anything either, but perhaps next time I will be a bit more courageous.
It can be pretty intimidating since there's a lot to know about wine and I'm always impressed (very impressed!) by my friends in the wine world who know so much. On the other hand, wine is meant to be enjoyed and is a part of the culture of dining in France. (Although nowadays many places offer other options for those who don't drink, and many of those beverages are also made in France.) It's nice to depend on someone knowledgable at a restaurant to guide you and I give them general guidelines and price and wait for their suggestions.
It's easier to just ask for a dry, minerally wine and you'll get something fine, but I also like to try something new and taste a wine I might not be familiar with, as that helps me learn about wine. I think we were mostly on the fence because we did order it and if the wine had turned, that's one thing, but it was not really to our taste and it would have been nice to have gotten something else to accompany the wonderful food.
I quite agree about multi-starred restaurants. We went through a period where we went to one every year when we visited Paris. Sometimes they were wonderful, sometimes not. Our tastes seem to have evolved with much of the rest of the world to more of the "bistronomie" style of less formal dining. And although it seems from your descriptions that La Tour d'Argent may have evolved a bit itself, we were quite disappointed when we had dinner there about 15 years ago, aside from the view, which is of course remarkable, especially when the sun sets and the lights come up. But I'm glad you had such a nice lunch. And belated Happy Birthday! (PS We highly recommend Aldéhyde for your next birthday lunch. It was by far our best meal during a recent 6-week stay.)
I think also a lot of those restaurant became tired, and uninteresting as they were sitting on their Michelin-starred laurels. (A few 3-starred restaurant I went to in the past 10 years seemed to be stuck in the 80s and 90s, with foam on everything.) And nowadays there are a lot of smaller neighborhood places that do very good food, and multi-course menus for 75% less (such as Septime and Autoume, where the fixed dinner menus are around €130/140 versus €400 and you don't have to get all dressed up to go.
This place did a complete overhaul and remodel, which I think was successful. It's still quite posh, but was a good birthday choice. Thanks for the tip on Aldéhyde!
Hi David. I have that Life cookbook right here (I live in Paris and am a friend of Dan and Claudia). I’d love to send you that “iconic” picture of dining at the Tour d’Argent. I’ll send it to Claudia. Some of my family’s favorite vegetable recipes come from that book. It’s a treasure, and so beautiful. Aloha, Coni H
I was so thrilled by mokonuts - that would be my birthday meal if it were up to me 😃 it was lovely to 'eat' along with you here at this fancier restaurant!
Mokonuts is terrific although it's so small it's hard to get in - although a great place for lunch in geneal. They recently opened a place down the street, Mokochaya which serves breakfast, lunch bento, and tea in the afternoon, as well as Sunday brunch: https://www.instagram.com/mokochaya/?hl=en
Went there about 15 years ago as I was on my bucket list of places to experience. It was everything I expected it to be, not perfect, but wonderful... we had help picking a great wine and we had wonderful fun getting our "numbered" duck.....what a great experience.
I inadvertently sent this before it was finished. I agree with your assessment of the boulangerie. It is marvelous in a neighborhood where it is difficult to get a decent baguette. I share a post Christmas birthday with you and Jane. Although it is usually an afterthought, I console myself by saying that means I am not a year older.
A few minutes away is Archibald bakery, which has really excellent bread (they use local, heritage grains and you can really taste them in their breads - I love their German-style bread and their pain Parisien, sold by the slice) https://archibald.bio/
That was a really good book. I was pretty surprised reading about his difficult life, how he evolved as a cook and chef, and...his experience working for Joël Robuchon. Yikes...
Happy birthday to you both! I loved Jane’s recent book. I dined at La Tour D’Argent with my mother when I just got out of school. Back then, you had to write for a reservation and then call when you arrived in Paris to confirm. We dressed nicely, and arrived to find we were the only table of women. It was all businessmen and wealthy looking couples. We were originally given an okay table, but then maître d’ reseated us at a table against the window with a gorgeous view of Notre Dame. The food and service were terrific, and the maître returned to ask whether we enjoyed it. My mum put her hand on her heart and said dramatically, “Monsieur, I die happy.” “Oh, no, Madame!” he replied.
Zuckerberg's $900 watch and a home haircut, probably by Dr. Precilla, is amazing.
wait $9,000 watch correction
omg Jane!!! So lovely to see your face!! <3 What a fun and lovely experience.
Happy birthday David and thanks for this delightful recounting of your celebratory lunch. I was taken to La Tour in my early twenties, so many moons ago now that I have barely any recollection of the experience other than being somewhat overwhelmed by it all. I didn't know much about food back then and in retrospect wish I had been able to appreciate it more. But the food looks beautiful, and being an egg person I especially loved the Mystery Egg. I wonder how they do that. BTW I read and loved Jane Bertch's book The French Ingredient about her cooking school in Paris. And all the best to you and Romain for the new year...:)
Hi David - for your and Jane’s birthdays, if you determine to do an adventurous trip and return to our San Francisco Bay Area, you should introduce Jane to lovely Cotogna in SF. I had an amazing dinner there last week, and everything was perfect. (I recall that you were seated at the bar). For dinner my wife and I started with a sformato- a sunchoke and pecorino Romano fonduto, then pappardelle wild mushroom and caciocavallo, then Half Moon Bay rockfish with mussels, squid, fregola and fennel. For dessert a yummy chocolate gelato. It’s great being a subscriber to your Substack.
Thanks - glad you're enjoying the newsletter!
I had an amazing lunch at Cotogna last time I was in San Francisco for another friend's birthday. Everything was absolutely delicious. One of my favorites
Two of my favourite people in a place I can only dream of eating! Thank you so much for taking us along for the ride! A shame about the wine (and odd they didn't suggest to replace?) but overall looks like a delightful way to celebrate your birthdays!
I went to La Tour for dinner ages ago before the renovation. The food was very good, but it felt a bit stuffy and tired, and of course, the experience was influenced by my dinner companion who LIVED for the pomp and the fanciness of it and made the experience stifling. I would love to go back and give it anther go. I, like you, have a birthday around the holidays. Mine was last week. I'm thinking it might be fun to go to La Tour next year for lunch for my 60th birthday so your review is timely and very helpful. Thank you. If we end up going we'd be able to see the end of our street from the dining room which would be fun, and it would be fun to share the romance of that with my husband. I really appreciate all of your reviews and posts. They are always filled with so much information, humor and most importantly, lots of love. All the best on your continued success, David
They really did a big refresh. It's hard for "legacy" businesses in Paris to update and keep what makes them special (Ladurée tried to do it, but expanded to U.S. and airports, train stations, etc, so it lost of its luster) but I like the redo at La Tour d'Argent and while it's pretty contemporary, the clean lines let you enjoy the view - and the open kitchen is rather gorgeous as well.
The wine is just as important as the feast and with all the theater that La Tour D’Argent brings—what a miss by the sommelier. I’m in the wine business and it crushes me if I’ve missed the mark on a wine. The somm puts that list together FOR the guests and should deliver at every turn. Never be afraid to speak up. Their job is their passion. Make their expertise and passion work for YOU. I always start a conversation with a somm with, what are YOU excited about. And if they’re good, they’ll light up and you’re off!
It was just a strange wine that needed to be explained to us before we ordered it. Like wines from the Jura, which I explain pretty clearly to friends/dining companions who aren't familiar with them, so they're not surprised or disappointed. They're quite different and I love them, but they're not for everyone.
I like trying new things and learning about wine, since I'n far from an expert, so I chalk this up to a learning experience - and shared it so readers who also might feel intimidated about wine, if they find themselves in the same situation, know perhaps they can/should do something about it. Thanks for chiming in as someone in the wine business. Friends in the wine business also said that same thing to us afterward.
Readers may enjoy another story about my haut cuisine dining in France in the 1970s hey day of the great chefs.
Part seventeen. A trio of stars
Our French trips were curated by my Brother in law, who read every article in every magazine about haut cuisine so he could select the crème de la crème. The plan usually involved three days in Paris before picking up a car from Hertz for a two week drive through the countryside, each night punctuated by dinner at a Michelin starred restaurant.
I either drove or navigated using detailed maps from Michelin or IGN. Barbara identified noteworthy places to see on our way. The drive also included lunch at Barbara’s urging, usually included foie gras, champagne, salad and such.
The days before GPS going from one place to another on the small back roads of France was a challenge. One day we spent too much time sightseeing and left little to cover a long distance to get to the restaurant Lameloise in Burgundy. The only issue was we had to drive on the A6 at 140 kilometers an hour for three hours in order to get to the hotel and restaurant and keep our table.
We made it by the skin of our teeth. We dropped off our luggage and headed straight to the dining room. Every once in a while you encounter something about a meal which is so different and so appealing compared to anything else you’ve eaten that’s what happened at this meal. The revelation was breast of wild duck in a light blood sauce. I had never eaten duck breast. It had the texture of filet mignon with the slightly gamey and beefy taste of a wild duck, which actually had been shot on the property and hung in the chiller box until ready to eat. Every bite had me moaning in pleasure. Ellen was happy with the fish dish. She reserved praise for dishes that really impressed her so when she said Yum I knew she meant it.
After breakfast we reviewed the route to the next great meal. This particular three day stretch was noteworthy in that the three restaurants we we’re going to experience were probably the three greatest restaurants in France at the time.
La Pyramide, made famous by the chef Ferdinand Point was being run by Madame Point, who was dedicated to preserving the exact and precise cooking her famous husband had developed. She sat on a stool at the doorway inspecting every dish that the the kitchen. We sat in a peaceful green garden under a pear tree.
It was interesting to see that some of the pears on the tree were enclosed in glass bottles. As the dishes were brought out one course at a time and laid out before us, domes were lited as if on cue to reveal the food all at the same time. Waiting for the next course, we notice that a beautiful ripe pear fell silently from the tree and landed softly in the grass. One of the waiters picked it up gently in a napkin and brought it into the kitchen.
When we finished the meal and it was time for dessert we all knew that the main event for dessert at La Pyramid was the marjolaine.
If I may borrow from a web essay, “ask any chef who is well-versed in classical French cuisine and it’s likely they’ll start going on and on about how delicious this layered dessert is. The marjolaine—made with nutty meringue, rich chocolate ganache, and vanilla and hazelnut buttercreams—was created by celebrated French chef Fernand Point.
Within the pages of his book, is the original recipe for marjolaine. Fans of the marjolaine include Bittman, chef Thomas Keller of The French Laundry and Per Se, Patricia Wells, and chef Frederic Morin of Montreal’s famed Joe Beef, among many more.
“Point says the marjolaine was a constant work in progress for him, always changing as he tweaked the recipe in search of the perfect cake, something he never quite achieved,” Keller writes. “I wanted what he searched for, a cross between a cake and a meringue, one that’s creamy, with a slight crunch, both chewy and cakelike, fully flavored... All those components in one bite.”
The waiter came to our table to ask about desert. “Do you have La Marjolaine?” I asked hopefully. “Ah Monsieur, La Marjolaine...toujours. Forever.
That desert, eaten in a lovey garden with my beautiful Ellen is one of those moments that add up to the joy of 61 years.
The second 3* meal awaiting us was at PIC, a superstar in haut cuisine in Valence.
Established in 1889 by Eugene and Sophie Pic, the restaurant first earned the prestigious 3 Michelin stars in 1939. André’s son Jacques Pic, decided to train as a chef in order to eventually take over from his father. Under Jacques, the restaurant won back its second star in 1959 and its third in 1973. We approached this place with reverence but extremely full bellies.
We sat at a beautiful table in a garden terrace. The captain handed us the menus which were as big as skateboards and listed many dishes of meats, seafood, shellfish, and vegetables. Bob recalled that a casserole of mixed shellfish and seafood including lobster was one of the specialties of the house. We were informed that the casserole was offered for two people at a minimum. Of course we ordered it.
I have no recollection of what else we chose but I do remember that Bob selected a Bottle of Hermitage from Chapoutier, considered to be the best wine of the region and ranked high up in France. Our captain wrinkled his nose at the choice, having pointed us to one or two very high priced Bordeaux, like Lafite Rothchild or Chateau Haut Brion.
Then he brought two gigantic balloon wine glasses to the table and made a big show of opening and pouring the wine for tasting. It was an exaggerated show to poke fun at our choosing a local wine, which he thought was a peasants choice versus Lafite.
The waiter approached to our table holding a large tray with a giant ceramic casserole. He carefully placed the tray on a serving table, lifted the cover and immediately we were enveloped with deliciousness.
There was no way we could do justice so this astonishing dish but we sure as hell we’re going to give it a try. It tasted so good that it was very hard to stop eating it but I think I had reached my limit.
I knew we were going to have to choose desert, and was happy to see one of the options was a bowl of fresh picked raspberries with I fresh. This was something I could manage since I could handle the quantity. No surprise when a casserole almost the size of the seafood dinner came to the table brimming with the most beautiful and delicious raspberries I’ve ever seen and on the side was a huge bowl of thick fragrant cream fresh.
Thanks, David, for another lovely, interesting, and well-written post. I particularly appreciated your comments about the wine, which I found reassuring. I generally know what I like, but always feel overwhelmed when handed a wine "book" at a restaurant. Glad to know I'm not alone. I also appreciated your comments about how to handle the wine at such a high-end restaurant when it is not really to your taste. I definitely would not have said anything either, but perhaps next time I will be a bit more courageous.
It can be pretty intimidating since there's a lot to know about wine and I'm always impressed (very impressed!) by my friends in the wine world who know so much. On the other hand, wine is meant to be enjoyed and is a part of the culture of dining in France. (Although nowadays many places offer other options for those who don't drink, and many of those beverages are also made in France.) It's nice to depend on someone knowledgable at a restaurant to guide you and I give them general guidelines and price and wait for their suggestions.
It's easier to just ask for a dry, minerally wine and you'll get something fine, but I also like to try something new and taste a wine I might not be familiar with, as that helps me learn about wine. I think we were mostly on the fence because we did order it and if the wine had turned, that's one thing, but it was not really to our taste and it would have been nice to have gotten something else to accompany the wonderful food.
I quite agree about multi-starred restaurants. We went through a period where we went to one every year when we visited Paris. Sometimes they were wonderful, sometimes not. Our tastes seem to have evolved with much of the rest of the world to more of the "bistronomie" style of less formal dining. And although it seems from your descriptions that La Tour d'Argent may have evolved a bit itself, we were quite disappointed when we had dinner there about 15 years ago, aside from the view, which is of course remarkable, especially when the sun sets and the lights come up. But I'm glad you had such a nice lunch. And belated Happy Birthday! (PS We highly recommend Aldéhyde for your next birthday lunch. It was by far our best meal during a recent 6-week stay.)
I think also a lot of those restaurant became tired, and uninteresting as they were sitting on their Michelin-starred laurels. (A few 3-starred restaurant I went to in the past 10 years seemed to be stuck in the 80s and 90s, with foam on everything.) And nowadays there are a lot of smaller neighborhood places that do very good food, and multi-course menus for 75% less (such as Septime and Autoume, where the fixed dinner menus are around €130/140 versus €400 and you don't have to get all dressed up to go.
This place did a complete overhaul and remodel, which I think was successful. It's still quite posh, but was a good birthday choice. Thanks for the tip on Aldéhyde!
Yes, Septime is a real favorite for us, and this year it really was fantastic. 😊
Hi David. I have that Life cookbook right here (I live in Paris and am a friend of Dan and Claudia). I’d love to send you that “iconic” picture of dining at the Tour d’Argent. I’ll send it to Claudia. Some of my family’s favorite vegetable recipes come from that book. It’s a treasure, and so beautiful. Aloha, Coni H
I was so thrilled by mokonuts - that would be my birthday meal if it were up to me 😃 it was lovely to 'eat' along with you here at this fancier restaurant!
Mokonuts is terrific although it's so small it's hard to get in - although a great place for lunch in geneal. They recently opened a place down the street, Mokochaya which serves breakfast, lunch bento, and tea in the afternoon, as well as Sunday brunch: https://www.instagram.com/mokochaya/?hl=en
Went there about 15 years ago as I was on my bucket list of places to experience. It was everything I expected it to be, not perfect, but wonderful... we had help picking a great wine and we had wonderful fun getting our "numbered" duck.....what a great experience.
I inadvertently sent this before it was finished. I agree with your assessment of the boulangerie. It is marvelous in a neighborhood where it is difficult to get a decent baguette. I share a post Christmas birthday with you and Jane. Although it is usually an afterthought, I console myself by saying that means I am not a year older.
A few minutes away is Archibald bakery, which has really excellent bread (they use local, heritage grains and you can really taste them in their breads - I love their German-style bread and their pain Parisien, sold by the slice) https://archibald.bio/
I read 32 Yolks this past fall so I very much enjoyed hearing about your meal. Cheers to another trip around the sun!
That was a really good book. I was pretty surprised reading about his difficult life, how he evolved as a cook and chef, and...his experience working for Joël Robuchon. Yikes...