Garlic and Sapphires (21 page)

Read Garlic and Sapphires Online

Authors: Ruth Reichl

But I'd never had anything like his raw tuna either. The clear, almost translucent fish had been tumbled with caviar so that it glowed deep red, like rubies among black pearls. A garland woven from leeks was twined around it, interspersed with mysterious little dark dots.
“That aceto balsamico is excellent,” said Dan. I touched my fork to one of the dots and put it in my mouth, expecting the musty sweetness of the vinegar. But my mouth closed across something funkier and more mysterious, and I almost blurted out, “This isn't balsamic.”
Instead, I managed to make myself say, “How clever of you to know what it is,” as I took another taste. It was definitely not balsamic vinegar.
“Good balsamic,” he said, “is a wonderful ingredient. It's unfortunate that so few Americans know how to use it right.”
“Oh?” I said, still trying to figure out what it was. Black, I kept thinking, what's black in nature? Could it be Chinese black vinegar? I tasted again. Definitely not.
“They use that industrial product on salads,” he said contemptuously. “Nobody in Modena would ever do such a thing. This is the correct use of real balsamico, which as you can see is much thicker than ordinary vinegar. It should be used as a condiment, just like this, something to punctuate flavor. This chef is brilliant! Brilliant!”
I took another taste, as if I were tasting the balsamic to confirm his verdict. And suddenly I had it. Squid ink! It was squid ink! “Wonderful balsamic,” I said quietly. “And what do you think is the sweet flavor in the soup?”
“I don't taste anything sweet,” he said, taking another spoonful. Then he reached across the table to reclaim his plate. I took my bowl back and tried again. The flavors tiptoed quietly into my mouth and then suddenly picked up the pace, so powerful that they were reverberating in a little tap dance of taste. The sweetness came and then disappeared as I tried to separate the flavors.
“Still taste something sweet?” asked Dan.
“Would you mind asking what's in the soup?” I pleaded.
“Of course not.” He raised his hand and summoned the waiter. “The lady thinks that she is tasting a sweet element in the soup,” he said, as if urging the waiter to forgive what he knew was an error. “Is there some secret ingredient?”
The waiter smiled. “Pineapple juice,” he said.
I should have gotten that! But even though I knew it now, when I took another bite it was there and then gone, so elusive that it was like the ghost of the fruit, merely haunting the bowl.
“I'm impressed,” said Dan, but he was not pleased. He, after all, was the one with the flavor file. Clearly it was time to play dumb again.
When the salmon arrived, a fat slash of bright orange fish in a deep purple sauce, I looked down at the sprig of chervil and said, “The colors are gorgeous, and the parsley looks so pretty on the orange fish.”
“Chervil,” he corrected me. “Take a taste. See—it has a faint anise flavor.”
“You know so much!” I said, and felt his knee creep over to touch mine.
I took a bite and immediately forgot his knee. I forgot everything but what was going on in my mouth, the fish doing a little tango with crunchy strips of artichoke. The softness of the fish was sandwiched between layers of crunch—the artichoke on the bottom, bread crumbs on top, the flavors appearing and vanishing in a maddening way. I thought I tasted chestnut, and then it was gone, absorbed into the deep musky flavor of the wine. I tasted again and discerned something sour and completely unfamiliar. “I can see that you like your fish,” said Dan, who had, apparently, been watching me. “It's such a pleasure to be with a woman who appreciates food.”
“This chef,” I said sincerely, “is astonishingly good. How's your beef?”
“Superb!” he said, looking down at the little sculpture on his plate, a single boned rib set upright on a bed of pureed potatoes. “The chef has cooked it in a ginger-spiked sauce. But what is most impressive is the way he has laced the mousseline with shreds of fried potato—” He stopped with a horrified look and I realized that I had unconsciously scooped some potatoes off his plate.
The knee withdrew. “You might have asked,” he snapped.
I knew that contrition was in order, but I was too taken with the fireworks in my mouth to pay it much mind. The potatoes—more potato-laced butter than the other way around—were studded with the crisp strands of fried potato, which went off like little sparks. No matter how prepared you thought you were, each encounter was a little shock of electricity. Without thinking I stretched my fork out and took a bit of meat from his plate. It had melted into something so soft it simply slid down your throat. “Mmmm,” I murmured.
“Try mine,” I said, pushing my plate toward him. “Maybe you can tell me what that faintly sour flavor is?”
He tasted noisily. “Olive?” he asked. His lips chattered against the fish again and he said, “No, it's not salty. What could it be?”
“You would know better than I,” I replied demurely.
“I taste the Syrah,” he said. “And the artichokes. But you're right, there
is
something else.” He raised his hand and a waiter came skidding to a halt. “Sir?” he intoned.
“We've been wondering what the unusual flavor in this dish is,” said Dan.
“Kokum,” said the waiter. “It's the dried peel of a fruit that is used a great deal in Indian cooking.”
“Amazing!” I said. “I've learned so much tonight.”
It was true. But I was tired and the wig was digging maddeningly into my head, making my temples throb. I was beginning to feel the wine. Glancing down at my watch, I saw that it was past eleven, that we had been in our seats for three and a half hours, that I would soon turn into a pumpkin. It was time to go.
A wave of desperation washed over me, and then I caught my own reflection in a knife and realized that Chloe would know exactly how to handle this situation. And so I let her handle it.
I put one hand over Dan's and said, so softly that he had to lean in to hear me, “Would you mind terribly if we skipped dessert?”
The knee pressed harder against mine and I realized that he had misunderstood. Undaunted, I gently rolled my legs away and said, “I'm rather tired, and it's very late, and I have a big day tomorrow.”
“Of course,” he said, putting his other hand over mine so that our fingers formed a little stack on the table. “There will be other meals. Many other meals, I hope. This has been so enjoyable.”
We paid our respective checks and he walked me to the door. By the time we reached it, the maître d' was already holding out my coat. I slipped into it, Dan took my arm, and together we strolled out across the marble floors.
“What a delightful evening,” he said. He held the door of the taxi for me, and leaned over to brush my cheek with his lips. His beard tickled as he pressed his card into my hands. “Call me. I'll be back in New York in a few weeks, and I hope we can share another meal.”
“Good night,” I said, making no promises. I slipped the card into my pocketbook and the door closed. The taxi pulled away from the curb. I turned to take one last look at Dan Green, wondering what he would think when he read the review.
RESTAURANTS
by Ruth Reichl
POW!
The food at Lespinasse comes out shooting. With your first bite you know that you are in for an exciting adventure. These are flavors you have never tasted before.
This aggressive food is particularly shocking because it is served in such sedate surroundings. The dining room, all soaring ceilings, creamy gilded columns, chandeliers and luxurious chairs, makes you feel that you have walked into an 18th-century chateau, and the service makes you feel that you belong there. The restaurant, which was named for a French literary patron, overlooks no opportunity to pamper its own patrons.
“You don't need a check,” says the hostess as she relieves you of your coat. Sure enough, when you leave, there she is, standing at the door with your coat in her arms. An evening here is constructed of so many small, considerate gestures that by the time it ends you feel entirely relaxed.
Waiters work unobtrusively, anticipating every wish. Cutlery comes and goes in the elegant ballet of fine service. Wine is quietly put in and out of the wine bucket to keep it at the perfect temperature. When Lespinasse (pronounced less-peen-AHSS) opened in 1991, there were complaints about the service, but the restaurant now runs seamlessly. The staff has become so familiar with the food that in five visits I never came up with a single question the waiters were unable to answer.
If you care about food, you will ask a lot of them; nothing at Lespinasse ever tastes the way you expect it to. Sour-spicy shimeji mushroom broth arrives looking like an austere Japanese still life. It is a surprise to dip your spoon into this mild-mannered soup and experience an explosion of flavor. Mushroom is at the base of the taste sensation, but it is haunted by citric tones—lemongrass, lime perhaps—and high at the top, a resonant note of sweetness. What is it?
“Pineapple juice,” says the waiter. We dip our spoons again, taste. Yes, of course, there it is. Then, even though we know it is there, the elusive flavor begins to fade and disappear into the mushroom broth.
Silky bits of raw tuna are tumbled with two kinds of caviar that add an intensity to the flavor and an edge to the texture. The fish sits on a disk of diced vegetables surrounded by spears of leek and colorful dots that get brighter as they dance around the plate. Between the colors are little dabs of black. Balsamic vinegar? No; you taste again. They are dense, unctuous, vaguely mysterious. And then it hits you: squid ink!
Braised salmon and crisped artichokes with a syrah wine reduction sounds like a dish you may have tasted before. It even looks vaguely familiar, a fat slice of salmon on a bed of crisply fried strips of artichoke in a deep purple sauce. There are bread crumbs on top and a sprig of chervil. Take a taste, however, and you know you are in new territory. Yes, there is a bit of chestnut, and you can taste the wine and the tricky flavor of artichokes. But there is something else. You taste it again. Olive? Not quite. So you ask.
“Oh,” says the waiter offhandedly. “That is kokum. It is a fruit used a great deal in Indian cooking.”
Crisply coated snapper arrives in a shallow bowl of broth. The first taste is tarragon. It is replaced by fennel, which gives way to something that is definitely Chinese. You taste again. The tarragon is gone and what comes through is the elusive flavor of five-spice powder. In a minute all these flavors have come together so that you cannot separate them. You take another bite, and then another. Suddenly, disappointingly, the fish is gone.
It is no surprise, of course, to find Thai, Chinese and Indian foods turning up in your favorite French restaurant. They have become so chic that chefs sprinkle them ostentatiously through their dishes. But Gray Kunz, the chef at Lespinasse, is ahead of the curve. A Singapore-born Swiss who trained in the kitchen of Frédy Gi rardet near Lausanne, Mr. Kunz uses these herbs and spices with extraordinary confidence. His cooking was impressive at his last post, Adrienne in the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan, but it has matured; he now cooks as if he had an instinctive understanding of each of his ingredients. He combines them, coaxes new tastes from them and yet maintains such firm control that no single flavor ever dominates a dish. At first you find yourself searching for flavors in this complex tapestry, fascinated by the way they are woven together. In the end, you just give in and allow yourself to be seduced; these dishes are too delicious to dissect.
Each meal is a roller coaster of sensations. Mr. Kunz has an almost Asian fascination with texture, and he loves to play with temperature as well. His risotto always comes with a contrasting dish: one night the creamy rice was slicked with white truffle oil and served with a tiny casserole of sliced salsify and black truffles. The creaminess of the rice was emphasized by the crunchiness of the black truffles just as the delicate perfume of the white truffles emphasized the deep musky flavor of the black ones.
Mr. Kunz is even inspired by simple bistro dishes. He cooks a single meaty short rib of beef until it melts into a gingery, slightly spicy tomato sauce. He sets it upright on a bed of mousseline potatoes, then spikes all that softness with shreds of fried potatoes that crunch invitingly each time you take a bite.
The short rib can stand up to a full red wine, but much of Mr. Kunz's food demands a bright white. Because the flavors are always unexpected, I usually ask for recommendations about wine. The staff has never let me down.
One night I ordered a 1992 Chassagne-Montrachet La Romanée from Verget. “I'm so sorry,” said the captain with an apologetic look. “I sold the last bottle five minutes ago. Can I offer you this one at the same price?” He held out a '91 Chassagne-Montrachet from Colin-Deleger, a better wine. Half an hour later when I asked to see the wine list again, it had been reprinted: the Verget was no longer on the list.
Some chefs fade at dessert, contenting themselves with sweet, pretty things. Not Mr. Kunz. His desserts are as vivid as all his other dishes. Chocolate-banana soufflé is accompanied by banana-topped chocolate ice cream, a collision of hot and cold. Baked apples are set on fire and served with an astonishingly alcoholic ice cream. And crème brûlée slides sexily into your mouth, its smoothness set off by the little pot of berries at its side. Even the petits fours are exotic. What is that strange yellow fruit with the twisted husk? A gooseberry.
Do these food fireworks become exhausting? Perhaps they might in a lesser restaurant. But at Lespinasse, the pyrotechnics in the kitchen are tempered by the lack of them in the dining room. As each meal comes to a close, you find you are both exhilarated and soothed.
It's quite a show.
 
 
 
LESPINASSE

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