Yannick Alléno makes the jump from Le Meurice to Cuisine Moderne by Bruce Palling

Its almost official – Yannick Alleno, the Three Star chef at Le Meurice is quitting to follow his own concepts for haute cuisine, which range from the experimental ("Cuisine Moderne") at his two star 1947 in Courchevel to the traditional in Terroir Parisien in the left bank of Paris.

I have yet to visit 1947, which is a 25 cover place in Cheval Blanc in Courchevel, (www.chevalblanc.com/courchevel/en/culinary-art/1947.html) where guests pay serious amounts for the privilege. (It is probably not a problem as when I was last in Courchevel I couldn’t help noticing that the run of the mill café near the main ski lift was flogging ‘82 First Growths for about a thousand quid a bottle – and that was a decade ago). It is probably best that I simply run an extract from his December press release

In a recent interview published in Le Figaro, Yannick said he worked in hotel restaurants for 25 years and that it was time to try something else as it was exhausting running a staff of 230; being responsible for breakfast, lunch and dinner, not to mention room service. I spent some time with Yannick in Paris recently, where he explained ahead of the official announcement of his departure from Le Meurice what he was trying to do next.

“I think all chefs followed the same path until about 1968 when Nouvelle Cuisine started in France. I did my own experiments within that framework, but now I feel I didn’t express myself enough. That period 45 years ago was the time to leave classic food behind but I think now nouvelle cuisine has become too classic itself.

Molecular Cuisine of course brought another concept to the table, but when you finish your lunch or dinner there seems to me to be something forgotten or missing.  I want to push up the emotion of cuisine, but how can I do this?

The first thing is to move the base, so working with wine makers I tried to find a way to make a fusion so I worked around the experience we can get from the wine makers. I have started to make fermentation and put meat in barriques of Yquem (there is a veal dish along these lines on the menu at 1947). Five months ago, I found a new place to begin extraction in Paris to capture the essence of different meats and vegetables.

In a way, we are doing the same thing with food as a wine maker does to produce a grand reserve wine. If you have say 500 different extraction juices to work with, providing you can create the right texture, it is a great way to move the way of thinking about food. I should add that I am not trying to remove actual physical food from the menu, but merely to enhance it.

I am now pursuing the extraction of flavours and juices from food because I need to take the dining experience further. It is time for us to understand because we need to rewrite the existing culinary codes. We have made a lot of vulgarizations in contemporary cuisine – always bothering diners by asking if you want more mineral water or Champagne, with a jumble of different bottles; the same applies to bread - no sooner are you asked if you like some before a huge basket of bread appears.. I think that is not in tune with what contemporary customers expect of a chef. We have to think differently in the way we treat customers. It is our responsibility to rack up the emotional experience. We have to think about the moment - the dinner has to tell you the truth and the expression of the ingredients. Sometimes the old formula of starter, main course, dessert, simply doesn’t make sense.

The reason I have opened Terroir Parisien is because of a revelation I had. It is very hard to stand out from the crowd and have an impact. I don’t want to stay in the crowd. It is time for me to do something else. I know it too well- haute cuisine at present always follows the same story, which runs the risk of making it too predictable.

What was the low point for him after he opened Terroir Parisien in the Latin Quarter of Paris last April? Perhaps it was when was when two angry middle aged American diners stood up during their meal and blared out to the entire room  “Are you Kidding?” Manager Jamie Cameron hastened over to see what the problem was. It seemed that they were expecting to have a bargain basement version of his haute cuisine food at Le Meurice, rather than carefully crafted renditions of Parisian classics. Instead, here was perfectly presented pot-au-feu, tête de veau or Boudin Noir as your grandparents might have made them. It seems they still felt betrayed and despite being offered glasses of this and that, they clomped off into the night.

                                                 Tete de Veau

 “It used to happen quite a lot soon after we opened last Easter”, Jamie explained, “ but now people realise we are not trying to produce copy cat food but dishes that were once the mainstay of Parisian cuisine. There is a touch of bistro and also of modernism - Yannick always wants to keep the basics of everything and considers that if you don't know how to cook Tête de Veau, you should go back to school."
 

Interior of Terroir Parisien

Yannick has been obsessed about rediscovering the produce of Paris and the surrounding Ile-de-France region and even had a special menu at Le Meurice devoted to using local produce, such as lamb from the sole remaining herd near Paris and watercress from Méréville or asparagus from Argenteuil. (See my recent piece about this www.gastroenophile.com/2012/06/0-0-1-1254-7150-wall-street-journal.html)

It is a mission that has almost come too late. Before the last war, there were more than 300 farms within the Parisian city limits but the last of these closed more than 15 years ago. The actual catalyst for focussing on locally produced ingredients was an article written by François Simon, Le Figaro’s influential food critic. He described 10 haute cuisine dishes from the 10 most famous French chefs and defied anyone to be able to guess which chef had created each dish. “This article gave me a revelation – I wanted to stand out from the crowd and do something different. Besides, it was time for me to do something else as I know the haute cuisine world too well and it always follows the same theme.”

His parents also ran bistros in different parts of France, so this was another inspiration – “I was born behind a counter, so my parents provided the real roots to my interest in locally produced bistro cuisine. Terroir Parisien was born even before I started Le Meurice. There is a whole new movement in agriculture so that people are proud to be represented here.” Some of the ideas for old recipes came from food historian and gastronome Jean-Claude Ribaud, who had a well-regarded column in Le Monde for decades.

The Terroir Parisien is located in the Maison de la Mutualité, a landmark building near the Sorbonne, which is famous for hosting post war political and cultural events – sort of like a Parisian Cooper Union. It was especially renowned for its concert hall, where Messaien’s profound Quartet for the End of Time was first recorded. The spacious restaurant has lofty pretensions with racks of local produce on display and narrow vertical blackboards with lists of appetising products in perfectly written cursive script.

There is a set lunch for a mere E15 and most other dishes are around the E20 mark. Starters included a delicious Tourte de Canard, au foie gras de Canard sauce salmis liée au boudin noir (duck and foie gras baked pie, salmis and black pudding sauce) for E14 

or Coquillages ouverts au persil plat, os àmoelle gratiné  (an array of mussels and clams with bone marrow) for E15. The main courses were similarly traditional, such as Tête de Veau sauce gribiche (Calves head with gribiche sauce) at E28 and Pot-au-feu with beef marrow, grilled bread and cherries in vinegar for E20. 

The stand out dessert was a beautifully presented Nanterre brioche with vanilla ice cream for E7. It was the sponginess with a touch of sweetness that did it for me. 

or a whole poached pear with locally produced Béton honey also at E7 (Concrete Honey is gathered from the rooftops of Paris). The wine list was equally cheap and changes, like the menu, every two months or so - no wonder more than half the dining crowd are regulars.  There are also some reassuring classics, like Cheval Blanc 98 and I noticed Haut Brion 04 lurking at the bottom.

Given how the majority of the produce used is created by small producers, it a remarkable feat to keep the prices so modest. 

Quite a lot of produce and herbs are already grown on the restaurants rooftop which also offers superb views of the Parisian skyline as it was somehow built a couple of stories higher than its surrounding buildings.

While I was speaking with Yannick, a regular guest appeared and discussed how she might be able to convert part of her estate to organic production for the restaurant. It was Valentine Hansen de Ganay, whose family own Chateau Courances (www.courances.net/histoiresUK.htm), less than 50 kilometers south of Paris, which is famous for its formal gardens. “I am taking over some territory south of here to transform it to organic production. Many of the old producers are in trouble because they no longer have enough ground to grow products. I am in the fortunate position of having quite a bit of land close to Paris and what Yannick is trying to do is right up my alley – I intend to set aside 500 hectares of  the1800 Hectare estate to organic farming to bring back traditional produce”, she said. “I do believe it is our stomachs that will save French agriculture and not the Government – people are now recognising what tastes good and what is poisonous. They will influence the government to do the right thing. The Parisien population is the least well provided with good local produce in all of France, because the pressure here is to create more buildings and use more and more available space for commercial undertakings. It is like the mentality of a junkie."
 

I was charmed by Madame de Ganay’s English accent, which I assumed must have been acquired at somewhere like Heathfield or Cranbourne Chase, but it turned out to have been due to the handiwork of her English nannies during childhood. Yannick interjected: “ The great Curnowsky said the last meal he wanted on earth was truit au bleu from Courances, so it is my dream to one day to serve truit au bleu in Terroir Parisien.”

Yannick is optimistic about the future: “We lost a lot of products in the past few decades but we have already restored a lot of almost lost things such as certain types of beans, figs and artichokes de Paris. However, I am not some sort of Food Ayatollah – I don’t want to restrict people in using produce from outside the region as it has always been an integral part of Parisian dining. We currently use approximately two thirds local produce which is already the highest in Paris, but we would like to bring that up to 80%. I already have 70 or 80 products from the region, but I want more. One angry diner said to me he did not come to an Alléno restaurant to eat pig's nose – we have to live with that, although it is far less of a problem than it was after opening."

http://www.yannick-alleno.com/ouvragesculinaires/terroir-parisien/