France

[EnLinea Media]

Here's a forum about one of those countries where it seems almost impossible to get a bad meal. What are your favorite eating spot -- especially if it's a good deal? Cooking schools? Food markets? Favorite delicacies? If it's edible and French, it's fair game!

More info in English: DiningInFrance.com, HungryForParis.com.

[David Paul Appell]

Hey, have you heard? Starting July 1, the French government is cutting the VAT from 19.6% to 5.5%, meaning lower resto tabs! That doesn't cover the bar bill, but still, c'est d'elicieux, n'est-pas?

[David Paul Appell]

I just wanted to share an interesting little item I reported not long ago for the LA Times about the haute cuisine legend Paul Bocuse branching out to -- fast food!

Paul Bocuse could make French fast food the next nouvelle cuisine
How do you say 'to go' in French? Superstar chef Bocuse says he 'saw the opportunity to feed thousands of people going to the cinema' -- and others in France are following his lead.

LYON, FRANCE — REVERING la bonne cuisine as they do, many French are still fighting the good fight to hold the line against le fast food.

But long gone are the days when the mention of a cheeseburger could earn you a Gallic sneer and protesters drove tractors into a McDonald's; these days, burgers are being served in upscale Paris restaurants. And now, fast food from a Michelin three-star chef?

Yes, while classic French restaurants are making a comeback in Los Angeles (Thomas Keller's highly anticipated Bouchon in Beverly Hills, Anisette in Santa Monica, West Hollywood's Comme Ça), the most legendary chef in France -- and probably the world -- turns around and opens a fast food joint in the country's culinary capital.

Paul Bocuse, whose "back-to-basics" nouvelle cuisine tilted at the culinary establishment of the 1970s and who is a towering pillar of the establishment today, says he "saw the opportunity to feed thousands of people going to the cinema."

Bocuse is based in Lyon, France's elegant second city, two hours southeast of Paris by high-speed train. His "mother ship" remains the high-end, Michelin three-star L'Auberge du Pont de Collonges just outside Lyon, but he's also spent the last decade and a half opening a slew of bistros around town. Well beyond too: Japan, soon Switzerland, and in the U.S., Les Chefs de France, which plays French cuisine's greatest hits at Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Fla. He also oversees a highly respected culinary academy, and since 1987 his annual Bocuse d'Or competition has been the culinary world's Formula One, Oscars and World Series rolled into one.

Express service

YET AT age 82, spry Monsieur Paul is far from stuck in the past. Some of his newer bistros are sleek and buzzy, with menus boasting trendy world-cuisine touches. And in January he launched this latest venture, right around the corner from his hippest restaurant, 5-year-old L'Ouest. Attached to a new Pathé movie multiplex in a gentrifying industrial district in the northwest part of town called Vaise, Ouest Express serves up fast food, Bocuse-style -- his boldest step yet into the mass market. As they say, if you can't beat 'em . . . .

And certainly since Wolfgang Puck, the idea of high-end chefs going down-market is hardly a shocker. Tom Colicchio of Craft and Gramercy Tavern fame has even coined the term "fine fast." Even here in more tradition-bound Lyon, "fine casual" is gaining steam: Besides his creative Michelin two-star restaurant, enfant terrible Nicolas Le Bec just opened a laid-back spot called Espace Le Bec -- at the airport.

The new "McBocuse" brings to mind what you might call "Jetsons chic": a large, rounded, fluorescent-lighted space with a high-tech look in white with red accents and a large glowing clock, presumably to underscore the "fast" concept. Red, padded booths and banquettes line a circular dining area, with additional white plastic tables and chairs along the outside and higher chairs along counters facing the floor-to-ceiling windows accented with long, low planters of wheat grass.

The service counters curve around one end of the room, including not only the expected menus above but display cases below, showing off a cavalcade of fresh sandwiches, salads, pastas, quiches, desserts and libations. As with his midrange bistros and "gastronomic" restaurant, Bocuse says, "we insist on good, fresh ingredients. The pasta is cooked in front of the clients, and what really makes the difference for the sandwiches is the bread -- they bake it every two hours."

On the menu

THERE'S NOT a burger or Happy Meal in sight. Instead, rigatoni with boletus mushroom sauce, a fresh chèvre sandwich on sun-dried-tomato ciabatta with olive-tomato tapenade, and a nicely balanced strawberry tart. Other sandwich offerings, all about $6.75, included sweet and prosciutto-style cured ham on pain de campagne (country bread), sliced roast chicken, and smoked Norwegian salmon (both on ciabatta). Crudités are served with tapenade and lemon tartar sauce (about $8.65); the daily entrée special on a recent visit was sliced chicken in a French Basque-style sauce of tomatoes, onion and sweet red Espelette pepper, with rice and salad (about $15).

For that same price there are also formules (combo menus) -- sandwich, salad, quiche (such as onions, mushrooms and lardons, or bacon) or pasta (such as farfalle with a seafood sauce made with squid and mussels), plus frites, a drink and dessert. Gaufres, anyone? The waffles are served plain, or with powdered sugar, chocolate sauce or Chantilly cream. Wines include a Guyot Côtes du Rhône and Georges Duboeuf Mâcon Villages. Service is fairly friendly and the clientele varied -- a recent drizzly weeknight drew a large group of twentysomethings and various twosomes and threesomes ages 16 to 60.

Bocuse says he's been asked by Hilton Hotels Corp. to open branches at a number of its properties. Because he impishly promises, "I will last another 20 years," that still leaves the "Lion of Lyon" plenty of time to keep spreading his gastronomic gospel to the masses.

[Discover France Adventures]

In Burgundy, we offer a self-guided Gastronomy and Wine cycling tour where you can savor the regional specialties and stay in charming accommodations.

[David Paul Appell]

Oh, là, là, just ran across this in the Wall Street Journal today. Has anybody been to La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin or tried its merch?


The Chocolate Rebel: Although Jacques Genin Considers Himself a Foundry Man, His Wares Enliven Palates and Linger in Customers' Memories
...The big surprise in Paris this Advent is that the most talked-about chocolate-maker of the moment -- Jacques Genin -- is not a qualified maître chocolatier but a self taught and self declared "rebel" whose career in food began not in a kitchen, but in a slaughterhouse....

From his tiny workshop off the gourmet track in the 15th arrondissement he has built up his business to become a supplier of chocolates and petits fours to about 200 top hotels and restaurants around France, including the grandest establishments in the capital such as the Crillon, Plaza Athénée and Le Meurice. Outside catering circles, however, he was unknown.

That is, until 12 months ago when, in the full bite of the recession, he opened La Chocolaterie de Jacques Genin -- a 400-square-meter temple to chocolate created within the shell of a 17th-century building in the fashionable Marais district. Mr. Genin admits the first year has been difficult. "If it hadn't been for my team who work here with me, there were days when I would have felt like giving up."

In keeping with his original approach, there's no sign of tinsel, let alone a Santa Claus, when I visit his premises. On stepping into the high-ceilinged sanctuary of honey-toned ancient stone and blonde-oak parquet, the first impression is of a luxury accessory boutique. Indeed, the architect, Guillaume Leclercq, has designed interiors for Louis Vuitton.

On the ground floor of La Chocolaterie, beneath spot lighting, elegant black-clad assistants confer earnestly with customers peering into glass showcases. They're looking at polychromatic mosaics. On closer inspection, these mosaics are made up of two-centimeter squares of chocolate, hand painted with delicate patterns and displayed in single layers in silver metal boxes.

Alongside the chocolates are jewel-colored candies and caramels, and immaculate-looking pastries, all of which can be consumed on the spot in a tea-room area of fawn leather chairs and dark wood tables.

High overhead, there's a flicker of movement. I lift my gaze to see a svelte young woman, pony-tailed and in chef's whites, descending a spiral metal stairway from the upper floor, bearing chocolates. She looks like a messenger of the gods, but in fact she's simply executing Mr. Genin's just-in-time business model. His products are all freshly made in airy kitchens above the shop and brought downstairs as required.

full piece: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126109555019996343.html#