New From The Old

Symphony No. 2 From The Old World, Klaus Wieken

For me, winter is a time for letting restaurant chefs nurture me. In spring and fall, I prefer to do the nurturing, to be at the stove.

But in Europe, spring can be a good time to visit some restaurants – especially the 20-30 restaurants that define the best, setting trends rather than following them. In spring, chefs are experimenting with new ingredients. The crowds have not yet arrived, so the pace is slower and the service often more relaxed. It is a good time to get to know the chefs and where they are heading. Here are some new trends.

At the moment, deconstruction seems to be the in thing in Europe. Deconstructed dishes are those where the major elements of an established dish (like a bouillabaisse, for example) are broken down and then those elements are cooked individually. The resulting presentation has some of the best of the old, but is often lighter and more concentrated in flavor. [See Will’s deconstructed clam bake in our posting called “Will’s Way.” Things like dry ice and noodles made from things like agar agar are showing up regularly in first class restaurants these days – to both enhance the presentation and tempt the palate.

And foams are everywhere! If you can purée it and put it into a whipped cream canister, you will find it on someone’s menu! Foie gras, vegetables, oysters, saffron cream are examples.

The amuse bouche is another example of trendy “things.” For years, these little “palate teases” were sent out by the chef to get people excited and to shorten the time between ordering and the arrival of the first course. Now they have taken on the form of an opera overture in which some of the elements of the main dishes ordered show up early in the amuse bouche.

In chef Jean Georges Klein’s restaurant L’Arnsbourg in Bärenthal on the Moselle, we were recently served the following amuse bouche – roasted rhubarb, a sorbet of bitter beer, a Parmesan cream between paper thin layers of pastry, a squab mousse with Szechuan pepper, two preparations of quail eggs, one with ginger, the other with mace, — the mace once served as a foam, another time as in infused oil.

These flavor notes showed up later in our meal, the nutmeg infusing a wonderful bouillon, the Parmesan intensely flavoring a dish of soufléed gnocchi. The bitter beer in the sorbet came back as a dessert sauce; the squab mousse as the roasted breast served with a coffee sauce — delicious.

Even the humble old potato has taken on a “Life After Boiled Starch” in fine restaurants. Dishes like “Cappuccino of Potato Purée and Fresh Truffles” have become almost commonplace (well, I said “almost”). And there are variations that are relatively easy to prepare at home. Some substitute black olives for the truffles, or caviar, or other fish roes, or even squid ink – pictured below as served at the wonderful restaurant Le Calandre near Padova. (Aren’t those glass dishes cool?)


The secret of this dish is in the quality of the potato purée, the classic recipe for which is Joël Robuchon’s. You can find it in Patricia Wells’ book about Robuchon Simply French. I personally prefer this light version that was written down for me by Jean-Yves Crenn who serves it at his restaurant Le Temps de Vivre in Roscoff, in Brittany.

• Steam 3 pounds of waxy boiling potatoes (like fingerlings or rattes)
• Heat 12 oz. milk and 12 oz. cream
• Peel potatoes while as hot as you can stand
• Put through food mill or a ricer or tamis
• Add mile/cream to potatoes and beat in about 12 Tbls. of very cold butter, cut into cubes

The trick here is to boil the potatoes in their skins in well salted water. Peel them while still hot and purée. The butter must be quite cold. What you get is a wonderfully light mass that is a wonderful foil for all sorts of “cappuccino” ingredients, like those listed above, or whatever sounds good to you at the moment.

Take good care and Tschüß for now.

Klaus