Hi everyone, welcome to potluck foodparks. Today we're going to talk about Paris.
Paris. Paris. Yeah, I mean what other city is more famous for food than Paris?
It's the gastronomic capital of Paris Saint-Lens.
Paris Saint-Lens, yeah. That's right. It used to be like that and then it went really downhill for Paris, didn't it, for a long time.
When the Spanish avant-garde kind of like broke through and then Paris climbed back out of the gutter.
But I guess there was always a strong scene. I wasn't there like in the 2000s or 90s, but I would guess there was, no?
There has to be. There were always the big ones, no?
Yeah.
I mean, yeah. But in the like overall scene, I think like at one point it was just a little bit swamped with really shitty touristy places until local people were sort of like, this is enough.
We want good local stuff for everybody.
I was in Paris only once and this was actually during Covid. So the city was completely different.
Everybody told me like, this is crazy that there are no Asians, only the local Asians.
Because apparently usually there is always like a lot of tourism from Asia.
Yeah.
And this was like something really weird to see the city like that.
And yeah, and I stayed there for three weeks and I went out to eat a lot pretty much every day.
That's amazing. Yeah. Three weeks is a long time.
Yeah. I had a free apartment. Thank you to my friends Raul and Pamela.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm still here whenever you want. And yeah, stuff that I found interesting. Well, we can talk about the big names, right?
Yeah. I mean, there's such a broad spectrum of restaurants in Paris.
Obviously, you know, you have the huge Michelin star bunkers, right?
That are like so extremely famous and so mythical, but then you have a lot of like lower sort of like restaurants and then you have a lot of chefs in Paris that came from these like big Michelin star bunkers and open up much more casual places, you know?
So you have a really sort of like wide spectrum. I mean, yeah, like you say, La Perche, you know, Le Passard.
Like, I mean, he's been cooking in La Perche for so long.
I mean, he used to be hired as a chef there. It used to be belonged to somebody else.
And then when that chef retired, he bought it from him when he was like 20 something, which is also super crazy.
And yeah, I mean, he's especially nowadays, you know, with so much Netflix exposure and stuff.
He's probably one of the most famous three Michelin star chefs in Paris now.
I always pronounce it wrong. La Perche. And I always mistake it with La Strasse.
Yeah.
I find them like somehow confusing.
Yeah.
La Strasse is the one from Pascal Barbour, right?
That's right.
And La Perche is the one from, what's the name of the guy?
Alan Passard.
Alan Passard, of course.
Yeah.
What I like about La Perche is that it's such a forward thinking restaurant when it comes to vegetables.
They have such a central place in his cooking and elevating vegetables to a three Michelin star place for me.
It's amazing the way he does it.
Yeah, totally. I mean, in like many aspects, you know, for me, honestly,
he's one of the most inspiring chefs that like I've met and like that I never worked with him.
I applied a couple of times when I was younger, but now I got an answer.
But yeah, like when I ate there, the food was amazing.
But also what you get from him, like his philosophy, he's such a poetic guy.
The way that he talks about his craft, his job, he really, you know,
he really sees himself as a craftsman and as an artist and he lives it unapologetically, you know.
And he also does it like unapologetically exactly what he wants without getting influenced by this dish or that dish or this guy does this, this guy does this.
He doesn't give a fuck. He just does.
He's completely enveloped in his world.
And like what you mentioned just now, it's like that he, after he already had three Michelin stars for so long,
he from one day to the other said, I'm not going to serve any meat or fish.
That is like insane.
Like from a business point of view, you know, from a standing point of view of his sort of like standing as one of France's most famous chefs,
you know, because in France, especially, you know, a couple of years ago,
it was much more before everywhere else chefs kind of became public figures in France.
It was already like a thing, like with the Trois-Groves brothers and stuff like that.
They were in the newspapers and TV.
And yeah, and he just stopped cold turkey one day to the other.
And also to like put himself in the risk of sort of like being like, now what?
You can't use, you can't use chicken stock.
What are you going to do now?
And like he put himself in such an uncomfortable position to boost his creativity.
That's crazy, you know?
I actually didn't knew this because I've been following him for years.
So his restaurant is completely vegetarian now.
No, so he did start cooking meat and fish again.
But, you know, he was famous for the way that he cooks meat and fish and seafood.
Like that's what his restaurant was famous for, because he does it extremely well.
I mean, like the way that he approaches cooking meat and fish and stuff like that,
it's really, really special.
And then he, I mean, I saw an interview with him where he said,
I got to a point where I was so saturated with what I was doing and I felt really dull.
And then I got into the kitchen one day and like,
I was working with, I think he said it was like a piece of veal.
And he said in the blood and everything and everything was so vulgar and so like,
bah, and I felt really just like sick and uninspired.
And I said everything out.
Yeah.
And also what I really, really admire about that kitchen is that there are no recipes,
you know, supposedly, like who can say,
but the way that they approach cooking is very intuitively, you know?
It's kind of like you have to understand where we want to go.
And you have to change the way that you operate,
depending on the products that come in.
And it's all very spontaneous.
And I think like, I think it's actually in a Netflix documentary where
he describes it so beautifully as well.
He says, we don't know what's going to happen, you know?
We don't know what's going to come out.
We change it in the moment, but that makes it alive.
And like, that makes it risky.
But the reward of that risk is, you know, an incredible feast, you know?
Because he takes those risks, but when it works out, then it's like amazing.
You've said many things about Alain Passard that reminds me of Pierre de Agner,
like on a different way, because you say he just started doing whatever the fuck he wanted.
And he just, this freestyle cooking you're mentioning,
all of these things relate completely for me.
I would describe Pierre de Agner like as a crazy jazz player,
like a freestyler at the highest level.
And he's been doing that for decades, you know?
Like I actually saw him on a conference and he was cooking there
and he was really doing stuff like crazy, you know?
Like putting artichoke leaves into a stock, you know?
Like stuff that are completely counterintuitive.
And he's where he is and he's got the respect he has.
Man, I absolutely love Pierre de Agner, man.
I mean, it's such a...
Like again, like I have, I never worked with him, I never met him,
but like I have so much respect and admiration and sympathy for the guy
because of exactly what you say, you know?
He's so like manic in a way.
Like when you see him cooking, he's like fully in.
Have you seen those like old documentaries,
L'Invention de la Cuisine?
No.
The invention of cooking?
Man, you have to, anybody who like can get their hands on it,
they sell it as a DVD set, I think still, like you can buy it.
But it's these, I think it's in the early 2000s,
it's like an hour each on Pierre de Agner and Alain Passart.
I think...
I don't know, but like on Pascal Babot or Michel Bras.
I know, I know the documentaries.
I haven't seen them, but it's just a series of great friendships.
Yeah, exactly.
So good.
Well, Pierre de Agner was so good.
I met these guys, both of them, Alain Passart and Pierre de Agner,
also on a TV show, but do you know Iron Chef?
Yes.
But like the ones from the 90s, the Japanese ones,
where the Japanese would dress with this super funny, colorful chef jackets, you know?
And there was this special episode in France,
and the challengers were Pierre de Agner,
where Alain Passart and also the chef from La Tour d'Argant.
Yeah.
Those were the three challengers, you know?
And they beat the Iron Chefs, of course.
Yeah, but you know, actually what I found out like not too long ago is that
that episode with Pierre de Agner, which is an amazing episode, by the way,
like he does... there are scenes in there which are iconic.
I still remember, yeah, like he mixing the butter with his hands into the spot, you know?
Yeah, but he's like cooking crazy stuff also, like it's like lobster in like...
Yeah, it was lobster with pigeons, something like that, right?
Yeah, yes, exactly. Like something super crazy.
Yeah, like you say, he's kind of like, he's looking for a spoon, he can't find it,
he just puts his hand in the pot, and just stirring around with his like long hair,
kind of like falling in his face.
But what I've heard is that that episode, it was part of a movement of like people,
especially who were the judges.
It was like Trois-Bours, and it was... what's the mashed potato guy?
Yeah, Robuchon.
Robuchon.
Yeah, Robuchon was the jury in a few episodes.
Yeah, and Pierre de Agner went bankrupt, you know, and he had a restaurant in the
countryside first, and he went bankrupt, and he went bust, and a lot of the great chefs
from France, they supported him so that he could come to Paris and open his new restaurant.
Oh, nice.
And that was... I heard that that was part of it, this episode, of supporting him and
getting him the funds to start his new project.
Yeah, this inside thing that happened in a food scene, it reminds me of, I mentioned
La Tour d'Argent, which is probably the oldest open restaurant in Europe.
It's like a 500-year-old restaurant.
Yeah, it's crazy.
And this restaurant used to have three Michelin stars in the 90s, and I don't know how many
it has now, but at some point, it had only one.
And apparently, one of the things that happened in the 90s, and I heard this from...
I went to a culinary school, and the teacher was telling this story because he worked there,
that they have, I don't know what the name is, a competitive advantage when you bribe
the producers to give you the best stuff, and that's illegal.
You can't do that.
Yeah.
So, and they told me like they would do that with the sea product.
He would be there like in the middle of the night, after cleaning the whole kitchen,
and that's a time where fish produce would arrive, which is kind of like, oh, you know,
like why would you get your supplier at two in the morning?
It's dodgy.
And he told me like everything was like alive, all the fish produce they would get.
They went to a trial, and they lost, and never was the same again for Le Tour d'Organt,
but I don't know what they're doing now.
This restaurant is super legendary.
When you go there, they give you a number for the Canarte d'Organt,
and they will tell you like the numbers, yeah, like Charlie Chaplin was blah, blah, blah.
The number, this and that, you know, like they have all the record of all the Canarte d'Organt
they've delivered.
Yeah, that's super crazy.
Yeah, I mean, it's such an iconic place.
I mean, for me, one of the most iconic places is also La Strance.
La Strance, you know, it's very easy to like, not super easy, but it's kind of like,
it's not so far off to mistake La Strance with La Perche, because Pascal Babot,
also for me, one of the most inspirational chefs ever.
He was the longtime sous chef of Arnaud Passard in La Perche,
until he branched out and opened La Strance.
And he, his cooking style is very unique.
He takes a lot of influence from Asia.
A lot of it is, you know, inspired by Japanese technique and Japanese ingredients
through the lens of a Parisian French chef,
and also from India and Morocco and stuff like that.
He's very free in his way of cooking. He doesn't really get too bogged down.
But his, again, his technique is crazy.
He's also somebody who just really uncompromisingly does his style of food,
what he wants to do.
How many are there in the kitchen?
Like three or four cooks, something like that?
At La Strance, yeah, something like that.
Yeah, three or four.
And it's like notoriously hard kitchen to get into.
I think David Chang once called Pascal Barbot like the chef that chefs respect the most.
He's not that well known to people who aren't in the industry.
But if you're a chef, if you're a cook, he's like a saint, you know?
The saint of the four gratotes.
Is that in the Momofuku book?
I think he writes like a review from a visitor at La Strance.
And maybe.
I remember reading that.
He said like the waiters were like visible ninjas
that would just make things disappear at the table.
Then there is also this whole astronomy scene.
I was on a bad month, which is August.
It's not a good month to go to Paris because a lot of places are closed.
But this scene of a downbar, a septime, what can you say about it?
Yeah, I mean, that's the other sort of like, that's for me, that's the most interesting side.
Because like, yeah, you have those Michelin star bunkers and they're kind of cool.
But where for me, the real like lifeblood of the city is.
And in no way, like any less quality at all.
It's just a different format.
There's this whole like astronomy scene, which I think then also after it really kicked off in France,
kind of like spread around the world.
Also this approach of sort of like chefs that come from really high quality backgrounds.
And then say, I want to do something affordable, approachable.
I want to have a place where you drink really good wine that you don't have to pay a hundred quid for.
I want a place that I can like take my friends, you know, like you can't.
If you work in a three Michelin star place, you can't invite your friends over, you know,
and say, hey, cool, I'll, you know, I'll give you a discount or whatever.
And what's emerged from that, from this new generation of chefs is such a cool,
fun cooking and eating scene that's just really free.
And it's just about making really fucking good food, having a really good atmosphere,
really good wine, really good cocktails, whatever.
And just having a really good time.
And I have to tell you, like my last visit to Paris, that was the time when I went to La Perche
and I hyped it up a lot in my head and it was a very good experience, but nowhere near,
like it was nowhere near as fun, as much fun as I had going to places like Bones and Le Cerval
and the Baratta and all these sorts of places.
I had such a good time.
Yeah, I kind of felt the same.
I went there, I was in Paris a few days with my homie, Jean-Baptiste Richer,
and we went to Robuchon, to La Terriere, which is like, you know, like something you expect
all of your life to go to this place and to try the mashed potatoes from the mashed potato guy.
And it was kind of disappointing, some of the dishes, especially the mashed potatoes.
I was like, I've done this mashed potatoes myself hundreds of times,
and I know this is not good enough.
And you know, two Michelin star plays.
We also had like this famous cherry gazpacho, and it was lame.
It was like, we've done gazpacho ourselves afterwards,
and it was like, okay, this is how it should be, you know?
And that was Robuchon.
There were a few good dishes and everything, but it wasn't life-changing
and it was kind of disappointing.
And then we went to Panhatan, one of the best places ever.
Eels, incredible.
That was a favorite one.
And as you said, like, you see technique, you see high-level product, you see creativity,
and also like bold decisions.
I'm going to charcoal grill a cucumber and do it properly and serve it with just three other reds.
Eels was amazing.
It's one of the best eating experiences I've ever had.
And as you said, it feels like a casual place, not pretentious.
The kitchen was open, you know, like super nice place.
I really recommend it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm totally on board.
I mean, sort of like after we had this dinner, I left a little bit,
like not this, no, I mean, you can say I left a little bit disappointed
because I was expecting it to be more.
And I mean, like for what you pay, especially, it was crazy.
I think between two people, we paid 900 euros for like a bottle of wine and dinner for two.
And it was like nuts.
Yeah.
Honestly.
And after that, I was like, I was like, man, I'm never doing this again.
This is my compulsion.
Yeah, that's the thing.
That's the reason I don't go to three Michelin star places unless they invite me
because I'm not willing to pay.
You know, my top is like 200 euros.
And if it's like the experience of your life, maybe 300, maybe, but probably not.
You know, but above that for me, it's just not an option.
Yeah.
You know, like I don't enjoy it.
Yeah, definitely.
But like part of the reason we went to Paris that time is because there was a famous restaurant
at the time called Bones, which was run by Australian chef James Henry,
who's now got an incredible restaurant outside of Paris called Le Doyen.
Or Le Doyené, I'm never sure how to pronounce it, where the accent is,
where he grows vegetables in a farm and like has this really beautiful restaurant.
But anyway, his restaurant was closing and we kind of took the opportunity to visit France
and to go to the restaurant before it closed.
And we had such a cool time.
You know, we sat down, we ate the whole menu.
And then after that, we sat at the bar and ate like the bar menu, you know,
and it was just sort of like oysters and croquettes and grilled prawns and stuff.
And just the whole atmosphere was completely different.
Where at La Pêche, you felt like the waiters hated you, you know,
like there, you know, you're talking to people, you're meeting the people that's sitting next to you.
You're drinking wine together, you're talking to the sommelier and you're chatting about wine.
And, you know, he then like recommends you places to go to eat tomorrow.
And like that's kind of what hospitality should be, you know.
And the baguette for me was like a super crazy experience, like, yeah, and super like,
I don't know how to describe it, like between mystic and romantic or I don't know,
because we go there and then there is this old lady outside,
smoking a cigarette on her chef whites and everything.
And she's fucking Spanish, she's Argentine.
She was just having a cigarette and I see her and I think like,
okay, maybe this lady works in the kitchen or something like, I don't know.
We go inside and we start having dinner.
I remember everything was like simple and perfect, you know,
like there's some fries as a starter, just French fries.
And the waiter would explain, yeah, this is typically done in Argentina
and our chef is from Argentina.
I was like, oh, that old lady outside is the head chef.
And then at some point I go to the bathroom and you get to see the kitchen.
She was cooking alone, that old lady.
And she was delivering everything.
And this was really feeling like that romantic archetype of grandmother cooking
perfectly done.
It was exactly that.
And then on top of that, I also go to, I don't know exactly where,
like another room or something.
And there is this whole culinary library from that woman.
And there were like a lot of super avant-garde books and everything.
And I was like, what is this place?
You know, like where am I?
Yeah, I love that place.
It's one of my favorite places in Paris.
I think you described it perfectly.
It's this mix of romanticism and mysticism.
You know, it's like also, I think it's her husband,
the guy who does the wine behind the bar.
I looked at this guy and I was sort of like, man,
you're one of the most handsome dudes I've ever seen.
You know, it's kind of like black jumper, gray hair, slick back, clean shape.
You know, with like a small like pair of glasses.
He was the coolest dude ever, you know?
And these guys, you know, it's kind of like there's no pretentiousness.
It's just like, they also, they do their own thing.
You know, it's kind of like the guy's a little bit moody,
but he's not unfriendly.
And you know, she, like you say, like she's just cooking by herself.
And the food was so nice.
I remember like as a dessert there on the menu, it said rice pudding, you know?
And like, I love rice pudding, like at home, you know,
like my grandma made rice pudding all the time.
And so I ordered it and it came and it just hit the right spot, you know?
Because it was perfectly made.
It was like with, I think it was with mirror bells or something like that.
Super simple, but just really lovely cooking.
I remember we had oak cheeks, we had brains, we had sweet breads,
and everything was like sweet breads, potatoes, and a sauce.
Boom.
Yeah.
Same with, she would even repeat some of the garnishes.
And yeah, some nicely cooked vegetables and butter.
And you would get the same in three different dishes,
because that's not the point of the dish, you know?
And then for dessert, we had also homemade hazelnut ice cream.
Like a crazy place, really.
Yeah. Super, super nice.
Yeah. And I think that, like I mentioned before, you know, like a lot of places
and a lot of chefs who also then like kind of come from this background,
they then went and tried to get that sort of vibe.
And one really good example for me is like,
especially after we spoke about La Strasse on La Perche, is Tatiana Lever and her sister.
And so Tatiana Lever, she was already like pretty well known,
even like when she was like, before she had her own place.
And she was one of the chefs in La Perche, and then she was, I think,
the sous chef in La Strasse for many, many years.
And like, as we mentioned before, on La Strasse, the chefs stay for a really long time.
It's a really hard kitchen to get into, the level's incredibly high.
And so everybody was expecting her to like leave after how many years
and open another Michelin star restaurant.
And instead she opened a really casual restaurant together with her sister,
who runs the front of house, where they cook French, Asian food.
Asian because they're both, I think they're Filipino, like half Filipino, half French.
And it's so nice.
And I had a really crazy moment there, actually,
because the food is very, very simple, you know?
You get sort of like sauteed clams with homemade sweet chili sauce and Thai basil.
As like a starter, you get sort of like blood sausage, wontons,
just really delicious things.
And as a main course, I had like a piece of pork belly,
and next to it was sort of like sauteed vegetables.
And it was aubergine.
One was cooked, one was pickled.
And then there was like a sort of condiment with it, like chard, peppers, and coriander seeds.
And I remember like eating it, right?
And it's like, it's very simple.
Like there's no hiding any sort of like weird technique or anything.
And it completely blew me away.
It was so perfectly seasoned.
And there was so much like intricacy in the way that it was spiced, pickled, cooked aubergine,
the like coriander seeds that were sort of like,
they weren't like, they must have been really high quality coriander seeds
because they had this really fragrant aroma.
And just that impressed me so much more than any sort of like high level technique
that I saw on any of the other mission stuff is, because that's really difficult.
Also, like on the popular level, there is this super strong Asian food scene.
They brought me to a restaurant called Pho Thai.
It's a Vietnamese, and it's by far the best Vietnamese I've eaten.
I've never been to Vietnam. I would love to.
But I remember they served us, there was like this kind of ravioli
with pig trotters and something that they said that is, ah, this is Vietnamese pho.
And it was like some sort of liver pâté.
And also a duck marmite, chicken, because of friends, I went there.
They worked with Gaston Acurio, who opened some restaurants there in Paris.
And that was a place also that Gaston would go,
and he would tell them that that's a place,
Alan Passard would go when he would eat Chinese or Vietnamese.
That there is also like a lot of street food and stuff.
You can find bakeries just eating like a super nice baguette,
which is part of being in Paris, you know?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we haven't even talked about the baking scene yet, you know?
Obviously, a huge part of French culinary identity, you know, like places like Dupas et Desidets,
I think it's called, you know, very famous for the pistachios, snail and stuff like that.
Obviously, Paris has a huge melting pot of cultures also, you know, like you say, Chinese,
lots of Jewish culture, Middle Eastern, you know, there's really lovely Middle Eastern places like
Mise-Nord. I think it's Israeli food. There's Ulfah, Dürum that make like super simple
lahmacun. And I mean, they're just, I mean, they're just incredible, you know,
just like freshly baked lahmacun salad. But everything has this vibe of amazing produce,
amazingly made. You mentioned Mise-Nord in the Jewish quarter.
Yeah. Yeah, I love that place. Yeah, they have these kebabs or just like an artichoke.
Here's an artichoke cooked and enjoy it. I really like that place as well.
Yeah, they also do this like just like a whole cauliflower head and they like roast it until it's
super dark and brown and super, super tender. And then they like have like sauces and like
siege and stuff like that. And it's just like no bullshit, just super, super tasty food.
Yeah, we'll do that one. We'll do that. Yeah. Yeah. Super nice. It's actually one of the places
that they recommended me in Bones. There's too much to talk about with Paris, you know,
I think we could easily make another. We didn't even touch the sweet stuff.
Exactly. No, Pierre, I mean. We can leave that for another episode.
Yeah, we can do an episode on pastries or whatever. Yeah, I think we should.
That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing,
make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks. The show airs every Monday.