Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [124]
Whether you are feeble or fat, you have no choice but to perch on a high stool (there are forty-one of them), elbows on the counter. There are no tables.
More people than not accept the game plan. The quality of the food has won out. Every plate placed before you on the counter is a summit of haute gastronomie.
“We have the products,” said Philippe in partial explanation of what is so special about this particular Atelier. “France has everything, if we look for it.”
Baby lamb chops from a breed discovered in the Pyrénées are an exquisite staple on the Paris bill of fare. They are unlike any I have ever tasted … tender and subtly flavored with thyme from mountain meadows: the tiny chops are dainty enough for a party hosted by Alice in Wonderland.
“Part of our secret lies with our network of suppliers,” said Éric Lecerf. “Over the years I have built a list of over two hundred. In the morning I can phone a fisherman on the coast and ask for fifty sea perch. That evening I will have my fifty sea perch, fresh from the sea. Our customers know that never do we serve a fish that has been farm raised.”
Guests and staff, face-to-face on either side of a counter, have undergone an altered humanized relationship. The waiter is no longer an anonymous servitor but a key figure in the ritual between kitchen and client. The waiters, an exceptionally appealing bunch, admit to loving the chance for brief conversation with the customers. You may not notice that surreptitiously everyone is giving a wipe and a polish. The high maintenance is part of the rigorous discipline.
In a limited way, the Paris Atelier tries to emulate the ethic of the traditional Japanese inn, the ryokan, which aims to satisfy the desire of the guest before the guest has had the chance to even voice his desire.
Recently a waitress overheard a trio of regulars discussing the imminent birthday plans of one of their number. She alerted the pastry kitchen. At the meal’s end a surprise birthday cake was presented before the trio.
Clients, thawed by the affable atmosphere, frequently chat with the strangers sitting next to them. “A couple of nights later,” said Éric, “I’ve seen these same strangers back again together—this time as friends.”
French fries are an icon of France. Some frites are good, some are better, some are terrible. The very very best have a maximum of crusty exterior. L’Atelier wanted to produce a superlative French fry to serve with its steak tartare.
The solution turned up in the drawer of a farmhouse kitchen cabinet in Poitou. Someone remembered the purpose of the housewifely gadget of corrugated tin, which resembled a toy-size Pipes of Pan.
“I saw my grandmother use one,” he said. “She would press it into the sides of a large potato. The potato became a mass of spirals, doubling the surface of a conventional French fry.”
The naive kitchen aid probably sold for next to nothing during the thirties. Armed with the prototype, the Atelier team located an artisan willing to reproduce it by hand.
“We need ten of them,” said Philippe. “The gadgets cost us one hundred euros each. More than one thousand euros for a few platters of pommes frites as we like them.”
You have to be crazy.
“We’re crazy,” said Philippe with an irresistible smile.
Simplicity at l’Atelier in Paris is the simplicity of Marie Antoinette playing elegant milkmaid at Versailles. The luxury is still there but stripped of its more elaborate trappings. The charm is in the paradox.
My lunch at l’Atelier was a jolly affair. I had a giant prawn clasped in a delicate, paper-thin crust presented like a jewel on a rectangular plate of artistically troubled glass, accompanied by a small pool of emerald-green basil sauce. There were three of the irresistible baby lamb chops and a little iron pot of Robuchon’s signature mashed potatoes.
I talked with a pair of chocolatiers from Belgium on my left and a couple from Ireland on my right. The Belgians offered me a glass of Champagne. Giovanni, the sommelier who looks as if he stepped out of a painting by Veronese,