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February 13, 2007
Jacques Chibois - Uninspiring but consistent
I might as well start with saying that Jacques Chibois’s cuisine, as it is served in his Bastide Saint-Antoine outside Grasse, has never impressed me. Frankly the popularity of this restaurant on the Riviera has always surprised me. Of course, the setting is almost dreamlike, picture perfect and how one imagines a country side bastide with its olive garden and lovely view towards the bay of Cannes. The service has always been professional although a bit stressed, which is not strange because this place is after all full most of the time and well run from a business point of view. All would be good if the food would have been well made and worth the price charged for it. Unfortunately, this has never been the case on the occasions over the years that I have dined there.
So why do I continue to go back? The simple reason is that every now and then rumours surface that Chibois has made important progress. The latest wave of such rumours were possibly initiated by the at the time surreal and incomprehensible nomination by Michelin of Jacques Chibois as an espoir for 3-stars. It recently made me to one more time take the road to Grasse to check out if Chibois finally had made progress and produced food that would merit the prices and the ratings in various guides.
To Chibois’s defense it can be said that his food is rarely overly complicated and it is often based on a marriage between two or three components. This is something we normally appreciate, if the food is well made that is and made with good produce. The problem is that Chibois food has the taste and feel of mass produced food from - for this level of expectations - not acceptable ingredients. Also, surprising for this level is the sloppy execution, general sourcing of ingredients and often careless plating. One always gets the impression when eating at Chibois that the food has been pre-made in large quantities and with one result being that the flavours lack clarity and definition.
It was easy to conclude, only moments after I had opened the menu, that there had not likely been any changes to the better. The menu is as huge as before. The à la carte plus lunch menu and the dinner menus can contain in total some 60 dishes or more with desserts. It does not take much insight into how a restaurant is operated to realise what this means serious constraints with respect to freshness of what is served and when the mis en place for specific dishes might have been made. There is no restaurant in this size that can consistently serve food on the very top level with such huge menus. It is enigmatic how Michelin can conclude that Chibois could.
The meal started with a square platter with four small nibbles. It looked and felt like an amateurish and highly unsuccessful attempt to copy Jean Francois Piege’s TV-platter. The soup to the right reminded me of the soup served in elementary school, the beets were tasteless and overly acid, even for me who likes the element of acidity, and the fried nibble was as inspirational as cheap takeaway food.
Our first course les premières Asperges Vertes aux petites Crevettes rôties, Doucer de Céleri à l’orange proved to capture my perception of how I have always perceived the food at Chibois. What the picture below does not reveal is that the plate, the asparagus and the shrimps were all cold as if it all just came out from the fridge. It had been plated and put in the fridge hours before, but frankly it would not surprise me if it had been plated the day before. The asparagus were mostly tasteless as one can expect from asparagus served at a few degrees centigrade. The shrimps had no gastronomic interest and were frankly not any better than what can be found in most French supermarkets on the Riviera. The vinaigrette served with it had a sharp and overpowering taste that did nothing to lift the dish. This dish left the same taste of muddy flavours that one gets from catering food served to large parties.
It got partly better with le Filet de grosse Sole, coulis de Cèpes, petites Pistes au sauté d’Artichauts et Truffes, jus d’Arabica. The tiny fish slice was good and well timed but far from exceptional. It perhaps could have been a good dish had it not been that the cèpes sauce, prepared with dried cèpes, literally ruined the impression of the sole. Personally, I do not understand the use of dried cèpes in a sauce such as this served in a restaurant pretending to be serving haute cuisine and especially not with a delicate fish. Dried cèpes have to my palate, almost without exception, a dirty, nasty and nauseating flavour that marries well with very little. But more problematic for me is how a renowned chef, cooking in this region that offers some of the best availability of raw material in the world, can come up with the idea of using out of season dried cèpes.
A better composition followed with le Pageot rôti au Lard, purée de Potiron et sauce Jambon agrémentée d’huile de Romarin, although the fish was bit overcooked and a bit dry. Even if the dish was reasonably well tasting it was one-dimensional and lacked real clarity of the flavours.
The main course, le Dos d’Agneau de lait avec sa tranche de Gigot en Tajine de Légumes Provençaux d’hiver à la Truffe, was not particularly impressive. It was not what I consider exceptional quality and not professionally cooked. The lamb was dry and grey some 8 mm from the outside and then just cooked to a little more than room temperature in the middle and consequently not even on the rosé side. The truffles served with it were uninspiring and on the whole tasteless. The garnish, which looked as if it had been dropped on the plate, was watery and lacked seasoning.
The cheese selections were on the whole very good.
The dessert was described on the menu as: Le fin Soufflé de Citron aux Pamplemousse et Clémentine sur ses Dattes sautées. Coulis de Coco aux dés de Pastèque accompagné de sa découpe de Litchis et sa Raviole transparente de Mandarine, Fraise des Bois et Mousseux de Champagne. It was a least a very thorough description of this average and on the whole tasteless dessert, which no doubt a lot of work had been put into.
Gastroville rating: 12/20. This rating takes into account that meals at Chibois have previously been better than this meal, though no meal would rate above 14/20. Obviously, the meal reviewed above does not really merit a 12/20 rating.
The popularity of this restaurant among guides continues to baffle me. The ratings are reminiscent of how influential wine critics in the 70s and early 80s lauded mediocre performances from Bordeaux first growths.
Reviewed by Mikael J.
