Gastroville

The meal I had in early February was perhaps a good meal but in the context of Anton being a chef about to gain his third star, it was really not at all convincing and I refrained from commenting on it on this blog or elsewhere before I had tried it yet another time. Maybe I had been unlucky to hit it on a bad day, at least that was what I thought when the Michelin results finally confirmed that chef Anton indeed had been awarded a third Michelin star.

Another meal a few weeks ago unfortunately confirmed my initial feelings that this restaurant in simply not in the same league as places like l’Astrance, le Meurice or les Ambassaderus, restaurants that have received 3-stars or are in "the race" and where I have had multiple meals in over the last year.

Frédéric Anton has an impressive CV and has been awarded the prestigious MOF-title. Even if Anton is a chef steeped in the Robuchon tradition with a high level of rigour, which in Anton’s case is evident in some presentations, and the cooking at the first meal was reasonably solid from an execution point of view, there is fairly serious criticism that can be levelled against what the kitchen delivers. Some ingredients could have been considerably better and some ingredients can be criticised for being used at all. Let me come back to this. Even if there were some surprising and unexpected taste marriages hinting conceptual originality, they have pretty much without exception been unconvincing – for this level of rating by respected food guides - since they have not reached the required level of clarity and definition. For example, none of the appetiser soups served at both meals, at the first meal a mushroom soup, at the second meal a pea soup, showed sufficient clarity to be any good expressions of the respective flavours. Both meals also left much too lingering aftertastes from various dishes, a trait I find hard to associate with great food.

When reading the menus on both meals, I made one immediate and somewhat disturbing observation. Among the first courses and the fish courses almost every other dish features caviar from Aquitaine. I am a great “amateur” of caviar and will never miss an opportunity to savour good caviar. However, as interesting as great caviar can be, as negative impact on preparations can inferior caviar have. Aquitaine caviar is a relatively new produce that is considerably better today than it used to be 5-7 years ago, but frankly literally all Aquitaine caviar I have tasted have been marked by a flavour that I associate with farmed fish of poor quality. It is a specific taste that resembles the taste of soil or dirt. When farming sturgeons in Aquitaine, the sturgeons are let to spend time in clear waters and by washing the caviar some of this unpleasant taste is removed. The flavour is similar to the smell inside the belly of a farmed sea bass or turbot of poor quality. When this flavour is too pronounced, and it most of the time is, the caviar lacks any gustative interest. In fact I would go so far and say that it indeed almost always ruins the impression of the other elements it is paired with. In addition to this, the Aquitaine caviar lacks the crackling impression of superb caviar from the Kaspian sea when it is rolled on the tongue.

On the first occasion we put together our own tasting menu. Being right in the season for scallops, truffles and game, we opted for a scallop preparation done three ways, a truffle preparation, also in three ways, and venison as main course. The maitre d’hotel added another first course, namely Anton’s speciality filled crabs with caviar jelly.

The first course in the first meal was L’ Etrille Préparée en Coque, Fine Gelée de Corail et Caviar, Soupe au Parfum de Fenouil. It was a good to very good dish. Being a little nitpicking I would say the crab meat inside the crabs lacked some seasoning and while I am normally not overly sensitive to it, there were a few to many pieces of crab shell in the filling. Although well made, its components felt overall as from another époque, perhaps a little dated and not particularly original and the preparation lacked some clarity. The Aquitaine caviar in the jelly had no positive impact on the dish.

I queried the maitre d’hotel on why they chose to use Aquitaine caviar at all and his defence was that chef felt that when incorporating it into a dish, rather than serving it on its own, the way it was done with the crabs or with lime with the scallops as in the dish that followed, it was not that important to serve top quality expensive caviar. Perhaps a good way to dodge the problem with the obvious lack of cracking texture of most Aquitaine caviar, but not a very convincing argument to defend its tainting taste characteristics. I personally think it would have been better to leave it out altogether.

I for one am sure that M. Anton can do better and does not have to impress his clientele by serving second rate caviar in his dishes.

The other first course we had in the first meal, La Saint-Jacques Cuite au Plat, Jus de Pommes à Cidre, Crème de Noix écrasées et torréfiées, Fines Lamelles juste tiédies, Caviar et Zestes de Citron vert was probably hit on the wrong day, or I hope so. While the preparation was fairly well executed, the cooked scallops lacked the firmness, brilliance and taste of ultra fresh scallops. The caviar again made no positive contribution with the raw scallop slices but even without it would have been as a bland preparation difficult to justify the serving of. The clarity, brilliance and refinement of really great food that you expect at this price level were simply not to be found in this trilogy of scallops.

The third preparation in the first meal was a trilogy of truffles. One was Robuchon's classic onion and truffle tarte. It had a much too powerful and lingering taste from the onions that literally killed the truffle flavours. The nowadays popular beet bubbles, served at for instance Mugaritz and made by incorporating air in a beet jelly while it sets, here paired with truffles was quite good, but the visual effect of the bubbles is mostly of novelty value first time. The beet, comté cheese and nutmeg circles were good but being served on warm plates the comté took on a to my taste undesirable texture of soft rubber.

When waiting for the first course in the second meal I thought about these three preparations from the first meal none of which merited a Gastroville score higher than 15/20.

The first course on the second meal was another of Anton’s specialities, l’Os à Moelle, l’un perfumé de Poivre noir et grillé en Coque, l’autre farci d’un ragout de Petis Pois et Morilles, Mijotés dans un jus de rôti. Being an “amateur” of bone marrow, this preparation sounds gloriously delicious. I especially have a weakness for grilled bone marrow that has taken on a slightly smoked flavour which with the “jelly-fat”-like texture of bone marrow is quite a gustatory experience. M. Anton’s bone marrow was nicely cooked and had the right texture. Sadly, that is where the positive remarks on dish ends as the dish proved to be an assault on the taste buds. There was an over use of abusive shallots or garlic or both in the dish that survived the meal by some 6-7 hours. With some imagination, the peas served with the bone marrow perhaps tasted a bit like peas. The morels tasted like meat balls that has too over use of onions in them. It is hardly a one time kitchen failure since this is a reasonably easy dish to make for even an amateur chef without failing.

The venison main course in the first meal could be described as a somewhat pedestrian preparation of venison of excellent quality. It came with a bland sauce which had an interesting texture but somewhat lacked taste and consequently dimensions. The other garnish was simply penne with some parmesan and truffle shavings on top. The penne was cooked as they should be but the venison was somewhat amateurishly overcooked on one side and barely cooked on the other side. The whole preparation from a conceptual point of view gave a pedestrian impression and was hardly worth the price it was listed at on the menu.

The most positive remarks for the veal sweetbreads served as a main course on the second meal goes for the presentation. The sweetbreads were not striking from neither quality or execution point of view. The sauce was as one-dimensional as most sauces served at Pré Catelan have turned out to be. The morels tasted more of shallots than of morels.

The sweetbreads came with a side plate of flavour lacking celery puree supposedly with cinnamon. The nasturtium tempura on the sides of the plate had the texture and taste of damp cartons.

The cheese selections were on both occasions overall superb supplied by Alleosse.

The first meal ended with an exceptional dessert, Le Café “Expresso”, en Sabayon, Ganache fouettée, Crème glacée “Brûlée”, Amandes écrasées. It was really the only dish over the two meals that reached the level expected at a Michelin 3-star restaurant.

Less convincing was the dessert that ended the second meal, la Pomme, Soufflée croustillante, Créme glacée “Carambar”, Cidre et Sucre pétillant. Perhaps beautiful to look at for some, but hard to appreciate due to the very thick sugar encasing.

I expected a lot more considering its 3-star espoir status and later considering that it got the third star and since Frederic Anton has the reputation of being one of the most talented chefs of his generation. The second meal at Pré Catelan came over a two week period during when I also ate at Le Louis XV, les Ambassadeurs, l’Astrance, le Meurice and Ledoyen (twice) and there is simply no comparison between the craftsmanship, the produce displayed and the concoctions of these restaurants and Pré Catelan. My biggest problem is that the food lacks the originality that should be expected on the highest level and the brilliance and clarity that characterises really great food. Even when a restaurant is having a bad day, it is possible to sense the potential and that it can shine, but not so at Pré Catelan.

Young chefs have a tendency to stagnate after receiving the ultimate award. Menus cease to evolve, the same dishes are served all the time. The list of those restaurants can unfortunately be made quite long. Let us hope that Anton will break this trend and improve his food worthy of the third star. But the last meal which would hardly be an acceptable performance even of an ambitions 2-star restaurant tells me the odds are high.

Gastroville rating: 14/20/Rated by Mikael J.