Gastroville

Maybe he is everywhere or nowhere. He is omniscient and omnipresent, but evasive and sorely missing at the same time.

His restaurants, Les Ateliers, Les Tables, Les Joels, etc., are everywhere and probably three more will open before I finish writing this article. His photos are smiling at us in the foyers of Las Vegas. The dishes that made him famous, like “bar with verjus sauce”, “merlan frite”, “langoustine wrapped in cabbage” and many others are on various menus in his restaurants.

But where is that perfection, incredible rigor, painstaking attention to detail and mindboggling precision in cooking? Heavenly sauces? The quest for the freshest raw materials? The crazy insistence that each dish produced in the kitchen will have to make a culinary statement and linger in our memories forever? Where are all these qualities which made Robuchon one of the three best chefs of the 80s (along with Alain Chapel and Freddy Girardet)?

Well, they are inscribed in collective gustatory memory, at least in my memory.

So the Robuchon star is still twinkling, but…above the world…so high. Down here, we have many “littler” stars and one of them in at Las Vegas. How good is it?

It is good. Indeed very good. It is a truly French restaurant, presided overby a young”no non sense” and, quite rigorous, “meilleur ouvrier du France”chef, Monsieur Le-Tohic, who is helped in his endeavour by an excellent sommelier, most gracious maitre d’ and also a very talented dessert chef. The restaurant is an oasis of French civilization in the middle of a literal and cultural desert, and one feels in an enchanted temple as one enters the abode of Joel Robuchon after walking past the noisy slot machines located in an impersonal mega-hotel.

The chef of Robuchon, Monsieur Le-Tohic, does not aspire to be a culinary magician. He is rather a classically trained chef who is trying to cater to what Michelin would call “au gout du jour”, with especially the “gout Americaine” in mind. Hence he avoids taste combinations (for instance the use of offals) that the clientele may find offensive, he puts a premium on quantity (the number of plates), aesthetic (beautiful plating and small portions), and luxury ingredients (caviar, white and black truffles, kobe beef, turbot). Consequently, he tailors his cuisine to appeal to the largest common denominator.

The problem perhaps, if such a thing can be called a problem, is the absence of dishes which make a culinary statement, with some exceptions.

One exception was the variation on Iranian oscietra caviar. Proposed in three forms, with “crunchy smoked salmon and soft cooked quail egg”, ”bonito fish and asparagus flan,” and also in a “couscous and cucumber roulade”, this dish was sensational. The caviar quality was good, the synergy between the three components of the dish was well thought out, and the symbiosis between the elements of each preparation was perfect. You could not add or subtract anything from this dish to make it better.

Nearly as good was the “suckling veal millefeuille”. The dish was a harmonious combination of thinly cut veal chop, veal sweetbreads, matsutake mushrooms, and tofu. Topped by comte cheese tuile and black truffles, which were not bad given the early season for truffles (22 December 2007), the dish was perhaps a bit restrained in bringing out the taste of the sweetbread but each bite did justice to the constituent ingredients, while the sum was clearly more than the parts.

At the opposite extreme there were dishes which, one can call “average”. Surprisingly “les crustaces” was one of the average dishes. It too was comprised of three parts: “langoustine ravioli wrapped in cabbage”, “lobster roasted in lemon grass skewer,” and “sea urchin with a potato puree and a hint of coffee”. Conceptions were noteworthy, some classic. Unfortunately the langoustine was mushy, the (I believe Maine) lobster suffered from excessive use of spicy curry, and the “hint” of coffee turned out to be an overdose which emasculated the incomparable sweetness of perfectly good sea urchin, which were the freshest of the three crustaces on the plate.

Another surprisingly average dish was “soy bean cooked risotto style with almonds and chives”. It is not easy to understand why such a dish which did not blend with the rest was offered at the end of the meal, before the desserts. Would not it have been better to offer some cheese?

Last but not least, the “shaved white truffles” on potatoes with olive oil and carpaccio of foie gras suffered from both tasteless rubbery truffles and the misconception of proposing them with foie gras. Once you set aside the white truffles, however, the dish became acceptable.

Most other dishes fell in between the two extremes. They did not make culinary statements but displayed a deft hand in the kitchen which was doing its best given the quality of the raw materials. When the material was good, as such was the case with “matsutake mushrooms”, the resulting dish turned out to be very satisfying. The meaty/earthy mushrooms blended perfectly well with sliced tender sweet/sour turnips and smoky black truffles. Matsutake mushrooms also performed well in a smoky broth, slightly acidified by the careful use of sun dried tomatoes.

Equally satisfying was a wild oat soup, chorizo, chorizo oil and roasted almonds. This dish is an ideal soup for cold winter nights and what could have been a disastrously spicy and heavy soup in lesser hands did emerge as a “light” and uplifting soup which did not stem one’s appetite despite reliance on filling ingredients.

Unfortunately the quality of the “sea scallops”, the “Atlantic seabass” and “the turbot” were not on par in terms of freshness with what one could find, say in Brasserie Dome, in Paris. All were aptly cooked, but the two fish dishes suffered from the small portion size or small cuts of fish which were clearly not from the bone (which is the most gelatinous and moist). The ”seabass in sauce verjus” was a case in point where the nondescript/meager seabass could not counter the intensity of the excellent sauce (clearly Le-Tohic is a remarkable saucier) .

The turbot cooked in a casserole with artichoke hearts, asparagus and cherry tomatoes tasted more like a grouper than a Breton turbot, and the perfectly cooked sea scallop in a reduced lobster coral emulsion made one think that had Le-Tohic been able to put his hands on equal quality scallops as his Parisian peers, such as LeSquer or Pacaud, he would could have concocted a three star scallop dish.

The wagyu ribeye Le-Tohic sent us with his compliments at the end of the dinner was certainly better in quality than the Australian wagyu served at the French Laundry.

The bread cart was worth three stars, and so were the desserts and after dinner petit fours. The “roasted pear with pear sorbet, apple gelee and blackberry coulis” was an ideal refresher after such a long (six hours) and rich meal in great company. The chocolate “show”, which is a fondent/coulant with a hint of mint and mint sorbet had to be tasted to believe my statement that it was the best chocolate based dessert I have eaten in the United States. (It was so good that I forgot to take the picture.)

Orange peel covered with chocolate, pistachio macaroon, limoncello meringue, truffle, and, above all, cannele, as good as the best in Bordeaux, brought to an end a sumptuous feast.

In my opinion a leesy white burgundy is the best match for most of the dishes at Robuchon. We have not done too badly with a 2002 Meursault Chevalieres from Coche Dury which showed the “gras”, the intensity, and the balance characteristic of Coche wines. While the wine had not yet developed the telltale pain grille/hazelnut aromas and the depth of which it is capable, it was already quite complex. On the other hand, the half bottle of 2005 Graillot Crozes Hermitage was still tight and closed and could not enhance the flavour of great veal or beef.

Gastroville ranking: 16/20 (Vedat Milor)