A TV dinner in Paris

by David Benjamin

“Never eat anything than has to be explained.” —Snoopy

PARIS—Hotlips and I, the other night, took our Japanese guests, Mako and Chikako, out to dinner in Paris, and blundered into Manhattan.

From the outside, Lava, a new eatery on rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève, looks pretty French. The door and windows have a sort of faux Art Deco flavor. But, once inside, we should have paused before taking our table. The all-male wait staff were decked out in identical black tunics with the joint’s professionally designed abstract logo on the back. This struck me as a little slick. I should have perused the clientele more carefully. Most were at least thirty years younger than us. The women, all twenty- and thirtyish, were the epitome of the APT (all put together) Parisienne, color-coordinated, subtle makeup, no wrinkles anywhere. They were manicured, exfoliated, cool, cashmered, correct, erect and fully aware of which fork to use. The Armaniac metrosexuals accompanying theses gals all had haircuts (well, coiffures) that, if I could afford one (and if I had enough hair) would tempt me, each morning when I look in the mirror, to shave my head.

We had ventured into in Dante’s GenZ circle of Hell. Nonetheless, meekly, we followed Virgil to our four-top.

The menu confirmed our fate.

On the left side, the a la carte choices were sparse, with three meats, a trout, grilled carrots, barbecued zucchini and a mystery “ceviche” whose appeal was supposedly its inventive coloration: black. But we quickly gathered that the chef didn’t want us ordering a gauche. Our waiter, who spoke good English (they all did—another warning sign), directed us to the two prix fixe “courses” on the right side, which went by the clever sobriquets “L’Eruption,” with five courses for €75 ($88), or “L’Ignition” for €49 ($57). The actual dishes served in those three or five courses were not listed. We would be, promised the waiter, “surprised.”

Surprises just kept coming, typified by a wine list whose cheapest selection was a young pinot noir from the Rhone valley for just under sixty bucks (available at our local wine shop for fifteen). Otherwise, the carte du vin choices ranged from €80 to €300. The bottle of Mercurey, on which I splurged for €81, was two years old and should have stayed uncorked ’til sometime toward the end of 2028.

Hotlips and I are somewhat familiar with Lava’s “formule” style of small dishes presented in sequence. The Japanese version, called kaiseki, is opulent, often spectacular and surprising in the best sense of the term. Also, most Japanese people can’t afford it. In Spain, of course, there is tapas, which anybody can afford and, best of all, you knows what’s coming before it hits the tablecloth.

Our first “surprise” on the “Ignition” menu was a tablespoonful of veal tartare (raw calf) blended into a sauce with cheese. I was pleasantly surprised by this dish. Next came a slice of grilled pork with a teriyaki sauce that was refreshingly familiar. Its sidekick was a chunk of polenta, dyed (surprise?) black and garnished with gooshy stuff that failed to mitigate the fundamental nature of polenta, which—as anyone who grew up in midcentury America can recall, nostalgically—is indistinguishable from library paste.

We were further surprised by the waiter’s revelation that our third “course” was dessert. We had been naively looking forward to three courses AND dessert. This trick was our penance for not ordering the $88 Eruption. Said dessert was a standard chocolate mousse, supposedly enlivened by a delicate infusion of chipotle in a proportions too timid to discern, and a pinch of quinoa (see “polenta”).

Before we paid, the waiter brought us a post-prandial “amuse bouche,” four little whitish cubes and four brown balls the size of rabbit pellets. The cubes were marshmallows, allegedly but imperceptibly spiced with chili. The rabbit pellets, containing a special ingredient drowned by the power of cacao, were chocolate.

For some thirty years, Hotlips and I have been foraging Paris, driven by the conviction that here is the best city in the world in which to eat out. Our preference among all the possibilities is the bistro, small and busy, tables squeezed close together, serving a range of French cuisine that stretches from the Basque regions to Savoie, to Alsace, Normandy, Brittany and the heart of Paris, where it all mingles and spills along streets like rue de la Montagne Ste. Geneviève.

Lava does not partake of that profligate and congenial bistro culture. It represents, rather, a trend we experienced in New York, where the proprietor of your typical star-worthy restaurant strives to dazzle patrons with the beauty of each plate’s presentation and the chef aspires toward a level of “creativity” so profound that the diner hesitates to stick a fork in this masterpiece and is tempted to ask the waiter for instructions on how to eat it. Or should I eat it at all? In New York, the essence of haute cuisine is a sort of caloric runway model—streaked, stacked, cunning, comely and colorful— that makes a better photo than a meal.

This trend has long been encouraged by restaurant critics—like film reviewers prowling movie festivals for Bulgarian auteurs and lesbian surrealists—whose quest is to herald flavor mixtures and tall-food totems that no gourmet has ever tasted or toppled and no meat-and-potatoes slob would ever bite into. As we picked over our tartare, Hotlips informed me that Lava’s chef had been a contestant on “Iron Chef,” the series in which famous chefs from starred restaurants compete against one another to make culinary sense out of incongruous ingredients that will never again cohabit the same pot, skillet, plate or donburi bowl.

This explained a great deal. Lava had—elegantly—served us the sort of food that normally we would only see on television, in a cooking derby, where the judges all go “ooh” and “oishi!”, behind a screen that no viewer’s palate could penetrate. We were paying €300 for a TV dinner.

Four doors down from Lava is a felicitous contrast called La Pie Noir, a railcar bistro where Papa tends bar, Maman greets patrons and waits tables, where a fuzzy-muzzled dachshund named Gandalf perches on a barstool and regards each entering customer magistratively, and where the heart and soul of the joint is Cassandra, the beautiful and effervescent daughter.

The bistro’s name derives from a particular breed of cow popular among dairy farmers in Brittany, from which Papa and Maman emigrated to Paris. Typically, the menu has variety but few surprises, except that La Pie Noir is a rare source of razor clams. Like any bistro, La Pie Noir serves recognizable dishes in a style, with spice and sauce particular to its origins, that is unique to its chef. You can take a picture of your food here, too. But it’s neither work of art not Offertory. It’s a square meal.

La Pie Noir is the rare restaurant where one of the best tables is next to the kitchen, because the shouts and voices are friendly and voluble, the smells are pungent and alluring and where, if you ask, the “chef” will let you taste the sauce right out of the pot. Best of all, Cassandra keeps returning to the kitchen, stacking plates on her arms and weaving on tiptoes along the narrows between customers. Coming back, she will pause at our table, ask how everyone’s doing, muss my hair or rub my shoulder, take photos—of us and with us—and then come by later with a free dessert or a glass of husky spirits we’ve never heard of (a surprise!) because it’s normally only drunk in the farmhouses and dive bars of Bretagne.

When we’re finished and ready to leave, and the joint is almost empty, Cassandra will hug us. Maman will hug us. We’ll scratch Gandalf behind the ears, who might get excited enough to blink. And then, on the sidewalk, before we can escape, a final violent embrace, with kisses on both cheeks, from Cassandra.

There’s no hugging in New York.