It’s Friday afternoon and there’s a light mist dampening the sidewalk along Boulevard St. Germain. I’m heading towards the Carrefour de l'Odeon and the brasserie of the moment: Yves Camdeborde’s Le Comptoir du Relais. Global buzz has made this Left Bank hot spot the toughest dinner reservation in town, when Camdeborde, formerly the chef at La Regalade, serves everyone the same sublime 42 euro prix fixe menu.
But it’s lunchtime and I’m in luck. At a few minutes to one, every inside table in the 20-seat restaurant is jammed, but there are a few spots still open on the sidewalk. A harried middle-aged waitress seats me next to a pair of 20-something BCBG types, catching up on old times over a bottle of beaujolais, clearly not headed back to the office this afternoon. Soon two blond German fashionistas d’un certain age commandeer the table to my left. One, with her back to the street, complains of a chill and the waitress obligingly tosses a red plaid blanket over her all-black ensemble.
When you’re a food writer and you’re dining alone, you can trick yourself into some fairly bizarre meals. This was one of those days. After a quick look at the menu (at lunch it tends toward classic bistro dishes), I decide to start with La Planche du Cochonnaille. This, to put it bluntly, is a pork lover’s dream of a final repast before heading off to the great sty in the sky. Imagine a thick slab of wood, two jagged edges artfully left asunder, topped with delicious homemade charcuterie from the Camdeborde family’s larder. I dive right into the unctuous boudin noir, a lightly spiced blood sausage so soft and velvety that it almost melts in my mouth. I love the paper-thin, fatty slices of sweet ham and the salami studded with big black peppercorns, but most of all, I adore the graillons de porc, chunks of pork fat fried until crisp and golden—junk food of the gods. To go with it all, there are tangy cornichons, bread from Eric Kayser and sweet butter. I eat every bite.
After that, any sane person would go for a five-mile walk. But no, I’m just getting started. Hoping for something on the lighter side. I order Thon Roti a la Plancha. A perfectly pristine hunk of tuna, quickly pan-seared until it is golden on the outside, rosy on the inside, comes with a topping of luscious oven-roasted tomatoes, and sautéed haricot verts, snow peas and zucchini slivers. It’s all drizzled with a little olive oil and dollops of olivade (black olive puree). This is one of those rare dishes that reveals the virtues of utter simplicty, yet also allows the chef to play around with flavor and texture—sweet and salty, buttery soft and lightly crunchy—while reinventing a classic dish.
The BCBG guys on my right are on their second round of expressos, but I decide to take my caffeine in a Crème Brulee Café Arabica. Alas, it’s pallid and a little dull. Luckily for me, I have no trouble pushing it aside.
Le Comptoir du Relais, 9 Carrefour de L’Odeon, Paris 75006. Telephone: 01 43 29 12 05 For dinner reservations, call months ahead—or at 7:30 PM to check for last minute cancellations. No reservations for lunch, but after 1 PM, you’ll wait for a table.
To read about Yves Camdeborde, see “Yves Camdeborde: the Paris Chef of the Moment,” by Jane Sigal, Food & Wine, January 2007. Le Comptoir is part of the Relais St. German, which is also owned by M. Camdeborde.