SpiceLines

“Luxe, calme et volupte…” Baudelaire’s words floated through my mind as I slid onto the soft fawn-colored banquette and gazed at the neoclassical-style dining room. Nothing here is overdone, from the small table vase with a few roses and hydrangea blossoms to the honey-colored wood paneling hung with dreamy seascapes in shades of cream and grey. Restrained, but utterly luxurious.

Taillevent is the kind of place you go to discover what table service could be—and so rarely is. The wait staff was pleasant, but consummately professional, anticipating every yen without being intrusive—although there was one disquieting moment when I felt five pairs of eyes fastened on me as I studied the menu.

Alain Soliveres’s food ranged from good to stunningly delicious. I couldn’t keep my fork from snaking across the table to steal bites of B’s moelleux d’oeuf de poule tiede, ecrevisses et champignons des bois: an airy mousse concealing a warm, barely poached egg yolk, nestled amongst sautéed crayfish and meaty girolles in a foam that tasted of wild mushrooms and butter. Sheer heaven.

The canard de Challans was a close second: gorgeous, rosy slices of roasted duck breast accompanied by luscious A.O.C. figs from Provence impaled on thin cinnamon sticks. (A very steal-able idea, by the way.)

Not as exceptional (though quite good) were the simple legumes de moment mijotes, seasonal, lightly poached vegetables in olive oil and sea salt, and the mignons de veau de lait du Limousin, tender nuggets of veal resting on a bed of those delectable girolles. The sommelier chose two wines for us: a Gevry Chambertin, Domaine Alain Burguet and a Chateau Brannaire Ducru St. Julien, both 2003. I would die to have either, or both, in our own cellar.

At Monday lunch, there were more foreigners than French—Australians and Japanese on either side of us, Portuguese and Americans across the room—but the staff handled it all seamlessly in assorted languages.

Pierre Gagnaire, 6 rue Balzac, 75008 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 58 36 12 50.

A friend once attended a banquet that Pierre Gagnaire prepared for the Chinese premier. “Every dish was red,” he marveled. I reflected on this as I tucked into the 19th or 20th plate—by this point I had lost count—that had been set before me.

Gagnaire has a reputation as perhaps the most avant-garde, intellectually challenging chef in Paris. On his website, you can read about his esprit and the way concepts of poetry, the rhythms of jazz and notions of contrast and balance are woven into his cooking. In practice this leads to food that is both intriguing and overwhelming. The question is this: How intellectually challenged do you want to be at 1 PM on a balmy Indian summer day?

There is not enough room here to describe every element of our three-hour lunch, but in all it tallied 28 or 29 dishes, often exquisitely conceived and presented —there must be a battalion of glove-wearing dishwashers in the kitchen—yet staggering in complexity and sheer volume. Understanding what you’re eating and how it fits into the chef’s overall scheme before the plates are whisked away is akin to trying to put together a particularly fiendish jigsaw puzzle under time pressure.

Even before our meal began, nine or 10 amuse-bouches appeared, one by one—most dramatically, a yellow cup cleverly attached to a saucer canted at a 45 degree angle. “Be careful,” admonished Charles, our immaculate waiter who looked all of about 15 years old. “It’s magnetic.” Gingerly I spooned out a tiny scoop of Bloody Mary sorbet with vodka and celery salt in tomato water, accompanied by ewe’s cheese, green tomato and leaves of peppery cress. The level of detail in this one minuscule dish was revealing.

Appetizers were organized thematically. In Saveurs Estivales (Summer Flavors), five separate dishes, served on blue-rimmed plates delicately painted with flowering branches, arrived bearing delicacies such as fleur de courgette, rose de pigeon Gauthier, chutney de fruits. I loved the thin slices of tart quince, accompanied by a flavorful pigeon carpaccio and a little packet of blanched greens; underneath it all, a hint of musky white pepper underscored the light, gamy taste of the fowl.

In the same vein main courses such as Langoustines et Araignees de Mer (spider crabs) included multiple riffs on the key ingredients, among them crème glacee de mais frais, pollen d’abeilles de Belle-Isle, langoustines au court bouillon: Fresh corn ice cream with bee pollen shared a bowl with two langoustines steamed over seaweed, a way for Gagnaire to play with contrasts of temperature and texture, and the natural sweetness of the creme glacee and the briny shellfish.

By the time dessert rolled around—across the table B, manfully struggling with a completely different set of courses, had become uncharacteristically silent—I was beginning to feel desperate, both fuller and more mentally fractured than I have ever been at table. Foolishly we allowed Charles to talk us into ordering Le Grand Dessert de Pierre Gagnaire and two spoons. “Very, very small. I promise,” he said solemnly. When eight plates arrived—one bizarrely composed of raspberry and radish with ice creams of basil and stratchiatella—we nearly panicked.

As we made our escape, I asked Charles about the man in a red shirt who was making the rounds of several tables. It was Yves Camdeborde of Le Comptoir du Relais, who was there for lunch with a group of copains who were also in the business.

And this, I think, is partly what it’s about. Gagnaire is a brainy chef’s chef, and his conceptual experiments are endlessly fascinating if you are into pushing the culinary envelope to the edge. But such an obsession can result in too many dishes with too many bits and pieces that don't add up to food that one would actually want to eat.

If you just love good food, you may wind up, like the young couple sitting next to us, stumbling out, feeling dazed and confused.

Astier, 44 rue Jean Pierre Timbaud, 75011 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 43 57 16 35.

This 55-year-old bistro was rescued from slow death when Frederic Hubig-Schall brought it in 2006 and turned the kitchen over to Benjamin Bajolle who trained at the Hotel Meurice. The décor screams bistro—faux tiffany lamps, bright red checked tablecloths and napkins, a blackboard menu—but the food is delish and the atmosphere convivial. Plus there's a seductive array of cheeses on the sideboard and an excellent wine list created by Robert Henry, ex-sommelier at Le Grand Vefour. (The current chef is Christophe Kestler.)

Heres what we ate: For starters, a tatin d’aubergines, fromage de chevre frais aux epices, vierge de legumes (layers of melting eggplant layered with tomato and onion, topped with a large dollop of creamy goat cheese, golden with saffron) and craquant de tourteau et d’avocat, pulpe de tomates (a short stack of crisp buttery pastry layered with pureed avocado and bright, sweet crabmeat in a foamy tomato puree.) Perfect palate teasers, no more than four or five bites each, but full of flavor.

For our main courses: Noisettes d’agneau en cocotte, gnocchis a la coriandre fraiche, olive noire et tomates: nuggets of tender pink lamb served in a Le Creuset cocotte with little gnocchi and a satisfying jumble of baby carrots, a pearl onion or two, crunchy green snow peas, tomato and slivers of salty black olives. Across the table B was enjoying a magnificent rare slab of gigot d’agneau, or leg of lamb.

For dessert, I’d been eyeing a beautiful glazed cake sitting on the bar. “It’s a big baba, just for show,” our waiter said. “But you can order your own from the menu.” As it turned out, my personal baba was big enough for two: A tall, vaguely souffle-shaped cake, cut in half, over which the waiter poured dark rum syrup before leaving me a bowl of Chantilly whipped cream to ladle on at my own discretion. Bliss.

Yam 'tcha, 4 rue Sauval, 75001 Paris. Phone: +33 (01) 40 26 08 07.

A wonderful lunch, full of surprises. That afternoon the narrow dining room was suffused in sunlight that lent the rough stone walls, chopsticks resting on twigs, thin purple water glasses, and water lily mural a golden glow. Across the street, rockers with mohawks examined leather jackets studded with metal spikes.

Adeline Grattard, the attractive French chef who once cooked at L’Astrance, whirled around the small open kitchen, while her unflappable husband, Chi Wah Chan was in the dining room, stationed behind the bar, brewing extraordinary teas to go with each course. The choreography between the two—a different pot of tea accompanies each new plate that is brought to your table--was marvelous to observe.

I’ll write more about Yam 'tcha soon, but for now let me just say that the lunch menu is a set “surprise” of four to six courses paired with teas (or wine, or both, if you prefer.) We adored golden pan-seared daurade that was served with tiny plump oysters and a voluptuous puree of Italian potatoes and seaweed. . It was beautifully matched with a refreshing white tea from Yunnan lightly perfumed with roses.

Later Mr. Chan explained that he makes gong fu-style tea—tea brewed with time and care. For the first time I felt that I was truly tasting “the liquor” of tea.

Ze Kitchen Galerie, 4 rue des Grands Augustins, 75006 Paris. Phone: 33 (0)1 44 32 00 32.

I so want to love William Ledeuil’s cuisine. His passion for fusion cooking has led him to merge superbly fresh seafood and other ingredients with Asian flavors like lemongrass, ginger and coconut, all tastes I adore. Lunch at Les Bouquinistes when he was at the helm was the high point of every trip I made to Paris. But the Ze Kitchen Galerie is, helas, a mixed affair. Of course I knew this from an earlier visit when a perfectly fine sea bass was clobbered by a flowery Tahitian vanilla sauce. But still….

On a recent Saturday night, the chic gallery-like space was abuzz, packed with a well-heeled boho crowd, mostly French, plus a few American and German ex-pats. Fleur de courgette, seiche grille, condiment piperade, citronelle was fantastic: a pair of squash blossoms stuffed with an airy seafood mousse served in a citrusy, peppery foam alongside tendrils of squid, cut like fettucine, and purple basil leaves. But the follow up—cappelleti couteaux palourdes, boullion coquillages-citronnelle—fell short: minuscule, insufficiently cooked pasta curled like baby nautili, stuffed with bits of razor clam, in a frothy bright green seafood broth flavored with pureed basil and lemongrass. The broth was delicious, the pasta was not. Le Mas de L’Ecriture, a luscious blend of Syrah, Mourvedre, Cinsaut and Carignan grapes from the Languedoc, was a happy discovery.

An offshoot of the restaurant—Kitchen Galerie Bis, aka KGB—recently opened across the street with a mostly small plate menu.

Le Dome, 108 boulevard Montparnasse, 75014 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 43 35 25 81.

Sunday night, 10 PM: On the banquette to our right, a cellist and his wife were celebrating a just-wrapped concert with an enormous plateau of oysters. To our left, a doddery gent in a beret (philosopher emeritus?) and two female companions were devouring exactly the same. The gent beamed vacantly as one of the ladies stroked his hair. B said, “My kind of place.”

Le Dome, former hangout of Picasso, Hemingway and other artistes, glows like a beacon at night, festive and warm with stained glass windows, old-fashioned fringed lamps and plush banquettes. The café is famed for its very fresh seafood, some of which is swimming in the tanks along the back wall. Musts include any and all of those briny oysters, sole meuniere and grilled turbot. I was in the mood for sautéed lobster, but although the lobster itself was deliciously sweet, it was stewed in an ocean of brown butter, so rich that I couldn’t eat more than a few bites. Service was cheerful, even if it did take a while for our drinks to arrive.

Overall, though, a great way to end the week, especially since Le Dome stays open late. (Or have an aperitif at a sidewalk table any time.)

Brasserie Lutetia, 45 boulevard Raspail, 75006 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 49 54 46 76.

Sometimes you hit a restaurant at just the right moment. On our first evening in Paris, the Brasserie Lutetia was glamorous, its gleaming Deco chrome and glittery mirrors casting the kind of light that makes everyone look better than they actually do. You might expect Cary Grant to walk in at any moment. I ordered the first of several flutes of Taittinger.

A lovely young woman, wearing a floaty chiffon blouse and tight pencil skirt, her russet shoulder-length hair cut so that it flipped up just so in the back, slid into the table next to us. She ordered steak tartare for one, which she ate with gusto , although she avoided the bowl of tempting fries that came with it. In the corner a group of old friends were merrily celebrating a birthday. All the ladies were in black and stiletto heels, the men in jackets but no ties.

The food was wonderful. B inhaled his plateau de fruits de mer, especially the whelks, Brittany oysters, and plump shrimp. Pour moi, there was poulet fermier de Challans roti a l’ail rose et au thym, pommes purees Lutetia: Served in a red cocotte, the golden-brown roast chicken, breast and leg carved off the bone, came nestled atop the silkiest, smoothest whipped potatoes that I’ve ever had. The chicken had the kind of intense, but not gamy, flavor that American chicken rarely achieves, and it was lightly perfumed with the fragrance of fresh thyme and an enormous clove of garlic that had been slow-roasted until it oozed out of its husk like liquid velvet.

The dish was a reminder of the kind of French cooking that coaxes maximum flavor out of superb ingredients without the use of aggressive seasonings.

Although the Hotel Lutetia has a certain cachet amongst Parisians, especially those who live and work nearby—you’ll often find them having tea or an aperitif in the lobby lounge—the brasserie never turns up on anyone’s list of favorite restaurants. And alas, the second time we supped there, we knew why. We found ourselves between two long tables of mildly inebriated Midwesterners, the waiters were distracted, the seafood not especially fresh, the baba au rhum—“the best in Paris”—a pale shadow of others I’d tried.

As the saying goes, you can’t go home again. But the first time was fabulous.

Bistro et Terroir, 97 rue du Cherche-Midi, 75006 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 42 22 19 18.

A cosy neighborhood bistro, just the kind of place we’d love to have on our own street. A friendly mom and pop eatery—she’s in the kitchen, he’s out front serving food and pouring wine—it’s got a blackboard menu, Roy Lichtenstein comic book prints on the walls, and strings of piments d’espelettes hanging above the bar. Lots of young couples, plus a few elderly types with obedient dogs in tow. (I love that Parisians take their dogs out to dinner!)

The bistro’s motto is “Cuisine d’hier et d’aujourd’hui”—“cuisine of yesterday and today”—and a faint air of nostalgia hovers over the dining room. Patrons love the generous portions—cote de cochon fermier, or pork rib chops are especially big and juicy—but the specialities of the house are its terrines, everything from marinated herring and warm potatoes to foie gras and mousse au chocolat. All are served in long dishes with a spoon—you help yourself to as much as you can eat. The enormous individual babas come with a bottle of rum syrup infused with vanilla beans (another steal-able idea!) and a big bowl of Chantilly cream.

A laid-back favorite, but it helps to come with a ravenous appetite.

Christophe, 8 rue Descartes, 75005 Paris. Phone: 33 (0)1 43 26 72 49.

On our last night, I couldn’t eat another bite, so B went to Christophe on his own. “It’s on a non-descript roundabout and you wonder if it could possibly be there, but inside it’s a charming place," he said. "Two guys, the chef and one other. I had cervelle de veau croustillante (calf's brains), agneau de Lozere, gigot confit et croustillante, carottes (lamb from the south of France with carrots and lamb confit) and the mousse au chocolat.” He loved it, by the way, so the next time we’re going back. For more, go here to read food writer Alexander Lobrano’s take on chef Christophe Philippe’s “modern bistro cooking.”

And here are two more:

L’Epi Dupin, 11 Rue Dupin, 75006 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 42 22 64 56. Just say non. Over tea and toast one morning, an American artist raved about her dinner there, and so, despite nagging suspicions, we went. Forgettable food consumed at a tiny table on the sidewalk while noisy street repairs went on around us. A surprisingly high tab despite L’Epi’s bargain reputation.

Hemingway Bar at the Ritz, 15 Place Vendome, 75001 Paris. Phone: +33 (0)1 43 16 30 30. Great place to go during Fashion Week if you want to drink 30 Euro martinis and watch 2nd string fashionistas fall off their bar stools while trying to grab relentlessly pinging Blackberries. Hemingway memorabilia, but is it real or is it Ralph Lauren?

Still it’s always fun to go the Ritz. A better choice might be the terrace café outside the Bar Vendome. On a warm night there was good people watching—rich American bar flies, Japanese baby dolls, and more fashion world hangers on—even if the food was nothing Hemingway would write home about.

But hurry. The Ritz will close next summer for a two year renovation.