<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe desserts of Laurent Jeannin<\/strong> have always been a high note. Jeannin was one of the best craftsmen in the pastry world. His technical brilliance and inventiveness are unparalleled. His creations had the unique signature of being feminine, volatile and perfumed. A lemon from Menton is a unique representative of the en vogue trompe-l\u2019oeil<\/em> dessert, not just because Jeannin was one of the first to cook such a dessert, but because he refused to create his lemon on a blown sugar sphere. Meringue is shaped with liquid nitrogen, resulting in a very soft and delicate \u201clemon\u201d with a filling of pear with a touch of mint. The meringue is covered by a bright yellow jelly of limoncello resulting in a complex acidity. This dessert is so extremely perfumed that the flavours appear almost unreal, artificial but in the best way imaginable. Feminine was the word that came to my mind first both when tasting this course and a snowball of lychee with peach and eatable rose leaves. Jeannin\u2019s talent to work with chocolate is equal. The holey Nyangbo chocolate sphere with a quenelle of red fruits, chocolat and tea completely covered in gold was dominated by a lovely jeu de textures, the flavours perfumed, bitter, fresh, opulent. Laurent Jeannin was a superb pastry chef, who passed away far too early, a pastry chef who belongs nowhere but in the heaven, the hall of fame of p\u00e2tissiers<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nWith Julien Alvarez<\/strong>, though, Fr\u00e9chon appears to have found a worthy successor. A dessert of black truffle that I tasted on the first day they had it on the menu was a work of pure decadence. A sugar sphere filled with an emulsion and an ice cream of black truffle, covered with a black truffle dust resting on a sabl\u00e9<\/em>, surrounded by a crumble of cazettes spilled with an opulent Gianduja chocolate sauce was so good, it is hard to describe. The textural contrasts of the super-thin sugar sphere, the sabl\u00e9<\/em> and the cazettes each added a different kind of crispiness, while the emulsion with its foamy texture provided an almost volatile truffle aroma. This emulsion covered a far more intense truffle ice cream, thus the truffle flavour intensified until the heart and became more volatile till the end. Very poetic, is it not? The chocolate sauce was so creamy, thick, opulent and delicate resulting in a dessert that made you feel like eating the most flavourful sin created. Superb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/figure>\n\n\n\nEpicure is a great restaurant \u2013 not just because of the food. The service brigade is exceptional, perfectly informed about the dishes, silent, efficient. Our sommelier knew all ten dish \u2013 ordered \u00e0 la carte minutes before \u2013 by heart, thus was able to create an excellent pairing. They are tr\u00e8s charmant<\/em> and have this certain humour you only encounter in French restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBoth bottle-wise from Burgundy to Bordeaux you will find anything (admittedly, the prices are not for the faint-hearted) \u2013 and glass-wise \u2013 Boulay, Gerin, Chapoutier \u2013 there are always very good open wines \u2013 Bernard Neveu and his lovely predecessor Marco Pelletier have created an impressive list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since Le Squer has gone into a modernist, Ducasse<\/strong> a naturalist, All\u00e9no<\/strong> a molecular, Epicure is (together with L\u2019Ambroisie<\/strong> and some others) one of the last strongholds of neo-nouvelle cuisine <\/em>in Paris. Fr\u00e9chon creates some of the most complex classical elixirs, he is one of last defenders of dishes that are emblematic such as his poularde en vessie<\/em>, he is master of both cuisson<\/em> and flavour-pairing. His dishes are accessible, harmonious, precise and elegant \u2013 so utterly French, so utterly delicate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neo-nouvelle cuisine is what can be seen as the logical progression of nouvelle cuisine, it is what some might call classical French with a contemporary twist or the adaption of technical progression and contemporary trends into French cuisine. Frothed sauces, micro-herbs, acidity, Asian products, sous-vide cooking or gels are some of the cornerstones of what makes it necessary for me to differentiate this certain style from classical Nouvelle cuisine. Neo-nouvelle cuisine is a logical continuity, something one could possibly call a \u201cconservative revolution\u201d of French cuisine. One of the representatives of this approach, admittedly in a rather conservative way, is \u00c9ric Fr\u00e9chon, chef \u00e9x\u00e9cutif at Epicure in Paris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":65,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[88,85,86,87],"ppma_author":[280],"authors":[{"term_id":280,"user_id":9,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sergeygurzijev","display_name":"Sergey Gurzijev","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/604b1c02a6753c2b09fd3da2f96cbc74?s=96&d=mm&r=g","first_name":"Sergey","last_name":"Gurzijev","user_url":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7717,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/7717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gastromondiale.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}