02 février 2008
Les Petites Sorcières, Paris
It began coldly, on a dark and chilly January day, somewhere around the rues Froidevaux, Daguerre and the Cimetière de Montparnasse. I was trotting to meet my friend and dear dining companion John on rue Liancourt, a quiet street in the neighborhood. Now what reason could there be to visit such a sleepy street on such a cold day? Well, having lunch at Les Petites Sorcières ("Little Witches"), a bistrot recently acquired by former Ledoyen chef Ghislaine Arabian. It is by no means a new bistrot and has had the same name and location for more than ten years. I remember Les Petites Sorcières from my long-gone days as a researcher for the Guide Lebey des restaurants parisiens, a Paris restaurant guidebook. The place was then run by a Mr. Christian Teule and the food was not bad at all. I particularly remember a very nice vouvray perlant served in a carafe. But today, doing my best to wrap myself into my thin coat, I am hoping to reach the bistrot before I drop dead frozen.
I was curious about Les Petites Sorcières under their new owner because I had no experience of Ghislaine Arabian's cooking, except from reading enthusiastic prose about it, mostly from the pen of respected critics like Claude Lebey and the like. I have never been to Ledoyen while she was there. I enjoy the food and setting at her former husband's bistrot, Le Caméléon. My expectations are rather on the positive side. And I'm freezing, friends, I'm starving too, so let's eat.
While sitting at our table, we are slightly astonished by the fact that the chef is not in her kitchen. She is doing the service, helped by one waitress. Well, we suppose, or rather we hope, that she gets things right before lunch service begins, and that she relies on a solid-gold kitchen team.
Here comes the first course. John's poêlée de palourdes (a very simple marinière of clams with chopped leeks) is just okay, and my cream of cauliflower is one of those heavily creamed restaurant soups that seem to give you a gag reflex after the third spoonful. It is actually thick cream slightly flavored with cauliflower. The soup is not only heavy, it is also quite dated: that kind of dish used to be common in the early 90s, then it passed. Not here, seemingly. Our wine is an unremarkable bordeaux. So far, nothing worth reporting. We are waiting for our main courses to begin discussing the contents or our plates. And we are ready to take any alleviating circumstance into account.
And, at this very instant, the Salt of the Earth enters the room.
Enter Anton Ego.
If you are still wondering who Anton Ego is, you haven't seen Ratatouille. He is the bespectacled, twig-thin, somber and stern food critic who terrorizes all of Paris restaurants. Now some French critics believe he was modelled after them (wonder why); actually he is a combination of several of them, and not only French ones. And his fictional dimension should not be overlooked. However, the one who just entered Les Petites Sorcières was certainly among the models for the Anton Ego character. A bit rounder, a bit less dry (shall I say slimier?), not so tall, but the likeness is undeniable. Hence the name.
Was he expected? I give a quick look around and my experience as a food researcher and reviewer instantly answers my question: a spare table has been set right before the bar counter. This means there very probably was a phone call that went like this: "Hello my dear Ghislaine, sorry I am calling so late; do you still have a little room left? Ah, we'll make some. Thank you very much. See you in ten minutes then."
This arrival of a criticus ex machina will have important consequences on our meal, but also on everybody else's meal in this dining room. From the very moment the ineffable postérieur critique touches its chair, the whole kitchen falls into a strange torpor. Nothing comes out of it. Everything sleeps. There must definitely be something like a spell, or some witchcraft at work, for all of a sudden we are in a Sleeping Beauty scenario. We wonder what we would see if we opened the kitchen door. Everybody snoring, propped on their standing Bamix or leaning on their pans? Everybody dead?
Ah, but the door opens twice — not to reveal the presence of any witch or fairy but to make way for Anton Ego's plates.
Fine, but nobody else gets their food. Most customers having entered the place roughly at the same time, it means that everybody will wait for their main course about 40 minutes. Precisely 45 minutes, I'm being told, but I did not check that. Hunger pangs and cheap Bordeaux are making my head spin ever so slightly.
But Anton Ego is chewing, looking very satisfied, all eyebrows raised, while a good twenty to thirty stomachs, nearby, are growling. "There definitely is a problem", says John after the first thirty minutes. "I'm starving", says I. Then, watching Ego's mastication, I realize what is really happening. In the kitchen, every activity has stalled, until the Master is properly catered to.
Forty-five minutes waiting for a dish is a long time. Very long, you can take my word for it. I know by now that we'll have to wait for Anton Ego to finis his lunch before the kitchen starts working for the mere mortals again. As for the landlady and former chef, she hovers around him, sits at his table for a five-minute chat, and seems totally oblivious of her other clients. But the best things have an ending and Anton Ego finally wipes his lips with his napkin, stands up, salutes and leaves without paying any check. I take a deep breath and think that we're going to see our main courses, at last.
And so we are, after another five minutes our plates appear by the grace of local fairyhood. John's skate grenobloise is skate allright, and not a bad one I reckon (he disagrees), but it cannot decently be called grenobloise for lack of croûtons, lemon slices and a reasonable number of capers. My hachis Parmentier does even less deserve its name. It is actually a small quantity of beef stew, probably a beer carbonade, onto which a ladleful of lumpy mashed potatoes have been casually thrown with a spoonful of sauce added, and down into the oven for five minutes. Inacceptable. We exchange a sorry glance. We pay our check and leave without ordering dessert. Why bother?
Later, I read that Claude Lebey has praised this bistrot as "the best of its kind". Now I realize that there's some ambiguity with the word "kind" and that, not being able to judge the terms within their context, it is not easy to figure out what "kind" he is referring to. But there are strong chances his review is a positive one. However, if he was treated the way I believe he was — which means just the same as Anton Ego —, there is positively no need to wonder.
Commentaires
Love it!
I loved this post, Sophie. It gives me some insight into restaurant reviewing that I did not know about. I did see Ratatouille, and wondered about that food critic. I guess those guys really do exist, huh? I'm also very sorry to see the rest of the diners treated so shabbily in order to cater to the critic. Just goes to show that one cannot always rely on a critic's review. There's no substitute for personal experience.
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