I’ve just had The Best Meal of My Life… is a very strong statement and something I’ve never said before. Well, maybe when I was 16 and stayed out all night, then had breakfast at Brennan’s in NOLA. Just to clarify, Douglas does not necessarily agree with this statement. We’ve eaten at some amazing restaurants around the world but I can’t stop thinking about the lunch we had at Paul Bucose’s, Auberge du pont de Collonges restaurant in Lyon a few weeks ago. It was an early B-day celebration from Douglas since we will be in Africa for my B-day and Michelin star restaurants may be hard to find. There are only 3 cities in the US that have Michelin star rated restaurants: New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Maybe a James Beard award these days is more important than a Michelin Star?
My goal this trip was to eat at 10 Michelin star restaurants in France but I feel like I’ve experienced the best of the best with No. 5 so why continue when I know it will never get any better than this? This restaurant has ruined me- there can’t be anything better than dining in this classic restaurant in Lyon that has retained its 3 star Michelin status since 1965. Hey, its not just me- watch Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown-Season 3-Episode 3 when he dines in Lyon. http://edition.cnn.com/video/shows/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown/season-3/lyon/ or watch this clip: http://www.eater.com/2014/4/15/6241395/watch-bourdain-talk-parts-unknown-and-how-bocuse-is-like-muhammad-ali
Paul Bucose (now 90 years old) is called the father of nouvelle French cuisine…and he owes this title to a woman, his mentor La Mere Brazier. She was the first woman to be awarded three Michelin Stars and the first chef in the world to have two, 3 Star restaurants at one time. But the tradition of excellent women chefs in Lyon goes back much further than this. At the end of the 19th century when the silk trade began to decline, prominent families in Lyon were forced to fire their cooks, sending many women back into the kitchen. Then during WWI, more women began to work in and open up new restaurants where they served perfectly prepared food, family style. More people began to travel by car to visit Lyon and it soon became the gastronomic capital of France. The Michelin brothers wanted to promote the use of cars and sell more tires in France so they published the first Michelin guide for France in 1900. So that’s how this star rating stuff got started. What does it mean?
: “A very good restaurant in its category”
: “Excellent cooking, worth a detour”
: “Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey”
There are things on this menu you are not going to get anywhere else in the world. You can go to his restaurant in NYC or his son’s restaurant in Disneyland or his many restaurants in Lyon but you won’t get most of these dishes. You have a choice of three different menus and we both ordered the Classique.
1st Course:
I had the Traditional Lyon quenelles of pike with crayfish, Nantua sauce and Douglas had the Duck meat dodine ‘à l’ancienne’, foie gras and pistachios. A quenelle is a local dish similar to a dumpling with fish, flour, butter and eggs
2nd Course: Black Truffle soup encased in a croissant like pastry. Created in 1975 to honor the French President. Presented in an individual onion soup bowl, each portion contains 50g of fresh black Périgueux truffle and 20g of foie gras. When you smash the crust you smell the truffle… You are having the soup, but all those around you are sharing it.!
Main Course: Sea Bass Stuffed in Puff Pastry choron sauce
You can’t reinvent the wheel but you can always improve it! Baking meat in pastry goes back to the Middle Ages. Baking Mediterranean bass stuffed with a lobster mousse in a feuilletage marked with fish scales is a Bocuse refinement. Its effect depends on the skill with which your waiter presents, carves and serves it. (See video) Anthony Bourdain had a more detailed description. ‘The whole fish was stuffed with a lobster mousse, chervil, taragon and then wrapped in a flaky puff pastry. A tomato bernaise sauce was served tableside… AS. IT. ALWAYS. IS.’ I’m still dreaming about this dish.
Desserts were a dizzying array of classics: creme brulees, cream puffs, pistachio cakes, baba rum cakes, meringue thangs, seasonal fruits, artisanal cheeses, etc.
The service is impeccable, the surroundings elegant, and there was no where else in the world I would like to be than dining with the love of my life.
I love this quote by Marcia DeSancti- If food is memory and memory is destiny, then you could make the case that food is destiny and nowhere more so than in France.
Can someone pinch me to make sure I’m not dreaming this life?
