Ledoyen[1] is truly an anomaly. Paris’s oldest restaurant[2], this Grande Dame puts out some of the most inventive and modern food in the city, but serves it in gigantic portions, with no tasting menu offered. A 3-star chef at the helm of a fabled restaurant that rubs shoulders with the Petit Palais and other Champs de Lycee royalty, but shuns the spotlight and relegates himself to the kitchen. Modernity and tradition sometimes comingle and sometimes conflict but this tension produces otherworldly food. Two years following this meal, I can recall each dish, each flavor, at a moment’s notice.
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A long, regal entryway enrobed in red carpet and enveloped in a wreath of Christmas lights afforded a truly grand entrance. We were led up to the second floor; the vast room couldn’t have sat more than thirty at enormous and overwhelmingly generously spaced tables.
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Triangular chips were presented as we were perusing the menus[3]; a sharp, salty parmesan and a gorgeous blue potato, which were promptly eaten before they could be photographed.
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A tile with four amuses bouche was presented as soon as our orders were taken. The first of the amuses was a gorgeous beet and smoked eel macaron. The salty, smoky and gelatinous eel in the center was surrounded by crunchy but wonderfully delicate beet cookies, which straddled the line between savory and sweet, playing foil to the smokiness of the eel. We were instructed to eat this first, straight off the tray, hence no photo.
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Foie gras with passion fruit gelée and gingerbread crisps was next to go. The foie was light but incredibly creamy, nutty, and rich; its fattiness was offset by the tangy sweetness of the passion fruit. Proportioning was perfect and the gingerbread cookie provided textural contrast and subtly spiced the foie.
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Then, a crunchy ball, flecked with parsley and filled with warm mushroom and garlic cream. A fascinating construction (notice the gold rings holding the parsley spheres in place). The garlic flavor was a bit too prominent at first but eventually yielded to the earthy creaminess of the mushrooms. Finally, a wooden spoon held spherified truffle water, which had a strong, musty truffle aroma but little in the way of actual truffle flavor[4].
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I was underwhelmed by the breads – a bacon roll was marred by a too-tough crust and dense middle. The squid ink was worse, even denser, with a faint seafood flavor that I just didn’t get. Upsetting, because butter was by Jean Yves Bordier and I wanted a worthwhile vehicle for it[5].
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Good as the initial bites were, the second amuse truly set the stage for the coming meal and subdued us into silence with its deliciousness and generosity. Le potage d’Adèle Pidou, revisité featured, from the bottom, a foie gras mousse, mushroom consommé, and avocado cream. Chunks of lobster were hidden between the layers, and a truffle-coated crunchy sphere, similar to the parsley sphere in the previous course, peeked out over the top.
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The first spoonful caused us both to pause. This dish begged for a more contemplative approach – we prodded, trying small bites of the individual layers. The creamy foie mouse was highly aerated and light, while retaining a rich livery savour. The mushroom consommé was earthy, salty, umami-laden. The avocado, creamy and faintly vegetal. The truffle ball added only a crunchy texture. Interestingly, every proportional combination seemed to work, but my favorite featured a sparing use of the mushroom consommé, as the salinity proved overpowering in larger quantities. An arresting performance.
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We followed Chuck’s advice in ordering our dishes, ordering five and having the kitchen plate each for two. And good thing we did, as portions were almost comically large; the half portions were the size of mains in most other restaurants. Despite dinner taking four-plus hours, we were dangerously full by the end, both because of the portion sizes and because of the abundance of amuses/desserts.
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Our first course, Noix de Saint-Jacques “acidulée à cru/façon crispy,” seemed simple enough: raw Breton scallops[6] were sliced into coins the size of silver dollars (these specimens were enormous) and layered atop a bed of dried scallops. The saucing: a light, acidulated yogurt. Everything turned on the quality of the ingredient, and these scallops were the best I’ve had, and have yet to be outdone. Firm, meaty, incredibly sweet. The only thing I could do when i first tasted this dish was to laugh at how good it was.
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Like the scallops, the complexity of chef Le Squer’s gnocchi belies the dish’s outward simplicity. Unlike the scallops, here, the technique is the star. The gnocchi are actually mini soufflés, nearly weightless. They sit in a soup of parmesan water and olive oil, which I thought way too green and peppery for this application. The generous blanket of Alba truffles didn’t disappoint in the flavor department.
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Grosses langoustines Bretonnes, croustillantes, emulsion d’agrumes a l’ huile d’olive is a house signature dish and is featured on the three course ‘tasting menu.’ Like the scallops, it relies on superlative Breton ingredients, here a whole langoustine tail a la plancha and a ball of langoustine meat wrapped in phyllo and deftly fried, all gently accented with a citric olive oil emulsion. The langoustines were, in a word, perfect, and again I could do nothing but laugh after the first bite. If I could eat one dish before dying, it would be this[7].
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We moved from sea to pasture with Ris de veau en brochette de bois de citronelle rissollée, jus d’herbes. The sweetbread, roasted on spears of lemongrass which perfumed the entire dish, is also featured on the tasting menu and, as with the langoustines, I can understand why. The overly generous portion (this half order was the size of a softball) was roasted to achieve a creamy center, laquered with soy, and given crunch by a sprinkling of dehydrated sweetbread[8]. The acidic herb sauce admirably cut through the richness and made the dish seem even lighter than it was. Another spectacular effort.
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And then from pasture to the wild with Lièvre à la Royale. Lest you think that Le Squer relies solely on quality ingredients to inform his cooking, this dish exemplified a mastery of technique few can achieve. The wild hare (chew carefully, the hunter’s pellet may still be lodged in him) was taken off the bone in one piece and marinated for days in red wine. The flesh was then rolled around hare forcemeat and foie gras and poached in the same wine. The sauce featured the hare’s blood, thickened and enriched with a touch of bitter chocolate. Behind this marvel were quenelles of beet and celery root puree, and a pastry filled with the hare’s organ meat, a ferric accompaniment to the sweet flesh, creamy sauce, and rich foie gras. Somehow Le Squer managed to distill the taste of every braise my grandmother had ever made into one dish – this was magical.
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I had looked forward to trying a proper French cheese board but, regrettably, cheeses at Ledoyen were a disappointment. I asked our server to put together a tasting of three cheeses for me and was brought three soft, oozing varietals, including an Époisses, a brie, and a third which I forget. They were paired with some lovely walnut bread but I thought the cheeses unremarkable, as much for the curious selection as for the quality. Perhaps I had simply exceeded my capacity for savory food.
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But respite arrived in the form of dessert: Croquant de pamplemousse cuit et cru au citron vert. Candied grapefruit peel, grapefruit confit, grapefruit sorbet, layered between sugar sheets. The flavors sounded clear and loud, each layer highlighting a slightly different taste sensation inherent to grapefruit, with the top layer of raw supremes providing a reference back to the source.
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There were pre and post-desserts: some capable mignardises, a coffee pot de crème, and a devastatingly tasty Kougin Amann[9]. There was an avalanche of caramels, both salty and sweet, which we took home in a lovely bespoke Ledoyen box. Chef Le Squer seems to believe in killing with kindness.
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There were carts for everything – a champagne cart, a cheese cart (two, actually), a digestif cart. Dishes where wheeled in on carts. There was even a napkin cart – when one left the table, it was summoned to collect their napkin and, using tongs, get a fresh napkin from the cart, fold it, and place it on the table. Neither the old nor the new napkin was touched by human hands. In spite of all this fuss, service rarely felt overly formal. Our captain, Patrick, was witty, jovial, and well versed in chef Le Squer’s food, as well as food and cooking in general. He took great pride in describing the Lièvre à la Royale, only to try to dissuade us from ordering it because he believed the flavors would be tough on the American palate. Thankfully, we were not to be dissuaded. He spoke English fluently, as did the majority of the staff, and I heard him speaking Japanese to another table. I believe he knows a bit of Russian as well.
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Top to bottom, the staff cares about the food and the experience. When my cheeses were brought out, an assistant sommelier practically sprinted to our table to offer me a glass of port to go with them, lest I, boorish foreigner, pollute my palate with the remnants of my Bordeaux.
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There is a sense of whimsy and an unmistakable style to Le Squer’s food – it’s difficult to put into words, really, but his platings and dishes have a dream-like look to them. They would be instantly identifiable as his. Le Squer operates in shades – the emerald sauce beneath the sweetbreads transitions to the green-tinged brown of the protein, getting darker and more caramelized on top. So too with the langoustines and emulsion: shades of white-cream-pink, completely complimentary, and starkly contrasted by small stripes of green. The platings were other-worldly, magical, wondrous jewel boxes.
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Most wonderful, I feel, is that every decision by Le Squer feels deliberate, purposeful, rehearsed. There is the sense that these recipes have been painstakingly refined and require a diner’s undivided attention. They challenge and reward the engaged eater[10]. Le Squer is a consummate technician but his machinations are transparent, taking a back seat to the flavors. Dishes are deceptively simple but neither the ingredients nor their preparations, at least during our meal, could conceivably be improved upon. The cuisine is the product of the singular vision of a master craftsman.
[1] I am heavily indebted to Chuck for recommending Ledoyen to me. It was at the time, and continues to be, the best meal of my life, with at least two dishes vying for the best bite of my life. In many ways, this blog germinated from the residue of this meal, which kindled my food obsession.
[2] Operating as a dining establishment since 1791 (but, alas, not continuously).
[3] If you arrive with a date, she will receive a menu without prices. Doyennes are not to be bothered with the financial trivialities.
[4] The self-encapsulated liquid spherification technique was first used in culinary applications by el bulli’s Ferran Adria. When a liquid is enriched with calcium chloride and submerged into an alignate bath (or enriched with alignate and submerged in calcium chloride), it begins to gel, from the outside in. The longer the submersion, the thicker and chewier the outside shell. More info on this technique can be found here.
[5] Apparently, some think it inappropriate to eat butter straight off the knife.
[6] Chef Le Squer hails from Brittany and loves to show off his local produce, including some of the most wonderful shellfish I’ve sampled anywhere.
[7] I am occasionally quick to indulge in hyperbole, but this dish deserves all the praise it gets. It was simply the best thing I have ever eaten.
[8] I was pleasantly surprised by chef Le Squer’s use of dehydration to flavor dishes with, seemingly, their own essences – the scallops and sweetbreads were both sprinkled with dehydrated versions of themselves, imbued with a saline umami crunch.
[9] This remains the single best pastry I’ve ever eaten.
[10] Or, like a diner at an adjacent table, you can insist on being served a green salad for an entrée and sliced fruit for dessert, despite this being late December.
