I don’t gush all that often, but one of the
people in Paris that I really admire is Gregory Marchand. He’d probably be a
little irked that I said that (or maybe not), but he’s one of the few chefs in
Paris that’s been successful at creating what have become some of the best
places to eat in the Paris. His restaurant Frenchie is always complet, and I went to Frenchie wine
bar the other night, getting there just before opening time, and
there was already a line of folks waiting outside for it to open so they could
snag a table. And the food, from cornmeal-crusted “nuggets” of sweetbreads to
the pulled pork sandwich, was as good – if not better – than dishes I’ve had in
multi-starred restaurants.
A friend who I worked with in San Francisco was
there as well, and he kept giving me the thumbs-up from across the room.
Gregory took a previously deserted
street, set up shop, and now it’s a bustling, charming little rue with a seafood shop where
the fish is purchased directed from the fisherman, an excellent butcher, and a
vegetable shop that has bins of things that you rarely see in Paris, from
gorgeous (and giant) citrons from Corsica to leafy greens like dinosaur kale,
and crates of curious root vegetables – parsley roots, tiny celeriac, and
something else that I forgot the name of, but went by a Latin name that I never
heard of before. (So, of course, I want to try it – whatever it was.) I was
tempted to pick up a bag of the bright-yellow, smooth quince that were no
larger than tennis balls, until I realized how much peeling would be involved.
So I put them back.
His other talent, which is perhaps
the most profound – and rather challenging, is that he’s great at taking
American flavors and using French products, making them appeal to the French
palate.
This is obvious when you bite into a sandwich at Frenchie To Go, a take-out place with
a few stools for those who want to eat & run.
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