Monaco: the Louis XV, a rejuvenated celebration | Gilles Pudlowski’s blog
The new deal of Louis XV? It was mentioned when determining the change of team and the rejuvenation of the executives of the house. In the kitchen, Emmanuel Pilon, 34 years old from Lyon, chopped like a (iron) wire, trained in his hometown with Christian Têtedoie, then alongside Davy Tissot at the Villa Florentine, entered the Ducassian universe in 2009, working with Franck Cerutti then Dominique Lory, before going up to the Plaza Athénée in Paris and staying there for eight years with Romain Meder, even starting at the Relais-Plaza with Jean Imbert.
This modest technician, who knows how to do everything, took his new position firmly in hand, leading a dynamic and rejuvenated team, playing soft cooking over embers, putting Naturalness in the Riviera house spirit, keeping the classics, but lightening the way here without upsetting anything. In short, the party remains permanent with an old/new dining room in great style and a dining room team that defends Ducassian cuisine with the fervor of an assize court lawyer forcefully pleading to save his client’s head. In the dining room, Maxime Pastor, who bears a good name from here and who we once knew at Guy Savoy as a sommelier then at the Cour Jardin at the Plaza, manages a plethoric cellar from which he extracts marvelous nuggets.
On the service side, it is still the exquisite Claire Sonnet, who we saw once at the Crillon, who directs a ballet experienced in three-star performance, with Julien Viale at her side who leads the dance with relaxation and flexibility. In short, in the sumptuously Louis XV room, with its 1880 frescoes, its stuccoes gilded with gold leaf, its large modern light and its high-tech armchairs, the house register remains true to itself, realizing a marriage of love between the Franco-Ligurian Riviera and the Nice and Monegasque hinterland, local fishermen and neighboring market gardeners are invited to a rustic-sophisticated party of very high quality.
The appetizers provide a good example, with the barbajuans, these small crispy ravioli stuffed with chard, traditional from the Principality of Monaco, such as raw vegetables from the gardens here to be devoured with tweezers, thin sheets of bread dough with porcini mushrooms from Piedmont, the brazier of fish from local fish, served in a cataplana to be seasoned with a curd and myrtle berry condiment, not forgetting porcini mushrooms and cuttlefish in squid ink. Rustic in appearance and deceptively simple, with delight!
Serious things? They begin with the house “classics” that constitute red mullet, with myrtle and pounded fish liver, plus a fermented squash granita. They continue with gamberoni from San Remo just marinated in a delicate rock fish jelly with saffron and enhanced with gold caviar. The big fishmonger moment? “You monegasque style stocafi for amateurs“, in other words, the rustic and chic stockfish, in the local fashion, with my dried cod and cod in milk, its tomatoes, capers, Perugian sausage, giving them a tonic acidity of good quality. Magical !
There is also the noble blue lobster cooked over the embers (the cooking method revered by the house!), with claws as a condiment, Lantosque coco beans, pine morel mushrooms sautéed. But the carnivorous pleasures are not to be missed, such as the delicate and so tender, so tasty suckling lamb from the Pyrenees cooked in the fireplace, its small spelled from Sainte-Jalle in a thin crepe stuffed with “cime di rapa” (broccoli shoots with fashion from Puglia), its sloes in a mortar, its cooking juices infused with cereals or even the breast of pigeon from the Red Fox farm on the grill, cooked celeriac, rehydrated, its condiment calledacid”, that is to say semi-bitter, its molé of hazelnuts.
Thereupon, the learned and mischievous Maxime Pastor unearths you high-end bottles, such as this nicely nutty Puligny-Montrachet served by the glass from Jacques Carillon 2017, like the fresh, lively and drinkable white Anjou from Thibaud Boudignon 2020, the virtuous Gevrey -Chambertin of beautiful frame from Trapet 2015, like the rich Château Larcisse-Ducasse Saint Emilion grand cru 2014, watched over by the goldsmith Stéphane Derenoncourt, who will marry the fresh and matured cheeses signed by experts Bernard and Jean-François Antony in Vieux- Ferrette.
We end with a Corsican Muscat from Dominique Gentile 2020 at Patrimonio to marry the majestic homemade desserts: black bourjassote figs from Solliès, candied and ice cream, with straciatella, clove bud infusion, superb raspberries from the Nice hinterland with Grand Roux corn, marjoram with their Champsoleil olive oil ice cream or the Abbé Fetel pear in a soufflé, roasted and in a sorbet with dried skin powder, cardamom and liquorice. Sweet, salty, vinous, visual and tasty: a huge party!