Piège, great 100% France

Le Grand Restaurant is in the heart of Paris, a stone’s throw away from the Madeleine and the Elysée, at number 7 in Rue d’Aguesseau, a narrow street that ends in the more fashionable Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, 8th Arrondissement. Here Jean-François Piège, after putting his talent at work in the kitchens of the Hôtel de Crillon and then at Thoumieux, has his restaurant, created and run following the same principles the chefs illustrates in the book L’art de manger.

This pupil of Ducasse, who has just received two Michelin stars, creates a French cuisine that has no international nuances. He says: «I love travelling and when I visit Italy I want to taste dishes that are 100% Italian, with your ingredients, because I want to savour the soul of those territories. I don’t like contaminations with foreign ingredients. In the same way, in my restaurant I want to convey my country through dishes and atmospheres that can give the guest a 100% French, unforgettable experience».

Indeed, the serenity and joy shining through the chef as he describes this new phase in his career are the symptoms of reaching a real maturity. Piège stresses: «Cooking makes me feel good. I’m lucky because I can do so in a restaurant that today belongs to me. There’s no such thing as a sole truth in the kitchen, yet I have my own. My goal is to convey pleasure and emotions in the dishes. I don’t like raw ingredients, in fact the word cuisine derives from cooking. The idea is to make people know my country’s dishes with a touch of modernity, playing with cooking techniques».

After crossing the door of the gourmet restaurant there’s the open-view kitchen, to the left, while to the right there’s a wall-mounted cellar. A few more steps and you get into the dining room with a luminous ceiling, a suspended painting made of hexagonal glass. It’s an intimate room with a few tables and an essential yet coloured mise en place. The armchairs are comfortable, the smiling guys in the dining room present the menu, which changes from lunch to supper, with impeccable professionalism: lunch includes three courses for 80 euros, or dishes à la carte, while in the evening there are further tasting menus with signature dishes. The wine list portrays a classic and contemporary France leaving no space for other countries. The menu features a quote that struck us: “Mijotés Modernes”.

We ask the meaning to the chef: «It means a mix of ingredients that create a taste starting from a base of French cuisine and then adding, so as to personalise the dish, a slow cooking with elements that are capable of enhancing its so-called supplementary flavours. I have a rule: if I increase the temperature I will shorten the cooking time, or the contrary. This adds a sublime depth of flavour».

When tasting the Limpid floral herbaceous consommé this essential taste reveals itself, with alternating nuances that are finely harmonised by a constant acidity and are then tempered by the strong flavours of mushrooms and black truffle. The magic touch arrives when transforming the foie gras in a texture that is even creamier, a rare balance ending with a final earthy note. For sure, the Blanc à Manger is dreamy: a dish created eleven years ago, impossible to remove from the menu, just like the wood chest with the custard creams, or the chocolate egg with gold specks, full of gourmandise essence and broken on the table for a theatrical end to a very unique experience. The perfect synthesis of this elegantly refined restaurant.

Jean François Piège - Le Grand Restaurant
7, Rue d’Aguesseau - 75008 - Paris
www.jeanfracoispiege.com