Ébène, Paris 15 -- Third Visit
Returning to Sample Spring/Summer Fare
After my second visit to this brilliant new restaurant last January, I wrote that I looked “forward to more visits to follow cheffe Jihuyan Kim’s marvelous cooking as the seasons evolve.” This week I was able to get my first view of what was going on with the wonderful products available in France in late Spring. (Articles about my previous visits are here and here.)
On a very warm Tuesday afternoon, all customers but those at our table of four were French, seemingly in their thirties and maybe forties.
As before, there are two menus, one of three courses at 45€ and one of six courses at 96€ plus a list of dishes that can be ordered à la carte.
As an amuse bouche, we received radishes with green butter and topped with bottarga. In appearance, it was a bit of a play on the classic oeuf mayonnaise starter.
This dish accomplished exactly what it was supposed to: it was delicious, refreshing to the palate, and stimulated the appetite.
The wine list has expanded in the nearly four months since my last visit and includes some older bottles. It is still all wines from organic and/or biodynamic producers and the markups are fair.
The wines by the glass:
A page from the whites:
And a page from the reds:
We took a bottle of Sylvain Pataille’s red Marsannay from the northern end of Burgundy’s Côte de Nuits.
The wine was perfumed and silky with outstanding complexity for a village wine. It would prove to be an excellent match with our food.
All four of us took the three-course menu. Two of us took the sériole (amberjack) carpaccio with yuzu ponzu dressed with lovage oil:
L took the white asparagus dressed with a demi-sel beurre and with a langoustine sauce.
I took the hummus of peas and pesto of wild rocket with strawberries and pistachio.
All of us were very pleased with our choices. In my case, the hummus of peas with pesto of wild rocket and strawberries and pistachio was as amazing as it sounds, with each element being at the height of freshness and flavor and a fascinating combination of textures.
For mains, two of our group took the duck breast with cauliflower mousseline, and they were very happy with it:
Linda would have taken the rouget barbet, but because the restaurant had not been open the previous day, the fish had not been able to marinate a sufficient amount of time. Instead, she took a substitution of cuttlefish risotto with squid ink which was quite outstanding.
I took the vol-au-vent of seasonal vegetables, which included cabbage, carrots, and green beans in a red wine sauce.
The dish sounds fairly pedestrian, but it was anything but that, with a wonderful combination of flavors and textures and overall great lightness.
For dessert, we all took the crumble of rhubarb and stawberries with a frozen bay leaf cream:
This was a light, flavorful, refreshing dessert with good purity of flavors.
In place of mignardises in the hot weather, we were given a perfect send off, chilled cherries, my first of the season:
The bill for four people:
Ébène is the most remarkable new restaurant I have encountered since Alliance opened a little over ten years ago, and I have encountered many a very good one during that period. Unsurprisingly, there are many similarities between the two restaurants in the purity and ingenuity of the cooking. At 45€, this is an unparalleled value in fine French cuisine. Don’t miss it if you are in Paris!
Ébène
8, rue Falguière, 75015 Paris
Tuesday-Saturday lunch and dinner
Telephone: 01 42 19 98 01
website: ebeneparis.com
Métro: Falguière (line 12), Duroc (lines 10, 13) Montparnasse-Bienvenue (lines 4, 6, 12, 13), Pasteur (lines 6, 12)