food+drink
words by Gemma Elwin Harris
everyone’s talking about
daniel rose / paris
Who? Daniel Rose, the owner, chef and maitre d’ of Spring, a tiny restaurant in the 9th arrondissement, has become a favourite of Paris food crits.
Why the fuss? Excellent food and an unpretentious atmosphere have won over the city’s most jaded gastro snobs. The Figaro’s columnist said he nearly “wept for joy” at the vision of a chef-patron actually cooking in his own kitchen. With just 16 seats and a single set menu, Spring has the feel of a convivial dinner party. The big chefs in Paris may be downsizing to cute little bistros, but Rose has set himself apart by really going for the personal touch.
What’s he cooking? Creative, seasonal dishes with clean, bold flavours. On Sterling magazine’s visit a velvety pumpkin soup came topped with roasted pumpkin seeds, rich hazelnut butter and a whirl of roast pigeon jus. Salmon lightly seared in duck fat was lifted with a citrus dressing, and mint and coriander salsa. Small taster desserts were particularly good – most memorable was the salty chocolate melting cake with lemon and vanilla custard. The menu is great value and comes with all the refresher sorbets, surprising spoonfuls and petits fours that you’d find in a much pricier restaurant.
Where’s he been all my life? Chicago-raised Daniel Rose hasn’t come out of nowhere – he’s done time with Paul Bocuse and Le Meurice’s Yannick Alléno. Big on talent, low on ego – it’s Rose’s quiet enthusiasm that gives this place its special buzz.
Spring is open for dinner Tuesday to Friday, and for lunch Thursdays and Fridays only. The four-course dinner costs €39.
Rose has recently started Saturday afternoon cooking lessons, available on request: 11am-2pm, priced around €150 per person, meal included.
Spring, 28 rue de la Tour d’Auvergne, 9th arr., Paris, +33 (0)1 4596 0572, www.springparis.blogspot.com
eat my blog
http://orangette.blogspot.com
blogger: molly wizenberg, seattle, usa
© Portrait photo
Carla Leonardi
“I am 29 years old and a freelance food writer. I’m originally from Oklahoma but moved to Seattle about five years ago, after stints in San Francisco and Paris. I come from a family of avid home cooks and am newly married to someone who’s as crazy about food as I am (and whom I met through my blog; he was one of my readers!).
“I write autobiographical essays about food – what I call ‘food stories’ – and each comes with a recipe. For me, food is a natural way of exploring ideas about the way we live and who and what we love. Blogging about it is pure pleasure: easy, fun, accessible, and so rewarding.”
Best food memory in Europe… a sunny Sunday morning visit to the Bastille market in Paris. It’s open from 7am to 3pm, and you can buy anything from fish to cheese to olives, wild mushrooms, salami, and sausage.
Favourite cookbook… I’m loving The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis. It was published g in the 70s and is full of stories and recipes from Lewis’s childhood in the American South. Her voice is utterly charming, with recipes for honest, humble food that anyone could love.
My food hero is… Julia Child [the late American food writer and presenter]. She went after life – and food – with her arms wide open. She’s an inspiration, always.
I couldn’t live without… Chocolate and cheese. Bittersweet chocolate, please, and almost any kind of cheese.
My food philosophy… The simplest of ingredients, when treated with care, can make a spectacular meal. I’d rather have a roasted chicken and homemade apple crumble than a million fancy dinners with sauces, reductions and fuss.
I find inspiration in…. Everyday life. The way a warm cake makes the kitchen smell, the way a handful of orange slices look when you put them on a plate.
taste of a place
Bergen Fish Soup:
“one of
the best in the
world” chef andreas viestad in bergen
“In the square next to the long rectangular harbour lies northern Europe’s largest outdoor fish market, with dozens of stalls offering a huge selection of the freshest fish and shellfish. Despite the rain, the market is always crowded with people, and on Saturdays there are long lines. Walking through the market can make even the most ardent carnivore develop a deep hunger for fish, and even though I am always there as a visitor and hardly ever have access to kitchen facilities, I can walk around the market for hours, enjoying the atmosphere and imagining what I would prepare. There are scary-looking monkfish with their enormous heads and monsterlike faces, shiny green and blue mackerel, beautiful pink salmon, sad-eyed redfish, fierce-looking wolffish, enormous halibut, charmingly freckled plaice, and the occasional mackerel shark. There is also an abundance of fish roe products, and smoked salmon with an orange tint, which tells you that the fish has been smoked in an old-fashioned smokehouse. You can even buy live fish: a few of the best stalls have giant saltwater tanks filled with live crabs, lobsters, pollock, or cod.”
Andreas Viestad is Norway’s leading food columnist and host of TV’s New Scandinavian Cooking. Extract taken from his book Kitchen of Light, where you can also find the recipe for Bergen Fish Soup pictured. To order at the special price of €29, including postage and packing, email orders@gbs.tbs-ltd.co.uk quoting ref. MPS61. Offer runs til 31 August.
brussels + bruges
whistlestop tour for… beer lovers
From strong Trappist beers made for centuries by monks, to thirst-quenching wheat beers and the acquired taste of sour lambics, Belgium has an unrivalled portfolio of brews, and some of the best cafés, bars and breweries to sip and savour them are to be found in Brussels and Bruges.
In Brussels, a good place to begin is A la Mort Subite (rue Montagne-auxHerbes Potageres 7), a classic beer hall which retains its original 1928 décor – a warm interior of wood panelling, columns and huge, mirrored walls. Here a mix of locals and travellers share intimate table space, chatting and enjoying their tipple of choice served by nattily dressed waiters. Before you leave town, be sure to drop in on Bier Tempel (rue Marché Aux Herbes 56), a specialist beer store selling 525 Belgian varieties including the prized trio produced by the monks of Abdij St Sixtus at Westvleteren.
In picturesque, medieval Bruges, don’t miss ‘t Brugs Beertje (Kemelstraat 5), an atmospheric if frequently packed little tavern located on a backstreet near the old market square; it features a novel-thick menu of over 250 national brews. Or, hidden down an alleyway of drainpipe proportions between Markt and Burg, there’s the tiny, dark local’s local, De Garre (De Garre 1), with some 146 beers. Try their creamy-topped amber house draft. For a blow-out dinner, Den Dyver restaurant (Den Dijver 5), specialises in Belgian dishes subtly flavoured with beer, and you can also take in a tour at De Halve Maan (Walplein 26), a family-run brewery that has been active since 1856.
Belgian Railways will take you from Brussels to Bruges in less than one hour; for times and prices, see www.b-rail.be.
ANDREW MARSHALL
www.alamortsubite.com
www.brugsbeertje.be
www.dyver.be
www.halvemaan.be
drinking habits no.2
how to toast
There are local variations everywhere. In Switzerland you must clink glasses with everyone within reach before drinking. In Japan you should never fill your own glass; wait for your neighbour to offer, and when his is half empty, fill it in return. In China, if your host proposes a toast, you must immediately reciprocate with one of your own. In Germany, an old superstition holds that if you don’t look into your counterpart’s eyes when clinking glasses, seven years of bad sex will follow.
Excerpt from Going Dutch in Beijing: The International Guide to Doing the Right Thing by Mark McCrum, published by Profile Books (€14.35), www.profilebooks.com
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