Over the past 10 years or so, Paris has been invaded by foreign chefs who have set up their own restaurants and have wowed both the locals and tourists alike. Japanese, Scandinavian, British and American chefs (among others) now have some of the most sought after tables in the city. But surprisingly, one of the least Parisian of menus at these new generation of restaurants is cooked by Gregory Marchand, who is in fact French, but has worked in London, New York and parts of Asia and he opened a restaurant called “Frenchie”… He has since expanded on the same street to include a wine bar and a casual “Frenchie to Go”…
Located on tiny Rue du Nil, Frenchie to Go was packed, and the menu seemed rather Western at first glance. But a light uncomplicated lunch was exactly what we needed, and Mrs. MM ordered a pulled pork sandwich, some french fries and a beetroot salad for us to share. Had we known the sandwich came with so much beetroot garnish anyway, we would have skipped the salad altogether. The sandwich was utterly delicious, the beetroot salad with whole mustard seeds was fantastic and the french fries were french fries. :)
If you happen to be in the area, this is a nice place to get a casual, mostly non-French style lunch. But if you are clear away at the other end of town, I wouldn’t make the trip just for this. Check out their lunch menu, here. And in case you are wondering why “Frenchie” is named “Frenchie”, apparently the chef/owner Gregory Marchand used to work for Jamie Oliver and Jamie would call Gregory “Frenchie” in the kitchen and the nickname stuck… The moral of the story? You don’t need to be French to cook French food. Nor do you need to be American to excel at a pulled pork sandwich. :)
6 Responses
That beet root salad with whole mustard seeds look so appetizing!
Being the original home of haute cuisine and the hub of codified culinary training, the city attracts a lot of aspiring and talented young cooks and being hometown to a cosmopolitan and highly food-aware population, it is only natural that a few of these pilgrims stay put and test their métier on the locals. If a chef can make it in Paris as one would say, he or she can make it anywhere. I notice that a lot of them are Japanese which hints of the obsessive attention to the seasonality and precise presentation of food that they and the French share in common. I read somewhere thirty years ago that the best Chinese restaurants only existed in Paris but that was probably because the author had never visited the cities of Taiwan.
I’m glad to see effort being put into elevating the standing in the kitchen of common crops such as beets. For the longest time its use seemed limited to borsch, pickles and the production of sugar. I see jars of beet pickles all the time but I have never picked up one for fear of its staining effect on everything it touches.
Footloose, if I am not mistaken with my trivia, Japan now has the most number of Michelin stars of any country outside France…
Part and parcel of the mutual fascination, no doubt. Even more intriguing because apart from their common obsessive attention to detail, they are poles apart in the guiding principles of their respective cuisines, that of butter and that of water. And yet, even my favourite usually self-possessed food reviewer François Simon seems to give himself in to the seductions of Japanese aesthetics and attitudes. It will probably take the showing of evidence of Japanese savagery and horrendous atrocities in war to cure them of that infatuation.
For the past 8 (?) years or so Japan has had more Michelin-starred restaurants than France. The M inspectors are clearly Japanophiles.
for a while japan (or was it tokyo?) had the greatest density of michelin stars. amazing that they’ve now surpassed larger countries in absolute number. the food there is amazing