Andrew Carmellini On How To Travel And Eat Like A Professional In France
As part of Andrew Carmellini Week, we've asked him to tell us about some of his favorite places to visit around the world for food. While many may assume the chef's knowledge of Italy to be second-to-none (or to Batali at least), less know that Carmellini has a real passion for French cooking and culture. In the 1990's, he lived in France for a year before returning to New York to help open Le Cirque, and he eventually run the show at Café Boulud for six years (earning two James Beard Awards along the way).
While Italy is the familial, France is Carmellini's familiar, and we asked him for the best way to travel throughout the country with the adventure and appetite of a 20-year kitchen vet. "I'm always high-low when I travel, so it will be three-star Michelin one night and down-and-dirty the next," he says. With that, here are the markets, patisseries, falafel shops and three-star gems to seek out on your next visit to France.
Nice and surrounding area
I love the foothills behind Nice. Places like Vance, Grasse, Tourrettes Sur Loup. It's really an amazing area, topographically. I like to rent houses there, and honestly we can talk about restaurants there, but the best thing to do is rent a house, go to the markets and cook. We did that before opening Lafayette — and before that I lived in Nice for four months in the early '90s. There is this great meeting of the sea and the mountains, so you get all these products. All the seafood and the honey is really just amazing. And if you were to pick a restaurant, I like La Merenda, which is run by Dominique Le Stanc, the former chef at the Chantecler Restaurant in the Hotel Negresco. Go there if you really want a traditional Niçoise kind of cooking like fried zucchini flowers and daube, which is a beef stew with orange, olives and rosemary [that's] cooked in a ceramic pot called a daubier.
Paris
It's kind of touristy but I stop at L'As du Fallafel as soon as I land in Paris. It's in the little Israeli section of the Marais and just really good falafel — and kind of the opposite of running to get a baguette, and a reminder of how multi-cultural the city is. Recently, I've been doing a lot of exploring in the city, along the canal in the 11th Arrondissement. Some are calling it the Williamsburg of Paris or something. Three restaurants that I like [in Paris] are Frenchie, Spring and Septime. And maybe it's how the Internet works these days, but you get these gastro destinations that end up on lists and you go to these places and you will be eating there with a bunch of New Yorkers. A place like Marius et Janette is not on the foodie destination radar at all. It's a seafood restaurant and one of the best in the city. I really like Aoki: the pastry chef, not the DJ. Sadaharu Aoki's work is French pastry with a fine Japanese hand. He has this one piece that I really like, a green tea apple cake called bamboo. My absolute favorite three star is L'Arpege. Alain Passard's food is so elegant. My other favorite Parisian chefs are Jean-François Piège and Pascal Barbot.
Saint Jean de Luz and surrounding areas
This is really one of those great undiscovered market towns. Really, you can't go wrong with that whole area of St Jean de Luz, Espelette, Biarritz and San Sebastian. I love the cross-over regions where you see the influence of two countries converge (France and Spain). You will find seafood, cured meats, amazing whole fish and Espelette peppers all coming together. Basque cheese and Bayonne ham are key. The market in Biarritz offers great shellfish.
Corsica
You can take the ferry there from France, unless you wanted to get your own boat (laughing).
Corsican food is fairly unknown and really rough, if you will. There is delicious honey available there and a cool herb mix called maqui which has myrtle and other mountain herbs. There are also all these great sausages. Figatelli is a fatty liver sausage that you grill. There is also donkey sausage to be found.