13. Restaurant Passage 53

It was my son Adam's birthday this week so we celebrated by going out for lunch - again.

Paul agreed to get dressed up and leave the thongs at home.

If you think this is weird, wait till you see the Vibrams.

We made our way to the passage des Panoramas, a walk of about 700m and very pleasant in the weak lunchtime sunshine.  Some of these beautiful arcades are called galleries, such as Gallerie Vivienne, and some are called passages, such as this one.

The restaurant, situated in passage des Panoramas, is simply called Passage 53.  The only sign on the window is a card that says "Lunch €60. Dinner €120". That's it! Absolutely nothing else.

"Would madame like an aperitif to begin her lunch?" said our gloriously suited, shirted and tied young waiter.  Madame certainly would.  "We have rapidfrench champagne 2010, rapidfrench champagne 2011 and rapidfrench champagne 2004. They are all excellent."  

"The 2010 is the one you had at Phillipe Mouchel's, " says husband.  "The 2004 sounds nice", says Madame.  Husband lets out much air between clenched teeth. Madame ignores him and photographs the floral arrangement. 

"Here we are Madame, I'm sure you'll enjoy this", he says as he pours the 2004 Tattinger .  Husband checks he's brought his credit card.

The aforementioned floral arrangement.  The Tattinger was the best champagne I've ever had.  And only 30€ a glass.  Happy birthday, Adam, wish you and Dani could be here to share it. (But you'd have to pay for your own champagne!)

Madame was determined to make that champagne last and was still sipping it when one of the four waiters deftly re-aligned her knife to point directly at her glass.  Smooth.

Once again I had demolished half of the amouse-bouche, a glorious whipped carrot mousse, before I remembered the camera.  This was something I'd never tasted before - as smooth as whipped cream at the top, more mousse like in the middle and finely creamed vegetable at the bottom.  But not rich or heavy, light and fresh.  Amazing.

The butter came with a knife weighted to sit upright on its end.

Shashimi of bonito tuna with smoked haddock cream, finely chopped celery, dried onion flakes and a little shy oxalis.  Yes, truly - shy oxalis.

Now I know how to get rid of the acres of oxalis that invade my garden every Winter - we'll eat it!  Ours is definitely not shy!

Although this is a Japanese inspired dish, the flavours are all French.

Cod sous-vide with crab, cockle sauce, extremely finely sliced white onions and an abandonment of wild herbs.

Served with a chardonnay from Burgundy.

Bread.

And the pièce-de-résistance - crispy skinned, succulent Guinea fowl, french potatoes and chanterelles in a jus made with white wine from the Jura region.

Served with a red Burgundy. 

Trois pièces de dessert.

In the large bowl: a fabulously tart lemon curd with egg white foam and a quenelle of fabulous semi-sweet frozen yoghurt topped by a crisp disk of lemon juice toffee.

On the plate: a classic, extremely rich bittersweet chocolate mousse in the thinnest pastry snap-shell you can imagine, with a tiny dollop of caramel that had been flavoured with Chinese five spice;

And in the cup at the rear: I don't think I can do justice to a description of this tiramisu.

At the bottom of the cup was a jelly made of slightly sweetened espresso coffee; next were several thin discs of crunchy choc-hazelnut praline; these two layers sat in a small shot of espresso coffee. The next layer is indescribable but it was a thin layer of some type of creamed cake - just a mouthful. And the thick layer at the top - the smoothest semi-sweet whipped cream with a hint of coffee and a scraping of pure dark chocolate on top.  It was stunning!

We finished with cafe and tiny, fresh madeleines.

I enjoyed it more than the meal at Carre des Feuillants because the food was more edgy, and the waiters were less attentive - but the wines were not quite as good.  Except for the champagne of course.  That was amazing.

And that is Passage 53 on the right, with the dark grey paint and white blinds.  Read about it by clicking the link below.

Passage 53 - Michelin 2