Restaurant Review: Marcel

The menu, from the French cook Marie-Aude Rose, who besides runs La Mercerie, is old-fashioned successful the au-courant way. A preprandial demi-baguette is laid straight connected the tablecloth—no board, nary basket, nary plate; thing is chicer, oregon much exquisite, than exquisite nonchalance. (A puck of food is complimentary, though you tin level up to a smear of Bordier, which, made successful Brittany, is reputed to beryllium the champion food successful the world, for an other 5 dollars, and further loaves of breadstuff volition outgo you twelve.) Rose plays her Frenchiness to the hilt, with respectable renditions of bistro staples similar roast chicken, frogs’ legs, escargot, and a ladylike creation of chilled shrimp and grapefruit supremes. But her room is amended erstwhile it’s being a small weird. A starter of oeuf mayonnaise features the eggs sliced hasselback-style, their scored openings piped with salty aioli and pinkish waves of watermelon radish arsenic ruffly and surreal arsenic a brace of nudibranchs. A crockery of chilled beef terrine successful aspic is much striking still, with cross-sections of carrot and leek arranged successful chill geological strata astir a furniture of acold beef somewhat fuzzy with chilled fat. The gelée astir it, made with muscat-grape foodstuff and beef consommé, is tart and savory, and a horseradish pick is neatly sharp, if not rather bracing. A scallop crudo is made appealingly unusual with smoked crème fraîche and chunky slivers of pickled citrus zest that transportation an herbaceous, astir resinous bite.

Still, astir of what I tried astatine Marcel was reasonably unremarkable, and a fewer dishes were downright bleak. Poireaux et Poires Poivrés is simply a delight to accidental (God, I emotion constituent wordplay), but alternatively little of 1 to eat—a escaped stack of braised leeks with brushed poached pears successful a murky, muddy-brown truffle vinaigrette. A boilerplate steak tartare is served with gaufrette chips that are curiously not rather crisp. A main people of poulet au paprika, a motion to Marcel Breuer’s Hungarian origins, is simply a head-scratcher: a deboned limb atop a thin, bitter paprika sauce, with a dollop of sauerkraut and a strewing of earthy doorbell pepper. With its joyless austerity, the crockery bears astir nary resemblance to existent chickenhearted paprikás, which is boisterous and dense and, crucially, should impact a sizeable information of hearty starches to sop it each up. (A bulk of the restaurant’s main courses, notably, eschew carbs.)

Then determination is the Lobster Giverny, a Chef Rose invention that’s unsocial to Marcel, featuring a roasted lobster process successful a stupendous ginger-scented pick condiment built connected a basal of aggravated lobster stock, with bits of roast pineapple and tart leaves of nasturtium. What this has to bash with Giverny, wherever Monet lived and painted, I haven't got a clue, but it was the savory menu’s astir assured presentation, arsenic beauteous arsenic a painting. The cocktails are wonderful, but their vessels are adjacent better: a Kir Royale successful a graceful flute with a flared bubble astatine the bottom, a smoky Rosita successful a multi-hued cut-glass tumbler. I’ve been ordering Cosmos everyplace lately—they’re having a moment, and I’m embarrassingly nostalgic—and I astir fell disconnected my mohaired banquette erstwhile Marcel’s mentation arrived successful glassware consecutive retired of a nineties Michael Gravesian fever dream, its vessel tulip-lipped, its stem astir a ft high.

The existent prima of a repast astatine Marcel is dessert, the domain of the pastry cook Rae Gaylord. Her madeleines are baked to bid successful existent scallop shells, and they get inactive steaming, brushed of crumb and hardly sweet, with a tiny cookware of tea-scented jam. A crockery of pedigreed, ruby-like strawberries comes with a long-legged coupe of Chantilly cream. But this is not a edifice built for restraint; crook your attentions to Les Grands, a enactment of jumbo desserts, each large capable to provender a quorum. There’s an full crockery vessel of cocoa mousse, perfectly bitter and rich, and a Paris-Brest the circumference of a tricycle wheel, with tremendous puffs of hazelnut mousse and a dripping seam of blackberry jam. I astir ordered the mille-feuille, which comes successful cinderblock-sized hunks, until a neighboring array caught my companion and maine eyeing theirs and pantomimed an emphatic no. Plenty of drama, but seemingly little payoff. On my mode out, I paused to respect a sixty-seven-million-year-old T. rex bony that rests successful a solid lawsuit by the door: it’s yours to acquisition astatine auction, for an estimated forty to sixty 1000 dollars, successful Sotheby’s upcoming Natural History sale. There’s thing refreshing, successful a resigned benignant of way, astir uncovering yourself successful a edifice that knows the worth of everything—and the price, too. ♦