Restaurants around Beaune, ’66 Leroy Echezeaux

16 October 2007

I had the opportunity to visit a few restaurants around Beaune recently.

Just an aside on Michelin rated restaurants: there is an interesting formula restaurants follow to get stars or to keep them: one star establishments need to do a menu with luxury ingredients such as foie gras, truffle, lobster, caviar (but not all of them), there must be amuse bouche and just general enthusiasm about food from the kitchen. If they’re aspiring, there’s probably stuff in the bathroom, like cologne, good quality towels.

Two star establishments need to be a step up from this: luxurious ambiance created by expensive lighting, paintings, well dressed waiters. It’s more formal, there are more staff, all of whom are highly trained, formal but not distant, prices on the menu are double that of the one star.

Three star restaurants are just as different. No request is too much. Almost all dishes are full of luxury ingredients. The wait staff are exceptional, many recognising you, greeting you by name (how did they know?). At Troisgros a waiter was carrying out two dishes. He walked past the maître d’hotel. Having inspected the presentation of the food, the maître d’ made a small click of his fingers. The waiter turned around , quite naturally, and went back to the kitchen. This inspection of the food is done in the kitchen as well but something must have slipped someone’s eye and the maître d’ didn’t consider the food fit for presentation. Generally speaking, the ambiance is intimidate, you feel like you’re the most important person there. You could eat in the toilets, and there are generally comfortable seats and lounges to sit in if the pace of the dinner has affected you.

Le Benaton

This is a recent addition to Beaune’s food scene. It has one Michelin star. We’d managed to arrange bringing two bottles with us (hard to do in France) for 18 euros corkage for each bottle + a bottle of wine off the list.

We ordered a Philipponnat Clos des Goisses 1996 of the list. Frankly, this was a substandard bottle and I wont give a note.

We drank it with some excellent amuse bouche:

Gougère, smoked salmon and curd, savoury financier and unfinished epoisses balls with spicy toast.

There was then another amuse bouche (!):

Mussel creme with mussel salad. Awesome.

The entrées were all well presented.

Tuna four ways.

This dish was well presented but I feel that the chef didn’t really capture the flavour of tuna. It was quite fishy and one dimensional. With better quality tuna, this would be a success.

Tête de veau with tempura langoustine.

This was a superb entrée. You have to do this quite well in a restaurant because tête de veau is kind of like the meat pie of France. This was pretty much as good as it can get.

Shrimp tail with herb sauce and salad.

Next were the plats.

Pork cutlet

Ris de Veau – veal sweetbreads.

The pork was fabulous but the ris was a little overcooked and the delicate flavour was lost.

With the mains we had two reds.

The Trapet Le Chambertin 1994 was looking quite old and I was disappointed. David had served me a fabulous ’94 Clos de Bèze (by Rousseau) that was still youthful. I figured that a lesser producer might be more advanced but still doing okay. The colour was showing some brown. The wine was presentable but just boring.

We also had another risky wine, a Patriarch Richebourg 1988. Patriarch is a negociant in Beaune not known for quality but when it comes to wines like these, they usually just buy stock from producers wholesale and relabel it. This wine shocked classic Vosne spiciness, a lift of jammy red buries, nice complexity and intensity. The palate was round, soft tannins, quite long. Not a great wine but I quite enjoyed it.

The desserts were well turned out too.

Poached peach with home made ice cream and peach tea.

Macerated red fruits.

Both of these were well made and refreshing.

Le Benaton was a bit hit and miss. They’re trying hard but I think they a manager with two star experience to iron out the edges.

Le Montrachet

Le Montrachet in Puligny-Montrachet is not a starred restaurant — though it is well regarded by Michelin. It is, however, a bit of an institution on the southern Côte. For example, Clive Coates was out front with a coffee and cigarette when Alex stopped to make the reservation.

Personally, I think Le Montrachet is a better restaurant than Le Benaton. Why is Le Benaton more highly rated? Well, Le Montrachet probably suffers because every second town in France has a great old dining room with great regional produce, excellent service, good prices, friendly staff with the training that comes from 25 years at the same restaurant. They have a little inn connected with the restaurant and they’re rebuilding the 12th century place next door, which will quadruple their capacity. They’re not doing too bad for themselves.

We had a Leroy 1966 Echezeaux delivered from Leroy and the restaurant was only too happy to have us do so. There was no corkage fee, unheard of in France.

Again, amuses bouches were presented.

This was a delicious seasonal cèpe cream.

Entrée were of very high quality:

Ox tail terrine

Oysters in sabayon.

These were both very good. The oysters lightly poached were fantastic.

The fish course was also impressive:

This is rascasse (scorpion fish), with braised endive and foam

Pavé de Cabillaud (cod) with black rice.

This second dish was fantastic, perhaps better than the cod at Troisgros.

With these dishes, we had a Jean-Noël Gagnard Chassagne-Montrachet Les Morgeots 1er Cru 1996. A restaurant is the perfect place to order a risky ‘96, since there’ll be no question about replacement. Alex expressed a preference for a bigger Chassagne in lieu of a bottle of Montrachet, and this was it. The nose was rich with spice, honey, candied melon, preserved lemon. Fresh, still with youth on its side but a point now. The palate had great acidity and length. It’s such a shame that so many 1996s have suffered from oxidation because they’re delicious wines when well preserved.

For the mains, some dishes to suit the Leroy:

Coq au Vin

Pigeon with floury potato and … popcorn

Of course the Leroy Echezeaux 1966 was the main player by now. The colour was light, brick red. The nose was intense with the mature pinot character you’d expect from perfectly aged bottle: coconut, orange peel, leather, dried violets and roses, hints of dried beef, cigar tobacco. The palate was totally resolved but refresh, lively, no signs of advanced age. At first, these old wines seem light. Then, they building on the tongue, the power of them becomes almost overwhelming. As you swallow and then breath out, there is a sensation in your mouth as if you’d just drunk some hard alcohol, like cognac or calvados. Your mouth is alive with sensation.

The striking thing for me about this wine was that the palate was perfectly resolved: there was barely a hint of tannin, just perfectly mature fruit, delicious acidity and alcohol to give it power and sophistication. This is why good wine is made, to be drunk when it is at its peak and it was a great privilege to drink it.

The original cork, having performed its job perfectly. It’s sitting next to me now. It is very fragrant, smelling of coconut, toffee, ginger and tawny port.

I emptied the sediment from the bottle into the glass to smell it. It was extremely aromatic. Actual terroir.

We had a small plate of cheese and then some classic desserts.

Carambar mousse with apple pastry

Blackberry tartlette with honey ice cream

All up, a great night.

La Cabotte, Le Montrachet

This isn’t actually a restaurant. I took Gen, Alex and Nina down to the tool shed at Chevalier-Montrachet, owned by Bouchard, and we had a casse croute there, watching the world go by. This was the best meal we had in Burgundy. It was so peaceful. The only thing you were was the sound of the odd wine lover walking the vines and bicyclists and people on horses in the distance.