For years, I’ve been telling myself I need to go to le Clarence. Local chefs regularly cite the two-Michelin-starred restaurant as a must; Chef Oliver Piras of Il Carpaccio, Le Royal Monceau—Raffles Paris even told me, in an interview for Fodor’s, that “it’s one of the benchmarks of world gastronomy.”
“He’s got an incisive side to his food,” Paul Boudier, chef-owner of Montmartre bistro Le Maquis, said of Chef Christophe Pelé. “He’s really mastered the classics, but each and every time, he manages to twist them.” Chef Eloi Spinnler of Orgueil went so far as to dub it “the best restaurant I’ve eaten in in Paris.”
The Clarence is housed in a 19th-century private mansion, which, in 2015, was transformed by the Prince of Luxembourg into an elegant restaurant oozing warmth – the perfect place to dig into the cuisine that has earned so many accolades from chefs in the know. For years, I told myself I’d finally treat myself to a meal here when I sold my novel. But while the book is indeed currently out on submission to editors (cross your fingers for me!), when it was announced recently that Pelé would be leaving le Clarence after 10 years at its helm, I realized I couldn’t wait any longer.
And so, it was in celebration of two other events – the launch of my brand-new food and wine podcast and my father’s first visit to Paris in nearly a decade – that I treated us to one of the most luxurious three-hour lunches I’ve ever enjoyed.
One thing I find particularly enticing about le Clarence is that, like in many fine dining restaurants these days, there’s no choosing allowed. When you arrive, you merely decide whether you want three, four, or six courses and let the servers know about any allergies, intolerances, or dislikes. We opted for four (250 euros per person), which gives you the broadest scope of what the chef can do.
We began with an array of amuse bouches. These monégasque barbajuans filled with brousse cheese were perfectly nice but perhaps my least favorite of the three.
I was a much bigger fan of the pillowy gougères, which benefitted from a touch of pepper and had a lovely cheesy flavor.
But given Pelé’s love of all things seafood, it should come as no surprise that this praire clam was my favorite, with texture akin to abalone and just a touch of salicorne for brininess.
Next, we enjoyed a second amuse, a thick bite of bluefin tuna glazed in seasonal blackberry reduction and topped with a touch of shiso. This dish was relatively simple in flavor, allowing the texture of the tuna to do most of the talking. I loved the bare suggestion of sweetness and acidity from the seasonal sauce and the nearly mentholated finish afforded by the shiso.
When I interviewed him for the Fodor’s story, Boudier praised Pelé’s approach as follows: “On paper, there are loads of things that shouldn’t work, but he makes them work.” And he was right. From this point onwards, each bite toppled the next in a crescendo of creativity. Case in point? This dish of cuttlefish scored to a toothsome, almost granular texture and topped with stracciatella cheese seasoned liberally with nori. The depth of the brininess from the seaweed complemented the sweet seafood perfectly, and the richness of the cheese was a surprising, daring, and ultimately successful touch.
This dish, like many, was served alongside a panoply of other small dishes, in what our server told us is one of the chef’s signatures. This green zebra tomato at the peak of perfection was topped with a dollop of pistachio purée, vivid both visually and gustatorily. It was just one example of how willing the chef is to let peak-season produce do much of the work, a culinary approach that dazzled me in its humility.
But the first dish to make me say “wow, that’s my favorite so far” was this one, an answer to that first cuttlefish dish. Where the first was served raw and cold, this one was warm and seared, wafting a nostalgic, madeleine de Proust aroma of summertime cookouts by the beach. The cuttlefish was topped with a thin sliver of lardo and a generous dill flourish, and once again, it was paired with a touch of cheese – in this case, feta – which felt like a phenomenal toppling of preconceived notions regarding the pairing of seafood and cheese.
Next came the bread service: a perfect tower of brioche feuilletée. This cousin of the croissant is enriched even further with the egg common to brioche, and here, it’s sprinkled generously with salt and served with a cube of soft salted butter. You’re encouraged to tear into it, scattering crumbs across the white linen, which feels wonderfully naughty in such a hallowed space.
Next we dug into a plate of pollack topped with a single, perfect oven-dried tomato. Tableside, a sauce of tiny tellines seasoned with kimchi was spooned over the fish, adding a lovely fermented funk and just the barest a touch of heat. I loved the tarragon here, a too-underused herb, in my humble opinion.
While we were digging into the fish, a perfect plump oyster arrived. The poached oyster was massive and silky smooth, with a barely-there flavor that let the texture do most of the talking. Toppings of fresh herbs and flowers were just assertive enough to accompany the oyster without overwhelming it.
It’s impossible to speak of a restaurant of this caliber without a nod to the front-of-house. The servers here are impeccable, executing the complex steps of a ballet with bravado, flair, and welcome friendliness – a difficult balance in an atmosphere like this one. Their mastery of each moment of the meal is pure pleasure to witness, but even better is seeing how they cope with moments when things don’t go quite according to plan.
This one was on me. I had neglected to mention my father’s squid ink allergy, so when we were each served a perfectly fried pillow of a zucchini flower coated in squid ink tempura, we hesitated. My father offered to let me eat his, but I was getting full already and wanted to save what stomach space remained for what was to come. As a result, his sat untouched, and when the server returned, I apologized profusely, letting him know that we were happy to forego this course, but that if any modifications could be made for later ones that might include squid ink, we’d be very grateful.
Moments later, our server returned with the same exact dish, colored, not black with ink, but green with chlorophyll. In both cases, the pairing of the delicate flower with a strip of raw sardine and a puddle of Japanese mustard was pure bliss, something my father was grateful to get to try.
My second “favorite dish of the day” came next: a daring marriage of sea and land. A perfectly cooked quail’s breast was topped with a tumble of mushrooms and raw shrimp, and the shrimp’s head was battered in tempura and fried so that it too could be consumed. The sweetness, rich earthiness, and minerality of this dish absolutely bowled me over, and I loved the juxtaposition of soft, toothsome, and crisp textures.
The quail joined us again in the form of this spinach-lined pastry filled with quail meat and foie gras, which proved my father’s favorite of the trio…
…which concluded with this quail’s leg topped with even more foie gras – a bit too rich-on-rich for my blood, but then again, we’d been eating for about two hours already.
The cheese cart certainly looked inviting, but by this point, even my dad was ready to throw in the towel, so we moved straight on to dessert, which was welcomely light.
First, we enjoyed a fig leaf mousse topped with melon granita, beneath which lurked a single perfect fig.
Next, a plate of raw and cooked peaches was delivered in a berry coulis.
And finally, a raspberry sorbet atop a small pile of caramelized grains and nuts convinced me that there’s nothing more delicious than seasonal fruit for dessert.
But of course, that wasn’t all. The mignardises numbered three, beginning with these little mirabelle tartlets. We popped them in our mouths, relishing the way the frangipane base married with the buttery pastry and quenelle of raw cream on top, the tiny plums offering that unique exotic fruit aroma I love so much.
Next, we enjoyed these grapes from Toulouse, which tasted exactly like strawberries…
…and a rustic almond macaron filled with pillowy, barely-whipped chantilly, which leaked out in a welcomely messy way, a reminder that despite its fine dining panache, this restaurant is above all about one thing: pleasure.
I had held Le Clarence in such high esteem in my mind for so long that it ran the risk of disappointing me. And yet everything, from our table in the book-lined library to the tinkle of piano music to, of course, the meal, exceeded my every expectation – and it was especially worth sharing with my favorite guy.
Le Clarence – 31 Avenue Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 75008