Fruits de Mer Français

Toy Sailboats in Luxembourg Gardens

My wife and I recently braved a transatlantic flight to France with our two toddlers.  While I wouldn't recommend it from a travel perspective - apparently even Bluey and Paw Patrol have their limits on an eight hour plane ride - the trip itself was incredible.  The old world beauty and glamour of Paris paired perfectly with the raucous joy and energy of Euro Disney, all bookended with a quick stint in dynamically charming Marseille.   The trip didn't want for much as we made several memories that will last a lifetime.  And while it was largely, and appropriately, family focused with park hikes, trolley rides, playground visits, even some McDonald's nuggets, you know I had to squeeze in a few stellar meals.  French McDonald's is way better than in the States, by the way.  

But where to begin?  French food, to say the least, is daunting.  It's world-renowned by many as the pinnacle of cuisine.  Things are certainly changing with new dining establishments drawing inspiration from various international foodways.  Even then, a lot of the foundations are still French techniques.  During the trip I had some internal difficulty truly defining French food.  Sure, there are several easily identifiable French classics like beef bourguignon, coq au vin, and cassoulet.  At most restaurants, though, I thought, "huh, is this really French? Just seems like a normal dish to me."  I soon realized yes, that is French, because a lot of what I think of as standard cuisine is in fact French based.  Sous-vide - French.  Sautéed - French.  Poached - French.  Puréed - French.  Proteins simply and well-prepared paired with flavorful sauces and sides - largely French.  Undeniably, similar cooking styles have been practiced around the world for centuries.  But the French, with notable 19th century chefs like Carême and Escoffier, codified and propagated these methods and disciplines.  Very little of what we contemporarily eat, especially when dining out, doesn't have some French fingerprints or DNA, somewhere.

French Oyster Vending Machine - via GrubStreet

Even when narrowing to seafood only, it remained a formidable exploration.  There's an ardent affinity for seafood in France dating back centuries.  King Louis XIV, known for his voracious appetite and opulent royal court dinners, demanded fresh fish, mollusks, and crustaceans be carted in daily from both French coasts.  Balzac, the French novelist, often ate 100 oysters before a meal.  Preserving food by canning was invented in the early 1800s in France to feed traveling armies; one of the very first canned foods was sardines, reportedly a favorite of Napoleon that he saw most fit for his soldiers.  April Fools' Day in France is known as poisson d'avril, or April Fish.  Bouillabaisse, Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Moules Marinières, and Tuna Niçoise are all world-renowned French seafood dishes with long histories that are celebrated to this day.  Shit, there's even a literal oyster vending machine in Normandy.  Suffice it to say that France really likes its fruits de mer. 

This was all too much for too brief a trip.  So, in short, I said "tant pis, let's see what happens."  The following is a recount of my best effort exploration of French seafood between late nights with jetlagged toddlers and exhaustingly long waits in Euro Disney theme park lines.  Allons-y!

Le Dôme Café

Le Dôme's Opulent Entrance

First stop had to be a classic French, seafood-focused brasserie, and no place better embodies that than Le Dôme Café.  Opened in 1898 in the swanky Montparnasse neighborhood, it has a long history of regularly serving many of history's intellectual elites.  Hemingway, Lenin, Picasso, Gauguin, Henry Miller.  All gathered here to gossip and exchange opinions on art, philosophy, world affairs, literature, and so on.  They even came to be known as the Dômiers.  Le Dôme is also the kind of place that comes to mind when you imagine vintage Parisian dining, almost Ratatouille-esque.  Decadent decor, professionally attired staff, proper etiquette, Château wines, escargot, pan-seared foie gras.  Candidly, it was not my most anticipated stop, as it screams tourist trap.  But it was a box that had to be checked.  And hey, I've been wrong about touristy places before.

I arrived at the height of the lunch rush on a busy Sunday afternoon hoping for a modest table for one.  Le Dôme also has a fresh fish retailer next door I would have loved to visit, but fermé le dimanche.  I passed by their raw bar, nicely displayed on the sidewalk, and entered a restaurant full of raucous diners and bustling staff.  I waited to be greeted for 2 minutes.  Then 4 minutes.  Then 6 minutes.  I thought, "holy shit, is this the 'ignore the stupid American in his street jeans and H&M hoodie' cliché you so frequently hear about Paris dining."  Turns out, no.  I was the asshole who walked in through the exit, not the entrance.  A staff member eventually saw my confusion and kindly directed me to the host stand, after which I was promptly, and welcomingly, seated at my own table.  Apologies to Le Dôme for my presumption.

In terms of the menu, Le Dôme has all the French seafood standards like roasted turbot in bearnaise and lobster flambéed in cognac.  I was pleasantly surprised by some less-than-classic preparations like monkfish tandoori and salmon sashimi.  The establishment is most famous for its sole meunière, a classic French dish consisting of lightly floured flat fish pan-fried and covered in a lemon and brown butter sauce.  A la meunière translates to "in the style of the miller's wife," hence the light coating of milled flour.  Seeing as how Le Dôme's version traditionally serves two and costs close to $95, I couldn't justify the order.  Luckily, another menu staple there is aile de jeune raie meunière, or skate wing meunière.  I love skate wings, and absolutely had to try Le Dôme's meunière.  Un, s'il vous plait!

Aile de jeune raie meunière

After a few minutes of waiting, watching scurrying staff, and listening to all the global dialects of fellow diners, my aile de jeune raie meunière finally arrived.  A large, beautifully pan-seared "bone-in" skate wing topped with fresh parsley, brined caper buds, and scallions, all covered in a brown butter and lemon sauce.  The sauce was delightful.  Bright and piquant with sharp lemon notes, balanced out by a deep and nutty, brown butter flavor.  A+.  The skate wing, unfortunately, was a bit overcooked.  Don't get me wrong, I've had and cooked skate wings dozens of times.  I'm aware it's a much softer textured fish than most due to high levels of collagen in its cartilage.  This cut, however, had little to no grain or tooth left whatsoever and was basically mush.  In hindsight, I should have gone for the sole meunière.  Next time, perhaps.  I can say that Le Dôme, as an experience, was a rather insightful and pleasant first step into the vibrant dining scene of Paris.  The people watching alone is worth the visit.  I even stuck around for un café after my meal just to take it all in.    

Huitrerie Régis

Huitrerie Régis' Modest Entrance

Next stop, of course, an oyster bar.  There's an unparalleled appreciation of oysters in France.  Most seafood aficionados I've encountered of any demographic hold oysters in special regard, but the French doubly so.  Every market, bistro, or brasserie you pass in Paris has an oyster selection, bar, or station prominently displayed.  There's even a French restaurant position known as écailler, an oyster master and seafood specialist whose job is exclusively chilled seafood platters or plateaus des fruits de mer.  Oysters aren't just reserved for fine dining, either.  France has a robust home-shucking culture.  Case in point, oyster vending machines.  Oysters accompany everything from casual Sunday dinners to opulent holiday celebrations.  The latter are particularly oyster centric as the French are hyper-sensitive to seasonality, consuming 50% of their annual oysters at peak quality in the winter months.  

Huitrerie Régis' French Oyster Menu (Yes, in English.  I don't speak French.)

I could go on and on about the purity, nuance, and just all-around joy of French and Parisian oyster history and culture.  There are several books dedicated to the subject.  However, my favorite thing about French oyster culture is its codification.  In the States, oysters are pretty much marketed by name, and name only.  As long as purveyors disclose where and when their oysters were harvested, they can call them whatever they please.  Unfortunately, this has essentially condoned legal fraud through the exploitation of famous oyster names like Blue Point, Miyagi, Belon, and others.  Vendors know they'll sell more oysters if they have notable names, so many random oysters end up being re-labeled as such.  The only things protecting quality for a consumer in the US oyster market are honest purveyors and trademarked names.  When ordering a Blue Point, you don't truly know what you're going to get.  Small, large, fat, lean, fresh, poor, wild, farmed, hailing from Maine down to North Carolina.  I can't stand Jim Gaffigan, but his schtick on seafood does make a bit more sense with this in mind.     

Gillardeau Oyster Engraving

The French, on the other hand, have strict regulations and classifications for much of their food and beverage, and their oysters are no different.  First, oysters are sized n°0 - n°5, zero being the largest and five being the smallest.  Next, they're always detailed by farmer, location, and species (huître creuse or huître plate).  Finally, specific oyster names denote regulated grow-out methods and standards.  For example, a fine de claire is an oyster that's required to spend no less than 28 days in a specialized salt pond.  A speciale de claire spends two to three months in these ponds, and a pousse en claire four months-plus.  Each name also carries limitations on the number of oysters that can be grown in the ponds at once, allowing for better feeding and filtering conditions.  The result, in ascending order, is a meatier, richer, more deeply flavored oyster (and more expensive, of course).  Beyond that, you've got Belons, which require grow-out in a particular river; vertes, that feed on specific blue-green algae; perles, the equivalent of vintners select; farms like Gillardeau who literally engrave their oysters for brand protection, and more.  While certainly intricate, and seemingly overcomplicated, these practices developed over the last 120 years equate to assurances of caliber and quality for us, the consumer.

So, how could all of these considerations be embodied in one oyster bar visit?  Simple - I went to Huitrerie Régis, a humble 12-seat shop in Paris' Saint-Germain-des-Prés neighborhood that takes its oysters very seriously.  If you're looking for a broader French seafood dining experience, look elsewhere.  But if you're out for just oysters and wines, Huitrerie Régis is your spot.  It's literally all they serve.  Oysters, French wines, some chilled prawns, clams, sea urchin, and maybe an apple tart if the owner is feeling up for it that day.  While seemingly limiting at first glance, Régis' truncated menu translates to no less than the highest quality raw bar in all of Paris.  Even one of the previously mentioned books is almost entirely focused on Huitrerie Régis.

Huitrerie Régis oyster fork

At Huitrerie Régis, they do not separate the bottom adductor muscles from oysters, providing a special fork for you to do so on your own.  This is actually standard in almost all of France too.  From my understanding, there are two rationales behind it.  First, oysters are to be consumed at peak freshness, and keeping them intact as much as possible right up to consumption achieves this.  Great, if you'd like to believe that.  Second, much more interestingly and logically, this prevents a lot of aforementioned fraud.  As certain oysters grew in popularity throughout the 20th century, less scrupulous vendors would take lower quality oysters and place them in recognizable shells, selling them as Belons or claires.  Keeping the adductor attached demonstrates no funny business has transpired.  This is more of a best practice than regulation, but it seems to be widely observed by the French and I can appreciate that.

Mixed Dozen huîtres creuses with two huîtres plates and crevettes de Madagascar

  As for my meal at Huitrerie Régis, I enjoyed a mix of fines de claires and speciales de claires Yves Papin from France's oyster basket, the Marennes-Oléron basin, along with speciales perles noires  and plates Cadoret from the famed Riec-sur-Bélon region.  All were perfectly shucked and presented, something that's surprisingly hard to find when dining out for oysters anywhere in the world.  As for the quality, I hope not to offend here, but the claire oysters reminded me a lot of Irish oysters the few times I've had them.  I mean that in the best ways.  The fines were firmly textured and salt forward, with a sweet seaweed finish.  The speciales were similar, just fuller bodied with a richer mouthfeel.  The plates, or proper Belon flat oysters, were much more mild than the variety we grow stateside.  They certainly had that familiar coppery metallic flavor, but I got much more of a luscious, sweet cream finish from them.  Very tasty.  But, far and away, the perles noires were my favorite.  Quite briny up front with a toothsome crunch, almost like a raw clam, and a super clean, crisp finish.  I fully understand the hype around Belon River oysters after tasting these gems, as well as the hype around Huitrerie Régis.  I couldn't have imagined a better Parisian oyster experience.  

La Cagouille

La Cagouille's Unassuming Entrance

My third stop was completely based on real time, in-person, Parisian recommendations.  I'd done a bit of research to pick out Le Dôme and Huitrerie Régis, as well as Clamato, which I was unfortunately unable to visit.  But, with any trip, I like to leave room for local and industry insights.  I've talked about it before, but online forums like Yelp or TripAdvisor rarely get things right, and established media like Eater or The Infatuation often leave out several quality places.  So, I started asking around.  My wife's good friend and our host gave me a few recommendations.  A local butcher down the street, who happened to speak immaculate English, provided a few more.  Then, my server at Huitrerie Régis rounded the list out with some additions.  Clamato was mentioned a few times, as was Le Duc.  I'd previously identified both in my own research as potential stops.  However, there was one restaurant on all the lists that somehow had escaped my Google deep dives on Parisian seafood, and that was La Cagouille. 

La Cagouille Menu

Demurely cloaked behind some greenery at the base of a Montparnasse apartment complex, La Cagouille was opened in 1981 with a simple credo - Poissons, Vins et Cognacs or Fish, Wine, and Cognac.  And the menu, written out daily on white boards, reflects this approach.  While the interior channels Mediterranean yacht from the Eighties with captain's wheels and sail pulleys all over the walls, the menu couldn't be more straightforward.  Fresh ingredients prepared simply and paired with flavorful sauces.  Quintessentially French.  Also, based on the clientele, I was confident the recommendations were spot on.  Whereas Le Dôme was an eclectic mix of Americans, Japanese, Swedish, etc., La Cagouille was 100% French, elder French at that.  Pretty sure I was the only diner under 50.  Decades of experienced French palates all in one place for lunch was promising.

As it was abundantly obvious I was American, the owner was kind enough to come over and translate the majority of the menu for me as best he could.  We both filled in the rest with some quick Google translate.  Oysters, crudos, scallop tartare, grilled octopus, fried smelt.  It all sounded delicious.  I ordered couteaux beurre citronné (razor clams citrus butter) and st-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil (grilled john dory with butter and chervil).  

Couteaux beurre citronné and St-pierre grillé beurre et cerfeuil

Honestly, there's not much to say about La Cagouille other than it was really good.  And I mean really fuckin' good.  Much praise owed to those who recommended this place.  The razor clams were incredibly fresh and flavorful, and covered in a bright citrus butter sauce with candied orange peels.  The john dory was a perfectly charred medium-rare and paired with a deep, herbaceous butter sauce.  Isn't there a famous saying?  "What are the three secrets of French cooking? Butter, butter, and more butter?"  It's likely a bit more complicated than that at La Cagouille, but all the butter certainly didn't hurt.  Whatever their secrets are, I hope they keep them up for another thirty years.  I highly recommend La Cagouille to anyone visiting Paris, and it will genuinely be my first stop whenever I make it back. 

Restuarant Chez Michel

Chez Michel's Beachside Entrance

Final stop for our family vacation was the beautiful port city of Marseille.  As the oldest city in France, dating back to 600 B.C., Marseille has a rich history as a cultural nexus for art, philosophy, literature, sport, architecture, and of course, cuisine.  And no dish is more famous or representative of that cuisine than bouillabaisse marseillaise.  I'll admit that before this trip, I had a very loose sense of what bouillabaisse was.  I thought it was just a French seafood soup or stew, endemic to Marseille, with differences based on style and ingredient availability.  Fish stock, maybe clarified, maybe with tomatoes.  Plenty of seasoning and a variety of vegetables.  Clams?  Why not.  Some sort of white fish?  Of course.  Mussels, shrimp, squid, crab?  Sure, whatever you've got.  However, what I learned was quite the opposite.

The word bouillabaisse is a combination of medieval Provençal Occitan words bolhir (to boil) and abaissar (to lower).  The soup base is brought to a vigorous boil to extract the flavors of the ingredients, then brought down to a simmer to both infuse those flavors and gently cook the seafood, which is added at the end.  Like most seafood stews or chowders, bouillabaisse's beginnings are hotly debated, but likely started with humble fishermen.  Whether they were Greek, Arabic, Roman, North African, or of various French origins is at the crux of that debate.  Either way, the story is likely the same.  Fishermen would sell their quality catch at the market and piece together the remaining scraps or bycatch to feed their families.  The best way to stretch these, and make them flavorful, was by making a stew.  To this day, for most native Marseillais, bouillabaisse is a dish reserved for family, usually made at home, and rarely enjoyed at restaurants.

Bouillabaisse Ingredients via TaseAtlas

In the mid-19th century, bouillabaisse began regularly showing up on restaurants' menus in Marseille.  Soon, it took hold as the city's emblematic dish, becoming more popular and more demanded.  From a poor man's to a posh man's meal, affluent tourists started paying top dollar for an "authentic" bouillabaisse in Marseille.  Much like the aforementioned oyster deceit, some less reputable operations began exploiting bouillabaisse's popularity by hawking poor, inauthentic, or even deceitful versions to these none-the-wiser tourists.  Contemporary investigations still regularly show widespread fraud in the seafood industry, bouillabaise included.  In reaction to the diminishment of their beloved dish, over a dozen Marseille-based restauranteurs came together in 1980 and established la Charte de la Bouillabaisse Marseillaise or the Bouillabaisse Charter, codifying bouillabaise's ingredients, preparations, and presentations.  Those rules are:

• Fresh, never frozen, local Mediterranean fish must be used
• Rascasse (scorpion fish) must be a base for the soup
• At least three other fish from a variety of conger eel, john dory, skate, red gurnard, red mullet, monkfish, or weever fish must be included in the base for the soup
• Other required ingredients include saffron, fennel, high quality olive oil, tomatoes, garlic, and onions.
• The soup should be served first, with additional fish or shellfish presented separately and filleted tableside (preventing mislabeled cuts of fish making their way into the soup)
• Garlic croutons and rouille, a spicy pepper and saffron aioli, should be served alongside the soup   

This sounded an awful lot like European Union food or beverage protections, much like pizza napoletana, champagne, and many other products or dishes have.  I have a weird, paradoxical relationship with culinary protections.  On one hand, I fully appreciate them, even want for them in the States in many ways.  They ensure quality, benefit consumers, preserve producers, and maintain tradition.  At the same time, they can undeniably stifle innovation.  In more extreme circumstances, they can be emblems of hyper-nationalism and thinly-veiled bigotry.  There's certainly an issue with innovation when it comes from those who don't fully understand and value foundational tradition.  Disrupting is fashionable right now, and everybody's eager to be the next big disruptor.  However, things too frequently go awry when wannabe disruptors aren't well educated on that which they're disrupting.  Sure, there's something to be said for not being indoctrinated and remaining an outsider, but fully understanding the logic and reason for an industry's landscape is a baseline requirement for the credibility to disrupt it.

Now, I fully understand the founders of the Bouillabaisse Charter didn't have the next Steve Jobs of seafood stews in mind when drafting the guidelines.  Their goal was to curb the debasement of bouillabaisse marseillaise with lower quality frozen and fraudulent exploits popping up all over the city.  Who knows, though.  Maybe they were the true visionaries who saw A.I. generated, 3D printed bouillabaisses on the horizon.  Jokes aside, they did acknowledge the importance of the cook's artistry and innovation in the Charter's introduction:

Fresh Fish Display at Chez Michel

"It is not possible to standardize cooking. Indeed it is an art in which success depends on the chef's savoir-faire. Bouillabaisse, however, the most typical dish of Marseilles, includes precise ingredients which are important to use if traditions are to be respected and the customer is not to be cheated."

The Bouillabaisse Charter is also not an enforceable regulation, like other EU culinary protections.  It's more of a coalition of restaurants subscribing to standards and practices to guarantee quality and safeguard the bouillabaisse brand.  Makes sense, and I genuinely applaud that effort.  But, after learning all this, where the hell was I going to get my bouillabaisse?  After some research, I found a restaurant that was the reported "local's choice," the past recipient of a Michelin star, and even frequented by French presidents.  This was Chez Michel.  Politics aside, I figured if it was good enough for Macron, it was good enough for me and my daughter.  The whole family joined, but she's my only adventurous seafood eater.   

Bouillabaisse Fish Presentation

Located in the Les Catalans neighborhood of Marseille overlooking the city's beach, Chez Michel is a family owned brasserie that has been specializing in Provençal seafood since 1946.  Four generations of bouillabaisserrie have made it local institution.  Matter of fact, bouillabaisse is pretty much the only thing on the menu aside from some grilled fish, a few oysters, and fried squid.  As previously noted, native Marseillais typically make their own bouillabaisse at home for family and special occasions.  However, if they are dining out, Chez Michel is the reputed go to.  The interior feels like you're still walking into 1946, almost like a scene from Big Night, just French and with a giant, whole fish display front and center.  The restaurant is full of copper mirrors, vintage blinds, and Baroque murals of seascapes.  The wait staff even look like tactful French pirates with gold ring earrings and silver, marauder style haircuts.

Bouillabaise de Chez Michel

My first bouillabaise marseillaise

After being seated, I promptly ordered a bouillabaisse for one in my infantile French.  No English here.  The server even jokingly looked to my daughter, thinking she may be of help in our language barriered communications.  Once we understood each other, he swiftly departed and returned to show me the uncooked whole fish for my meal.  Red gurnard, conger eel, and weever fish.  Respect for the transparency.  About 20 minutes later, another server returned with a simmering cauldron and a plate of the poached whole fish with potato rounds.  He ladled the deep orange, saffron packed soup into my bowl, then proceeded to filet the fish and present them separately, classic marseillaise style.  Ample amounts of garlic croutons and rouille were provided as well.  I know, I was seriously skeptical of mixing mayonnaise into my seafood soup, but it bizarrely works.  The fish were cooked and filleted perfectly and had tons of seasoning from the poaching.  The soup itself was not just deep in color, but flavor as well.  Slightly spicy with heavy garlic and thyme notes and a dominating oceanic, low-tide essence.  It reminded me of the gaminess in lobster tomalley or crab fat, and had a unique, borderline gritty texture.  With such intense flavor, the rouille now made sense to cut through and brighten the richness.  I did enjoy it, but a single serving was plenty.  It's certainly not a dish for the faint of seafood heart.  However, if you're a seafood fanatic, it's an absolute must on the bucket list.  My 2-year-old loved it, so I imagine you would too.

While this was admittedly a ton I was able to pack into a brief family trip, it's just the tip of the Fruits de Mer Français iceberg.  I still want to explore the history of sauce américaine, visit the oyster farms in Marennes-Oléron, try authentic salade niçoise in Nice, find the best matelote in Alsace, and eat moules in Normandy.  There's likely much more I'm not even aware of, so please do share.  I'd love to return to France to explore further, and hope you have the opportunity to visit soon too.

Bises,

The SF Oyster Nerd