In taking up the kitchen at Racines, an enthralling bistrots a vins ( a bistro that makes a speciality of wines) within the Passage des Panoramas, proficient chef Simone Tondo returns to his roots in additional methods than one. Simply after arriving in Paris, Tondo labored alongside chef Sven Chartier when the latter ran the kitchen right here, so this new chapter in his profession is a homecoming of kinds. After which there’s the chalkboard menu, which affords a superb market-driven choice of principally Italian dishes, together with a number of from Tondo’s native Sardinia (most of the wines are Italian, too).
Fortunately, these dishes show the identical earnest, endearing, elegantly earthy type of suave comfort-food cooking that’s Tondo at his greatest. In actual fact at lunch there the opposite day, I discovered his meals to be extra assured and extra assured than ever, which makes for a change from the final time I sampled his delicacies. To wit, Tondo not too long ago had an eponymous restaurant within the twelfth Arrondissement the place I discovered his bistronomique (fashionable French bistro cooking) delicacies too sophisticated and missing the imprint of his character to be actually convincing. To make sure, the meals he cooked there was good, as a result of he’s a superb cook dinner, however I missed the sheer attraction and amiability of the dishes I ate the primary time I found his cooking some six years in the past.
Grilled langoustines @ Alexander Lobrano
After working in quite a lot of kitchens, together with Cracco in Milan, Mirazur in Menton and with Giovanni Passerini at Rino in Paris, Tondo first actually got here on the Paris eating scene in 2012 when he launched a superb restaurant, Roseval, deep within the twentieth Arrondissement with British chef Michael Greenwold (immediately it’s known as Dilia). Eating there with mates on an early summer time night time, we have been dazzled by the wonderful produce, imaginative culinary constellations of style and texture, and the stunningly exact cooking occasions this pair managed to realize in a tiny galley kitchen. The dish that stopped the dialog that night was one I nonetheless crave–a gossamer puree of smoked potatoes with sautéed onions, child clams and a crunchy veil of buttered bread crumbs. The crustaceans’ juices spiked the potato and the crumbs added some provocative texture to a dish that was apparently angelic, however stealthily fairly sensual. Sliced sirloin with anchovy cream and riced and pureed cauliflower and a scattering of recent tarragon leaves strewn throughout the plate was excellent, too, as was pork with smoked eggplant, pomelo, fingerling potatoes and dill.
I ate usually at Roseval till the pair of cooks went their very own methods and offered up, with Tondo finally opening his personal place within the house previously occupied by Gazetta, the up to date bistro of chef Peter Nilsson within the twelfth. And now following that journey, it was a pleasure to search out Tondo on this charming new setting with the pleasant Stephanie Rockford working the eating room.
Whereas we have been settling in over superb glasses of Chenin Blanc, Tondo despatched us a pair of grilled langoustines to nibble on, they usually have been excellent–napped with glorious olive oil, completely cooked, delicately perfumed with rosemary. And so we ended up sampling the entire first programs on the menu that day, together with a beautiful Mozzarella, treviso with speck and an outstanding plate of Italian charcuterie, together with a few of finocchiona, or fennel-seed seasoned salami, that’s purpose alone to purchase a aircraft ticket to Italy. Not pictured: the perfect polpette (meatballs) I’ve ever eaten.
Whereas we have been having fun with these starters, it occurred to me that Tondo has picked up precisely the place Pierre Jancou, the trend-setting founding father of Racines, left off when he offered the place. To wit, the kitchen right here relies on glorious seasonal produce ready in such a means as to boost its pure tastes. The brute goodness of nature was the axis of Jancou’s cooking right here, and Tondo has revived this gastronomic orientation, with the extra ability of getting a local’s data of the Italian produce he serves and prepares.
And it was whereas tucking into Tondo do-it-yourself pasta with a stunningly good tomato-sausage sauce that I discovered myself considering that we’re hungry for actual meals once more. Not chef’s meals, not swirls and pearls and powders and fronds, however the kind of meals that’s cooked with love in household kitchens. That’s what Tondo is providing right here, and it’s fairly fantastic. My extra calorically cautious pal loved her seared scallops with mesclun, too.
Lavishly effectively fed by the tip of his meal, as a result of Tondo is such a reflexively beneficiant cook dinner and host, we determined to share a single dessert. And since my good friend in all probability is aware of extra about dessert than anybody else I’ve ever met, I let her selected one for us.
Reality be instructed, I wasn’t that excited when she went for the tiramisu, in all probability as a result of I’ve had so many mediocre ones alongside the best way. However she hit actual bull’s eye with this one, as a result of she stated, “That is actually distinctive. It’s so gentle, and it exhibits {that a} dessert which has grow to be a stereotype will be fantastic once more if it’s made with nice produce and care.” The nice produce on this case is a particular marscapone that Tondo imports from Italy himself, and he whipped it into such an ethereal lactic cloud that it might need blown proper off the plate if a stiff breeze had come alongside. Dusted with good cocoa, it was scrumptious.
With a terrific listing of pure and natural wines, and Stephanie Crockford’s beautiful service type and nice humorousness, Racines is simply the type of place the place it could be simple to grow to be an everyday. So bravo to Simone Tondo, who’s cooking higher than ever.
8 Passage des Panoramas, 2nd Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01-40-13-06-41. Metro: Bourse or Richelieu-Drouot . Open for lunch and dinner from Monday to Friday. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Common meal 35 Euros. www.racinesparis.com
