Cooks Pierre Toitou and Cyril Pham
The brand new Drum Cafe on the LUMA Basis in Arles is a wonderful instance of how good a museum restaurant can really be when somebody cares about serving good meals as an alternative of the standard bland industrial food-service catering too typically discovered at museums. The meals on the Drum Cafe is so delectable that it’s very a lot coming right here for a meal even when you’re not planning to the go to this new up to date arts complicated, which was just lately created from a decommissioned rail yard and train-carriage upkeep workshops.
My curiosity about this place was first aroused very early within the morning just a few weeks in the past on a prepare from Nimes to the airport in Marseilles after I appeared up from my guide simply lengthy sufficient to catch a sudden thrilling glimpse of the brand new Frank Gehry designed metal-clad tower that has change into the logo of the LUMA Basis. It got here and went so unexpectedly that my response was all intuition–backdropped by the morning sky, the tower was intriguingly unusual and oddly lovely.
I’ve been studying about LUMA ever since its creation was introduced by Maja Hoffmann, the philanthropist heiress to the Hoffmann Laroche pharmaceutical fortune, however hadn’t but discovered the time to go throughout a 12 months made so busy by the publication of my new guide MY PLACE AT THE TABLE: A Recipe for a Scrumptious Life in Paris (Mariner Books). Then I realized that Pierre Toitou, whose cooking I’d cherished when he was at Vivant and Deviant in Paris, had been forged with Cyril Pham as the primary cooks for the museum’s new restaurant, the Drum Cafe.
So on a gorgeous Indian summer time Saturday in Provence, Bruno and I headed south for lunch and a go to to the museum.
The restaurant is positioned on the bottom ground (rez-de-chaussée) of the Frank Gehry tower on the grounds of the LUMA Basis. Coming via the door, there’s a bar and some tables in a darkish lobby, whereas the primary eating room has a single massive horse-shoe formed desk on the backside of an atrium lined with guide cabinets and embellished by polychrome pipes overhead that jogged my memory of the Centre Pompidou; all of those years later, this architectural feint remains to be contemporary and enjoyable, too.
Seated, we instantly ordered two glasses of a scrumptious natural white wine made within the Camargue from Viognier grapes and a plate of panisses with cured anchovies and fried sage leaves to nibble on whereas we studied the menu. Ever since I first ate a panisse (a chickpea flour bar) in Good as a backpacking pupil a really longtime in the past, I’ve by no means been in a position to get sufficient of them, and those served right here have been superb.
The menu was fascinating, too, since Toitou is such a gastronomic vagabond. As I over-heard him explaining to a neighboring quartet, “My father (Jean Toitou, founding father of the Paris vogue label A.P.C.) is a Tunisian Jew and my mom is Russian and Norman. Rising up we ate loads of Japanese meals at dwelling, as a result of my dad and mom find it irresistible and traveled to Japan typically, however we by no means had French dishes like boeuf bourguignon, as a result of nobody knew learn how to prepare dinner them.” Toitou has cooked in all places from the Resort Plaza Athenee (Alain Ducasse) in Paris to London (Sketch by Pierre Gagnaire) to Uruguay. He’s additionally beforehand carried out a Pop-up in Arles with Arrmand Arnal of La Chassagnette and is an avid traveler.
All of this comes via in a quick however intriguing menu of principally Mediterranean dishes which are brilliantly jolted by strategies and substances from different cultures. These small-plate dishes that should be shared are kind of precisely what many individuals wish to eat proper now as we tentatively emerge from the COVID pandemic. To wit, this meals is contemporary, seasonal, well being, straight ahead and booming with umami, or simply the remedy for individuals who’ve change into bored by the boundaries of their very own expertise within the kitchen after cooking continuous for months.
Lastly, we settled on an oxtail terrine (presse de boeuf) with black olive mayonnaise and a salad of contemporary herbs and mushrooms in Satay sauce with chili oil and lime leaves. If the wealthy and brilliantly succulent terrine was profoundly French in the perfect traditions of rock of ages bistro cooking, the mushrooms registered like some kind of ecstatically good street-food dish you would possibly come throughout in Bali. A method or one other, each plates have been fantastically made, generously served and deeply satisfying.
It was fairly apparent that word-of-mouth was working, too, since most of the different folks having lunch round us have been curious and gastronomically adventurous locals, or the kind of people that help ingenious and inventive cooks in smaller cities and rural settings throughout France.
As depicted above, our fundamental programs would possibly look a bit ferocious however each dishes have been excellent. Selfmade cuttlefish ink cavatelli with a cuttlefish ragu was brightened by a pepperoncini fired purple blaze of melted ‘Nduja, the delicate sausage from Calabria that’s certainly one of my favourite kitchen helpers. (Why? Once I don’t have time to prepare dinner a sauce as wealthy and ruddy because the succulent cuttlefish ragout, ‘Ndjua provides loads of taste to pasta simply tossed with olive oil, capers and a sprinkling of smoked salt.) Frankly, I additionally appreciated the best way that this dish cocked a snook on the standard conventions of meals styling within the age of Instagram, too. What Toitou gave the impression to be reminding us is that style ought to all the time trump fiddly prettiness and that meals must be allowed to appear like, properly, meals.
The plating of the grilled marinated octopus tentacle posed on high of a fantastically made potato cake additionally appeared supposed to titillate with a primary impression of gruesomeness. A method or one other, it was wonderful, because the octopus has been marinated to present its meat a creamy tenderness and the char added fantastic taste to the dish, as did an Indian condiment, raita, which is yogurt with chopped cucumber, pepper and herbs. The potato cake was a extremely engineered model of pomme Anna, minus the big quantity of butter often discovered on this dish. As a substitute, the potatoes had been finely sliced, neatly shaped right into a loaf and baked, to create a garnish I might fortunately eat on a regular basis.
Since we have been planning to go to the galleries within the LUMA tower after lunch, we determined to share a dessert, a slice of tarta de Santiago. It offered as a kind of scrumptious spiced cake made with floor almonds and was garnished with prunes in spiced syrup.
Inquisitive about its origins, I poked round we obtained dwelling and found that it’s a recipe from Galicia in Spain that dates again to the Center Ages. Translated into English, its identify means ‘the cake of Saint James,’ a reference to the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that passes via Galicia to culminate on the metropolis of Santiago de Compostella. The highest of the cake is commonly embellished with powdered sugar and an imprint of the Cross of Saint James, however the model served on the Drum Cafe was bare, ecumenical and scrumptious. Curiously, the European. Union granted the Tarta de Santiago a PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) in 2010; which means that any qualifying tarta have to be made in Galicia and comprise a minimum of 33% almonds.
Pierre Toitou is in residence on the Drum Cafe till January 2022, when a brand new chef(s) will arrive, as a result of the concept of the Drum Cafe is to host a recurrently altering roster of various cooks in its kitchen, an more and more standard restaurant idea in all places.
N.B. The Drum Cafe is open just for breakfast and lunch.
Drum Cafe, LUMA Arles, Parc des Ateliers, 45 Chemin des Minimes – 33 Avenue Victor Hugo, Arles.Tel. (33) 04 65 88 10 00, Common 45 Euros. Open Wednesday to Monday 10am – 6pm, Closed Tuesday. Lunch menu served from midday to 3pm. Reservations strongly urged through web site: https://www.luma.org/en/arles/visit-us/eating-and-drinking-on-the-parc-des-ateliers/drum-cafe
