RESTAURANTS • First Word
The Skinny: After almost 20 years as a loyal lieutenant to legendary chef Alain Ducasse everywhere from the Plaza Athénée to Doha, Romain Meder has gone solo, spreading his wings in one of the Left Bank’s silk-stocking neighborhoods at Prévelle.
The Vibe: The restaurant occupies an improbably brutalist duplex formerly home to La Garance. If La Garance was a favorite of mostly male politicians in ill-fitting suits, the early days crowd at Prévelle — where the snug second-floor dining room has exposed cement floors, with oak parquet and paneling — is noticeably hipper. Two men with elaborate dragon tattoos sat across from us, and there were courting creatives on our left and right, with New York chef Dan Barber — Meder’s closest American culinary counterpart — seated at a round table in the corner with two French friends. Service features friendly young servers in wheat-colored linen tunics, sharing their enthusiasm for the healthy New Age French haute cuisine that Meder pioneers here.
The Food: Sustainability and a zero-waste ethos are the compass points of Meder’s quietly avant-garde cooking, which surprises with a stealthy sensuality. His flavor constellations and texture juxtapositions are sly, shrewd, funky, and sometimes feral, a perfect example being his dish of chicken in a glossy black sauce of squid ink with shaved fennel and crunchy ribbons of raw squid. Roasted cabbage with caviar and fig-leaf gelée from our dinner tasting menu was another nervy example of the succulence accomplished with a certain kind of gastronomic austerity, which (caviar notwithstanding) mostly eschews traditional luxury ingredients like foie gras and lobster.
The Drink: An outstanding list of natural and organic wines, with an especially alluring and impressive selection from the Loire Valley, where the sommelier hails from.
The Verdict: By discreetly eschewing the virtue-claiming hair-shirtedness of so much sustainable 21st-century cooking, Meder looks set to have a major impact on the direction of French haute cuisine. –Alexander Lobrano
→ Prévelle (7th arr) • 34 Rue Saint-Dominique • Dinner Mon-Fri 19h30-22h, Lunch Tue-Fri 12h15-14h • Book.
Photo: Maki Manoukian