When I first came to France, I was fourteen years old. A few nights before I was set to leave, my mother made a reservation at a New York restaurant called Artisanal, famous for their cheese. We had cheese fondue, and I will always associate that restaurant, that fondue, that foodie memory, with the beginning of my adventures in France. In fact, right before I started boarding school, I insisted that we go back: that restaurant would always feel like an embarkation point for me. A place where new things started and old things could be remembered and left behind.
What I didn’t realize was that my little sister does the same thing.
Seven and a half years after that first trip to Artisanal, my sister went going to the same restaurant right before she embarks on the same trip to France. Apparently, it has become the quintessential place to go any time anyone in my family goes abroad… something my brother calls an “Emily-thing.”
I’m not usually terribly impressed with cheese when I come back from France… I usually find them kind of one-dimensional. I have yet to find some great Camembert, but some of the cheeses that they brought back from the restaurant, like the gouda, goat and one hard cheese that I loved but didn’t get the name of, were just as complex and delicious as things I eat in France.
I realize that I’m probably going to recieve some sort of diatribe telling me about great Camembert that can be found in the States, and while that may be true, I’m happy enough to have found another kind of cheese I like in the States. Even if there are great American Camemberts, I may have to leave Camembert in France: it too has memories I associate with it, like baguette sandwiches I eat when walking through the city I now call home, seven years after my first trip to France and my first trip to Artisanal.
Artisanal
2 Park Ave
New York, NY 10016
(212) 725-8585