Disclaimer: I was a guest of the restaurant for this meal.
A preponderance of prix fixe tasting menus have taken Paris by storm of late, and I’m not complaining about it. If anything, I welcome it. If you are, like me, an unpicky eater (with the exception of the deadly buckwheat allergy that means I’ll likely never work for the Michelin Guide), a prix fixe allows you to glimpse into a chef’s ideal meal. In a well-constructed menu of this kind, each dish paves the way for the next, and the meal itself becomes not just the subject of conversation but a conversation with itself, sustained over the course of several hours.
If this sounds right up your alley, do not delay in getting yourself to Géosmine.
This 11th arrondissement restaurant is a relative newcomer to a neighborhood that already seems nearly saturated with great places to eat. Indeed, the 11th isn’t home to commerce or even much tourism, drawing folks from further afield chiefly for the quality of its food.
The 11th’s foodie focus is something Chef-Owner Maxime Bouttier considered from the get-go at Géosmine, a mindset he says is reflected in the purposefully pristine design of the restaurant. He made the choice to eschew adding art or too much color, anything that would draw the eye away from the food, intended to be the full focus of client’s time spent here (in my case, that amounted to a very happy three hours.)
At lunch, a five-course tasting menu (79 euros) begins with three amuse-bouches: a smoked mussel tartlet, a creamy black garlic paste, and a hot rillette croquette.
The first was probably my favorite of the three, with a lovely balance between smoke and brininess and a touch of heat more reminiscent of chile than the marigold petals sprinkled over top. (Marigold is the seasoning of the season; you heard it here first. Or maybe you didn’t. Either way, it’s true.)
The garlic cream was meant to be served with buckwheat grissini, but the chef quickly changed things up due to my aforementioned allery, serving instead a side of carrot chips to dip into the obsidian mound dusted with celery salt. This was certainly a gorgeous plate, but it didn’t have the same element of surprise as the first.
Rillettes is a common charcuterie offering here in France that I often offer to guests on my guided tours, seeing as it’s a bit more palatable than pâté for the uninitiated. Made of slow-cooked pork, duck, or goose that’s shredded and combined with even more of its own fat, it has a rich flavor and a texture not dissimilar to pulled pork.
I’ve never seen it served hot before. Its fattiness is only magnified with this approach, which might prove overwhelming for some, but I’m not afraid of fat, and the lemon accompaniment and tumble of earthy mushroom on top provided a bit of balance.
The next dish was a journey in more ways than one: scallops served with nasturtium root, house-fermented tomatoes, citron (aka cédrat in French) and a ponzu sauce. At first, I found the combination of flavors confusing, with an aniseed element dominating the palate. The combination of the tomato and citron was intriguing, but the scallop, just barely “tightened” (raidi – a new culinary term for me) with a kitchen blowtorch, seemed to get lost in the melee.
But the more I ate this dish, the more I found that the combination of acidity and bitterness balanced the sweetness of the nasturtium and scallop; by the end, not only had my dining companion and I pulled this dish apart – both figuratively and literally –, but that acidity and bitterness had done what first courses should do and opened my appetite, whetting my palate for whatever came next.
The next dish, however, proved divisive: I was immediately conquered by the sweet, earthy flavor of kohlrabi and spinach married with a fine dice of smoked eel. My dining companion found the combination a bit too rich. Either way, neither of us felt the sage’s presence or purpose in the dish.
Of course, this didn’t stop us from wiping our bowls clean with bread from nearby Graine, served with sweet butter whipped (foisonné – yet another new culinary term!) with pine nuts and topped with mushroom powder.
There was no disagreement regarding the next dish, which featured striped red mullet that had been dry-aged for ten days, a trend I’ve started to see emerging among some top chefs in the U.S. The fish is just barely kissed with heat to retain its beautifully soft texture, and given the way it was presented by our chef, we both opted to make the fish alone our first bite.
It was, of course, flavorful – we discussed our distaste for fish presented as “not too fishy” – but it was catapulted into greatness when married with the pleasant bitterness of slightly-charred kale and soft leek that had cooked in its own sweet juices. The bouillabaisse sauce, enriched with mullet liver and reduced until it was syrupy and thick, only served to bring all of these distinct elements together. Once we’d realized this, we built each bite to balance the components and enjoyed it even more when we saw how well they brought out the best in one another.
Before I delve into dessert, a word on wines. We enjoyed two hand-selected by sommelier Vincent Glaymann, who built the list over the course of the year before the restaurant opened. He chose a bottle from one of my favorite natural domaines – Clé de Sol – to carry us through the savory. This Silène was not a bottle I’d had the privilege to try before, but the combination of Gewurstraminer, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and Muscat retained much of the barnyardy funk you’ll find in many natural bottles, and while vinified dry, it revealed touches of fruitiness or bitterness, depending on which dish it was accompanying.
With dessert, Vincent opted to veer off the beaten track of sweet wines and instead served us a Tavel rosé from le Clau with a touch of maceration that brought out even more of its savory notes.
It was lovely with our pre-dessert, a vegetal combo of bergamot sorbet with watercress purée, green Chartreuse, and tarragon crumble. The dish provided a wonderful stepping stone between the savory and the sweet to come, but moreover, it showed how valuable it is for a chef to have dipped toes in both cuisine and pâtisserie. Often, even with a well-designed menu, there’s a disconnect when dessert comes, either because the chef lacks pastry experience or because the desserts are made by a whole different person. Here, neither is the case.
This proved particularly true with the chef’s signature, a chocolate dessert that hearkened to his time at Mensae, when I enjoyed a similar dish steeped in nostalgia and revelation. This generous bowl of chocolate mousse hid a variety of flavors and textures; we were encouraged to dig deep to reveal the heart of vanilla ice cream, the chunks of praline, all rendered even more pleasurable thanks to a generous pinch of fleur de sel over the top.
Divine.
Mignardises came in a unique piece of serving ware I immediately sent to my friend Camille Drozdz, co-founder of ICI l’Atelier, where we host our TERRE/MER retreats marrying cuisine and ceramics in the South of France. I’ve always loved her approach to crafting pieces that are both beautiful and useful, like the cheese-and-wine-pairing set she gifted me many moons ago, where the partly-hollow carafe covers the cheese board, serving at once as carafe and cloche.
On this dish, the top could be removed to reveal a bowl filled with cacao nibs in which were nestled two chocolate truffles.
House-made marshmallows sat on top, with an earthy yellow beet filling and an acidic coulis that seemed to have a touch of chile heat to it.
The truffles were exquisite: crispy and crunchy with toasted coffee and what felt like even more praline. The positively perfect conclusion to an intriguing meal filled with intelligence and heart.
I’ll definitely be back: hopefully to check out the mamelle (aka teat) that Meg Zimbeck so loved on her visit, but moreover to place myself once more in the hands of this incredibly competent, creative chef. I’m sure I will not come away disappointed.
Géosmine – 71 Rue de la Folie Méricourt, 75011