Get out your tiny violins, friends.
One unfortunate side effect of writing about restaurants for a living is that often, even something I love while I’m eating fades quickly from my memory. It’s part of the reason I document my eating adventures to begin with… and thus propagateth the problem. But I run no risk of forgetting my recent lunch at Shabour. It was a symphony of attention to detail that makes its Michelin star a no-brainer but also a surprisingly human side I found both novel and welcome.
Shabour, it must be said, was the last restaurant reservation I had before the Great Let’s-Not-Talk-About-It. I believe I was meant to visit a week after restaurants were closed and Paris went under lockdown, so I was thrilled to finally make it to the gorgeous counter overlooking the open kitchen with the very same dining buddy I was supposed to eat with all those moons ago.
Shabour is the brainchild of Israeli Chef Assaf Granit, boasting a menu marrying Middle Eastern influences and French flair with aplomb. The theme of the “Voyagette” tasting menu the day of our visit was a marriage of Middle Eastern flavors and French art de la table, and even as someone whose assessment of the aesthetic frequently leaves something to be desired (and I say this as the child of an artist and an interior designer…) I was overcome with the work that must have gone into sourcing the many elements quotidian and obscure that made appearances over the course of the meal.
We began with a glass of 2016 Santorini from Hatzidakis Winery, boasting a lovely lingering depth and a fresh salinity. It was expensive (as, frankly, were all of the wines), but it was the perfect pair (particularly with the foie… but more on that later.)
The amuse-bouche took influence from French mussel éclade and Turkish midye dolma, with a tongue-in-cheek playfulness that set us up perfectly for what was to follow. The mussel bon bon sat in a silver oyster shell in a small pool of black rice oil to evoke the rice in the Turkish street food and was topped with an oyster leaf. A cocoa butter shell gave the true sense of eating a savory, briny chocolate bonbon. The smokiness of the éclade was evoked with the chou puff on the right, sitting atop a Jerusalem stone pedestal. Chipotle chile and carrot pickle lent depth and richness to this bite.
The bread service was so phenomenal I must now eat my words regarding bagels in Paris. If all of my bagels could come from Shabour, with their fluffy interior, crusty exterior, and generous coating of za’atar, well then I wouldn’t need to smuggle Tal Bagels back in my suitcase, now would I?
Check her out, folks.
The bread service came with a rich yogurt dipping sauce. Only when we were offered seconds did we realize that most people probably don’t lick the bowl clean. (They are wrong.)
In competition for my favorite dish of the day was the Pan-Dan Yosha, a portemanteau of pandan and Chef Dan Yosha marrying fruit and seafood with a rich variety of textures, colors, and flavors. Poached apple and pair played with raw langoustine and cooked lobster; a yuzu gel and fresh currants added lovely acidity, and a smoked strawberry a touch of depth. Hiding beneath it all was a small pile of crispy fried freekeh.
And over the top came the pandan powder, served with a French sugar spoon – one of many single-purpose tools I had no idea existed but that I now want for my imaginary dream kitchen (second only to a Stilton spoon).
Next up, the Poule Lo Po (oh, how the French love their puns). This one was a play on poule au pot, a French stewed chicken dish, albeit pairing two livers – a fatty seared foie gras lobe and a gamier chicken liver – atop a pile of carrot seasoned with a welcome heavy hand of vinegar.
And that’s not all. An antique oil and vinegar service was used to add, in turns, a rich broth, a touch of oil, celery root, and mustard seeds to the top of our dishes.
I really enjoyed the spectacle of this dish, and pairing foie gras with acid rather than sugar was a very interesting way of breaking with tradition. (The wine, it must be said, was the perfect pair here.)
Overall, however, it was a bit rich-on-rich-on-rich, as foie gras is wont to be, and it was actually the meatiness of the chicken liver that made this dish for me.
Next came the fish course (Chraime A River… hehe) which saw Marseillaise bouillabaisse deconstructed into a pristine fillet of red mullet coated with a matbucha-inspired tomato sauce supposedly spiked with vanilla (though I got more of a pleasant burn of mild chile). Behind it is a finger of brioche evoking the toasts one often floats in the soup. Prepared like a savory French toast and topped with rouille and fennel, it was tasty but somehow lacking. I think it’s because the fennel was unseasoned, and indeed, the entire dish could have used a touch of salt. (Even that green puddle of zhug.)
The meat course came next, and despite not being a huge fan of lamb in theory, it proved to be one of my favorites. This dish took its inspiration from the plates, sourced from famed palace hotel restaurant Le Meurice, where Alain Ducasse became famous for his lamb navarin, here revisited as lamb in a puddle of rich red wine sauce and paired with even more zhug, made this time with carrot tops. Rich and moreish with just the right caramelized sweetness, it was an exquisite example of how daring simplicity can be.
(I obviously didn’t like it at all.)
Dessert was delivered in this hand-painted porcelain egg from Vienne.
Once opened, it revealed a complex marriage of textures and flavors. (Indeed, so complex we had to ask for them to be repeated once we dug in. And we’d only had one glass of wine.) This dish is a play on one of Shabour’s evening signatures: a tea-cooked egg evoking Sephardic haminados. This sweet version began with black-tea-soaked genoise atop which was served a carrot-onion relish, whipped tahini, pomegranate leaf ice cream, and crystallized mulukhiyah. The chef presented us with a sugar- and salt-brined egg yolk, encouraging us to guess what it was before he grated some of the yellow dust over the top. (This, by the way, is neck-and-neck with the lobster dish for my personal Best in Show.)
The interactive nature of Shabour is part of its charm, and having a chef present and explain each dish and even grace it with some last-minute additions.
“Class participation” is kept mercifully to a minimum, and questions like the egg yolk discovery or even the encouragement from our server to guess the components of this shot she shared with us (aniseed liqueur, lemon, and ginger, fwiw) are welcome rather than overbearing, as they can sometimes be. (If I’m never asked “Can I explain how our menu works?” again, it’ll be too soon.)
As is often the case with Michelin-starred spots, dessert is not the end of the meal. Rather, we were offered mignardises – a tray of buttery tahini cookies and a heaping, generous plate of perfectly ripe cherries and apricots – which we enjoyed with a glass of Hungarian Tokaj and Québécois ice cider. Both were delicious, but the latter was a new discovery for me, uniting the rich sweetness of apple with an almost molasses or maple syrup bitter undertone. It might need to become my new fall beverage of choice.
Also, may I just say that these cookies were probably about 79% butter, 12% tahini, and a touch of sugar, and if they ever mess with that ratio, it would be a big mistake.
One perfect quenelle of chocolate mousse was drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with Dead Sea sea salt. Both of us being generally anti-chocolate did not keep us from licking the spoons clean.
I could have stopped there, but I opted to finish things off with a Turkish coffee spiked with cardamom. It was a good choice.
Shabour’s team obviously boasts phenomenal attention to detail, whether in the food or in the décor. And given the thematic nature of the meals, it’s a place I’m not just hopeful I’ll return to, but one I’m clamoring to return to: for dinner, for another lunch, for another discovery.
Can’t wait to see what they cook up next.
Shabour – 19 Rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002