BRUCE PALLING | UNCORKED | February 21st 2008

Bruce Palling

Whither the third Michelin star for Château les Crayères? Bruce Palling investigates, sampling pigeon aspic, lacquered eel and a superb Jacquesson 96 extra brut prestige ...

Special to MORE INTELLIGENT LIFE

It is intriguing the way that one's whole perception of something can be based on a trifling anecdote or incident that eventually turns out to be completely right—or more frequently, dead wrong. In my youth, I could never imagine liking Wagner, based purely on the fact that he was a favourite of Goering and Hitler. Parsifal has since become the opera that I must see if it is on within a 200 miles radius of wherever I happen to be living. Third Reich gangsters, however, remain firmly at the top of my list of villains.

I admit there was also for many years distaste on my part for the cuisine of Château les Crayères, even though at the time I had never eaten there under its founder, Gerard Boyer, or the current Ducasse-inspired Didier Elena. What was the cause of this prejudice?

It sounds a bit stupid now, but it was all based on a weekend in Château de Bagnols, a magnificent 13th-century castle hundreds of miles away in Beaujolais, in 1993. The connection was that the chef at this splendid hotel had trained under Boyer before decamping here to earn them a star (which he managed the following year). The cuisine was hopelessly grand without any purpose except to impress. Admittedly, we had just had a faultless five-hour lunch at Troigros before arriving, which was an especially hard act to follow. I hated the fancy but tasteless food at Bagnols so much that on Sunday I managed to get the kitchen to agree to serve me the food the staff was eating: a simply prepared andouilettes in a mustard sauce with roast potatoes.

Reflecting on this later, I realised that perhaps it was a bit unfair to blame Château les Crayères for this chef's boring cuisine—after all, perhaps he had been found wanting there and asked to search elsewhere to practise his art.

So, more than 15 years later, I finally decided to see what the cooking was like at this temple to haute cuisine in Reims. But getting there was harder than it sounds—or maybe it was because of my pronunciation. When I asked an especially surly hotel clerk in Calais for the road to Reims, she replied with a satisfied sneer, "Rhum? Rhum? I have never heard of this Rhum. Write it down, write it down!"

I am happy to report that even without the assistance of this tiresome person, Reims is conveniently blazed at the top of every exit sign from Calais and is a mere two and a bit hours down the auto route.

Reims is somewhat more spectacular than its near neighbour Epernay, in part because of its two glorious cathedrals, both worth visiting before driving on to Les Crayères. The entire layout of the city exudes wealth and prosperity. Before reaching the chateau, you must drive past a vast complex of buildings belonging to the Champagne House of Pommery, the prosperous family who once owned Les Crayères.

The chateau itself is surrounded by its own 17-acre park, which succeeds in creating the fantasy that you are deep in Arcadian countryside rather than on the edge of a large city. The turn-of-the-last-century Empire style of the building would be at home on Bellevue Avenue in Newport. Two semi-circular enclosed sundecks protrude from the façade and it is here that the experience begins with an impressive selection of champagne by the glass, including Cristal 2000 at €40.

Although there is a great deal made of tasting various champagne vintages with the menu--including an entire meal based around different ones--it is not forced down your throat the way it is, say, at Château Saran, the private chateau of Dom Perignon. Perhaps Les Crayères is more mature about the benefits of drinking wine with food because the proprietor also owns Château Phélan-Ségur, an impressive Cru Bourgeois from St Estèphe in Bordeaux.

A selection of preliminary starters includes pastry puffballs, which for some reason are served at every single grand restaurant I have eaten at in France in recent months. They are normally accompanied by thin slices of Serrano or Parma ham, but in this case they weren't. Instead, there were crisps made with parmesan and some unmemorable little glasses of egg and vegetables that amuse for a few seconds and then are completely forgotten. To complement these, we were drinking Gosset Rosé, which stood the pace.

We then shuffled into the main dining room, which is spacious and as serious as you might expect in such a grand environment. The other guests looked as if they would be very much at home with Nicolas Sarkozy—one couple were dripping in gold over white clothes, while another rather grumpy overweight man in a polo shirt looked as if he was there under duress. One heartening sign though was a large family around a circular table, including a gurgling baby and an excited child.

We were then subjected to another round of amuse-gueules, the most satisfactory one being a fried ball the size of a quail's egg perched on the severed neck of a champagne bottle. Once you bit into it, a pleasant release of champagne exploded very gently in your mouth. By now we had politely deflected Mathieu Cré, our charming sommelier, from serving us exclusively champagne for the remainder of the meal, but not before he opened a superb Jacquesson 96 extra brut prestige. This has the backbone and power of the 96 vintage and was more than capable of going with an entire range of food.

The first course was served in two discrete plates, the first being pigeon in aspic with fresh dates and black olives plus a tiny leaf of endives and a soft cooked pigeon egg on top (aspic de pigeonneau, dattes fraîches et olives noires) It was truly sensational—luscious and intense, it instantly showed the great talent of the chef. Next to it was a strange dark oval covered with pink slivers of pigeon breast (une poitrine servie tiède; and before we blunted the cutlery, the waiter alerted us that the oval shape was in fact a hot stone to keep the pigeon warm). The juxtaposition of these two completely different versions of pigeon worked brilliantly.

The virtuosity continued with the next course, which was cubes of lacquered eel in an intense sauce accompanied by celery rémoulade (anguille laquee à la Bordelaise, céleri rémoulade). Admittedly, not everyone likes the slippery oily texture of eel, but as long as it is fresh, it can do no wrong in my book. The accompanying wine was a Dizy Macon Viré Clessé Vielles Vignes 02 from Cave de Viné, an elegant white burgundy that was not going to improve with any more ageing.

I should have realised that Didier Elena was not only one of Ducasse's star apprentices, trained at the Louis Quinze in Monaco and launched Essex House in New York; more importantly, he was responsible for a great deal of the writing in Ducasse's "Grand Livre de Cuisine", the most impressive book from a three-star chef since Point's "Ma Gastronomie" was published more than half a century ago.

At this point the table diverged, with me sticking to the menu with small spaghetti mixed with mashed black truffles and foie gras cubes (spaghettini liés à la truffe noire écrasée, foie gras en gros dés), followed by barbequed line-caught whiting with onions and herbs (merlan de ligne et oignons doux, thym-citron-safran, "B-B-Q"). Again, there was a precision and purpose to the flavours, which worked a treat.

While most of the table was nodding and shaking their heads in dumb wonderment, another member of our group was actually served something even superior: a thick piece of cod and black truffles (pictured) surrounded by a peppered sauce of artichokes (epais morceau de cabillaud à plat, en brandade et truffes noires, artichauts poivrade). This was the most spectacular dish of the day—the fish was flakily perfect and the truffles were casually absorbed into the flesh.

We had finished off the Jacquesson and the Macon by now so we moved on to the 96 Phélan-Ségur. The wine was a treat, with all of the gutsiness of the 96 vintage, but sadly neither of the two meat dishes were a patch on the previous fish and game ones. The milk-fed veal failed to provide any significant taste, though the Reims ham with spinach had more flavour (veau de lait doré au beurre de noix, endive de pleine terre, jambon de Reims). The pork selection in the other dish (pictured) was not exciting or diverse enough, given how marvellous it looked on the plate (carre de cochon « Ibaïona » rôti- glacé au jus, la poitrine fondante parfumée à la sauge).

Funnily enough, none of us really minded this slight dip in the culinary road—perhaps the chef is simply more at ease with fish and game. With cooking at this level, I am more than prepared to cut the chef some slack, as there is nothing more tedious than constant nitpicking.

After this, with the sun dipping on the horizon, the glitzy guests returned to their Ferrari Scaglietti, presumably to make an hour-long dash to Paris—easily achievable in such a car.

We were left to consume the pudding, a triple-layered chocolate cake with a range of sorbets, soufflés and mousses on the side (choclat « pur Caraïbe » et griottes pour amateur de cacao). This came with a Banyuls 03 from Abbé Rous Cabidos, which while perfectly drinkable, was not in the same league as even a minor Sauternes or superior Tokay.

After this majestic display, no one felt overfull or stuffed; it was well paced and exciting. Les Crayères lost its third star in 2004 after the end of the Boyer era. Will it be restored back in the next few weeks, when the 2008 "Michelin Guide" is published? Somehow, despite the brilliance of most of the cooking, it will be a hard struggle, although its demotion occurred just before the appointment of Jean-Luc Naret as head of the red guides. Whatever happens, it is definitely worth a detour, as long as you can avoid seeking advice from rude staff in Calais.

64 Blvd Henry Vasnier
51100 Reims
Tel: +33 (0)3 26 82 80 80
Email crayeres@relaischateau.com
Set Lunch €65
A la Carte from €130 to €200
Rooms from €300 to €575

(Bruce Palling spent 30 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia and Africa, including a posting as the first South Asia correspondent of The Independent. He lives now in London, where he writes about food, wine and travel, and is working on a history of regime change.)