Restaurant review: Le Skiff Club, Pyla sur Mer

#France #Arcachon #RestaurantReviews #MichelinStar

Abracadabra Verdict: #Abracadabra - magic everywhere!

Food: #Tantalizing #Organic #LocallySourced #GramWorthy

Ambience: #Unique #GramWorthy #HighDesign #Romantic

Service: #Attentive #Courteous #Exceptional #Friendly

Go for: #FineDining #Seafood #GreatWines #VegetarianOptions #VeganOptions #GlutenFreeOptions #Dessert #Ambience #Service #Romantic #Mocktails #GandT

“A certain elegant humility is best to emphasize contact with the ocean.”

~Philippe Starck”

Chef Carrade is of Aragonese origin, and his wife is from La Reunion, and he combines these influences, along with his love for the seafood and produce of the region into his food philosophy seamlessly at Le Skiff Club. As he stood there in his black apron, surveying now the kitchen, and now the diners, his jovial smile – one you might expect from one of your average beachgoers on holiday – belied the perfection he clearly was looking for in each dish that left his kitchen. In stark contrast, his menu was simplicity itself – 3 pages with 4 items each for the starter, the main and the dessert. Each dish listed a few of its ingredients, and while I’m torn about whether I’m a fan of this, Amandine (our gracious server) explained each of the options to us. It’s a unique menu as there is no price per dish, just prices if you take 2, 3 or 4 items. She helpfully hinted, “If you want, you can have 4 desserts too!”. Tempting! Of course, it goes without saying that all his produce is locally sourced, with the region’s terroir and seasons have the greatest say on the menu on offer. As with all great chefs, he knows the names of his suppliers by heart, and while they’re not on centre-stage at his restaurant, he ensures that his dishes do justice to the wonderful work they do in the farms or in the seas to bring him the very best of what nature has to offer.

Before we even saw the menu, Amandine asked us if we’d like to start with some aperitifs. “No, thank you”, said no one ever to an aperitif! I was quickly equipped with a lovely Degrenne tulip and chose to go with the Drappier Rose – a crisp, dry rose champagne, made with pinot noir grapes, with a distinctive aroma of red berries – extremely refreshing given how warm it had been outside! After this, she checked if we had any allergies/food intolerances as they can do an entire menu catering to most requirements - it was a nice touch and she was very specific in her questions, and you could see that they wanted to ensure an amazing meal experience for all guests. This was complemented by an amuse-bouche with 3 elements – the first was a delightful sip of lobster bisque, topped with salty bright orange salmon eggs and a sweet rose petal; the second was a soft pillow of bread stuffed with freshwater crab, honey, Dijon mustard and topped with black caviar; and the last was a perfect tranche of avocado with a slice of shrimp, topped with cocktail sauce, edible nasturtiums and a sprinkling of freshly crushed black pepper. In addition, there were 3 types of bread on the table – corn bread, traditional crusty country bread, and sesame bread – served with a seaweed butter and a mustard butter. You can always tell the quality of a restaurant by the bread, and the bread here was truly splendid.

While N opted for the red mullet (his favourite fish, I might add), I opted to go vegetarian for my main course today, and Chef Carrade kindly agreed to make for me a ‘vegetarian surprise”. Scotti – the sommelier – came around soon after with the cocktail/mocktail list (G&T's are a particular speciality) and an excellent wine menu. Without a doubt, she was one of the best at her craft in the many restaurants I’ve had the privilege to dine at, and I have no doubt that she’ll be world renown someday. As she knew our dinner selections, she recommended a white wine which was, in her words, “in between sweet and dry, grassy and with a hint of petrol in the bouquet.” Petrol? Mais, non Scotti! I insisted that I’d like something a bit more floral. She was insistent in return, “Trust me madame, it is one of the best options for your dinner tonight. For it may be a surprise to you but I have consulted with Chef.” Her confidence bordered on audacity, and I was taken entirely! And when the bottle of Chateau Pape-Clement was brought to the table and uncorked, the whiff of petrol was unmistakeable, yet somehow not out of place. The wine itself was exceptional – a showy wine if you will – velvety and rich, with notes of citrus and honeysuckle, finishing with an aftertaste of delicate sweetness.

There was also a pre-appetizer of salted cod, in-season morels, green asparagus, grilled octopus, served with béarnaise and olive oil warmed with truffles. Truth be told, this was one of the best dishes I’ve ever had – the béarnaise and truffle were rich, the morels deliciously soft, the asparagus was a vivid green and crunchy, and the cod and the octopus brought the dish together and made it worthy of being served in a restaurant designed as a sailing club. The concept and execution here was flawless. For the starters, we had two contrasting dishes: one was a shadfish soup with sorrel, which was poured onto a deep plate with mushrooms, smoked adour salmon cubes (it’s a fattier variant of the wild salmon available in Europe, in particular in this region), a quenelle of herbs and xerez; the second was white asparagus with a light curry sauce (the chef’s tip of his hat to the cuisine of La Reunion), served with steamed langoustines that were sweet beyond reason, morels, orange-sage leaves and toasted hazelnuts. Both dishes were exquisite – well-rounded flavours that played well with each other (and the wine, I might add), and made with produce which you could taste was as close to farm to table as you could get.

(L-R) The pre-appetizer, the shadfish soup and the white asparagus

By this time, I would normally have been completely full, but today, I was simply excited to receive my vegetable surprise; and this was certainly one restaurant where over-indulgence was a definite risk! Our mains arrived – on warm plates, which is always a pleasure for me – and each had an explosion of colors that let us know those in the kitchen knew that summer had arrived. Instagram, anyone? The first was a plate celebrating the vegetables of the season – wild green asparagus tips, onions which tasted of sweet chestnuts, and baby heirloom carrots in multiple colors. This was served with two purees, one of white asparagus, sea salt and cane sugar, and the second of truffled mashed potatoes. N’s main was a pan-roasted red mullet filet, served with the same wild asparagus and a bisque.

I’m going to take a moment here to describe the bisque, because for me, this was truly magical. It is one of those flavours that stays with you, the kind of flavour you’ll recognize anywhere, not unlike your mother’s cooking. It was a spiny lobster bisque, originally prepared with lobster, sweet langoustines, vanilla, tarragon (and a few other spices), a dash of cognac or rum, and reduced until thick. It was served as an accompaniment to the mullet, and while the mullet was delicious, this bisque was undoubtedly the star. It was creamy and smooth, it tasted of the sea – which you could hear in the silence of the evening from outside – it was sweet and salty, it had depth of flavor from the tarragon and rum. Quite simply, this was perhaps one of the best bisques ever. We even asked for seconds to have on its own. For a while after this, we were just sitting there, staring at one another, repeating, “This was delicious” to each other, until Amandine re-appeared with the proposition of the cheese course. While tempting, we declined, and opted to move straight to the dessert, given that we had figured out we couldn’t reasonably ask for any more of the bisque!

However, I was indeed looking forward to the dessert – two had caught our fancy, and we were ordering both. Before the dessert arrived, we were treated to a pre-dessert which was a pavlova with raspberries and chantilly cream. I’m particularly partial to strawberries, in particular mara de bois – the wood strawberries which have a unique musk fragrance – and the first plate had a bright red sugar sphere, filled with an incredibly airy and flavourful mousse of mara de bois. This was placed on a layer of wild strawberries – the small red ones, that look like schoolchildren with their uniforms a bit awry – which was in turn placed on a pistachio biscuit with a vanilla crumble. It was served with a sweet and sour raspberry coulis poured onto the plate and a quenelle of raspberry ice cream, decorated with a golden loop of sugar, which in my opinion should have been a halo around the pastry chef’s head, because he must have been an angel to come up with this plate of magic. Instead of the usual, “Et voila”, she could have said “Abracadabra” because I was transfixed as an audience member is when a magician performs his showstopper. The second dessert was wonderful too, with Haitian chocolate (66% cocoa to keep the right level of bitterness) made into a smooth ganache, shaped into a long bar and placed on top of a crunchy praline biscuit. This was served with a light argan oil and yoghurt ice cream which was filled inside a chocolate cigar (perfect to offset the richness of the ganache) which was delicately balanced on top of the ganache. N loves chocolate and this was heaven for him, and he washed it down with an espresso, leaning back into his chair with a satisfied sigh of utter contentment.

When we ended, Scotti offered us a digestif and came with four options on a wonderfully old-school trolley – a rum from Venezuela, two whiskeys – one Japanese, one Irish, and French calvados. “Next time,” we promised, and we began to leave for our hotel with some mignardies and two caneles in a bag. As we were leaving, Amandine asked us if we’d like a photo with the chef. I was amazed that he even thought of this at the end of a long day, and of course, I gladly accepted. Chef Carrade was so kind and polite, and wonderfully upbeat and happy – something which we had transferred to his diners through the evening no doubt. I asked him how he felt having gained a Michelin Star so soon into his tenure here. He replied, “We are fortunate to have a great team and such amazing produce.” Elegant humility indeed!

As the sounds of the ocean accompanied us on our walk back, we felt like children returning from DisneyLand, entranced by the magical performances we were fortunate to experience. The only thing we cared about was when we could return there!