Finding Gourmet Food on Riviera

When you come to the Cote d’Azur you’ll find a few places to eat that are sure to express you to the top floor of food heaven.

Make a point of an evening in Nice (train or cab will get you there from most any point on the coast).

You’ll find the Chantecler, the two-star restaurant in the Hotel Negresco tres expensive, but worth the price, even with the bombardment of snobbishness from the maitre d’ down to the busboys.

You’ll probably enjoy talking to the chef, Jacques Maximin , if you can talk the maitre d’ into letting him out of the kitchen.

“The chef is not permitted to talk to the guests, Madame,” said the maitre d’.

But Maximin did emerge, looking far more disheveled and soiled than I remembered him at an interview in Los Angeles a few weeks before.

In Los Angeles, Maximin displayed a hautiness in keeping with his reputation as a Napoleon in the kitchen. A lion. In Nice he looked more like an overworked busboy. Luckily, he did not recognize me and I was able to conduct a typically brief and inane conversation that did not give away my alarm or compromise me professionally.

I found the Negresco dining rooms far less illustrious than Maximin’s cooking, but you can’t have everything; not even in France. You can, with confidence, however, order anything on the menu and enjoy every bite.

You’ll get somewhat of a preview of Maximin’s style if you visit Hotel Meridien in Newport Beach, where Maximin acts as one of the consulting chefs responsible for supplying the Meridien with a steady flow of proteges fresh out of French kitchens.

Several Small Courses

I had a fixed-price menu degustation (several small courses), that you probably won’t find available this season.

The Swiss chard mousse, a layered Bavarian (gelatin) dessert specialty of Nice, stands out in my mind. But then, so does la terrine de cochon de lait et son boudine d’oignons blancs , a terrine of pistachios, sausages and sauteed apples; ratatouille de crustaces (a ratatouille of red and yellow peppers and seafood in natural juices), and une rognonnade de lapereau en polenta (polenta topped with a rabbit stew) and soupe d’oranges a la meringue (got that?) .

I had driven up from Cannes, where I was staying at the Hotel Martinez, which overlooks colored umbrellas lining the rim of the beach like a Pointillist School painting, and the magnificent expanse of the azure sea.

I had a meal at the hotel’s La Palme d’Or restaurant that was as good as the one served at the Negresco, and was less expensive. Somehow the people were nicer at La Palme d’Or, perhaps because Richard Duvauchelle, the hotel director and one of the friendliest Frenchmen you’ll ever meet on either side of the ocean, sets the mood.

Duvauchelle has lived and worked in the United States, so he knows our ways. He also knows the Cote d’Azur from point to point, so ask to meet him if you are dining there.

Make a point, also, of meeting chef Christian Willer from Alsace, a Gault et Millaut Cle d’Or (golden key award) recipient on the climb. His smoked salmon mousse with almonds and red mullet with olives, lobster cassoulet served with tiny melon balls, foie gras with gooseberry topping, pigeon wrapped in spinach, gorgeous bread basket and fabulous cheese tray, were as memorable as the food at Negresco’s.

Perhaps one of the most charming of all meals was at La Ferme de Mougins, a hideaway farmhouse in Mougins, set like a jewel in the hillside. What a place. The food, by 28-year-old Patrick Henriroux, was outstanding. Henriroux received his Gault et Millau Cle d’Or award this year and deserves it.

Started With Lobster

We started with a lobster tail with tiny balls of avocado swimming in a cream sauce and served with greens on the side. Grilled sea bass was served with zucchini blossom pouches stuffed with duxelles (mushroom-wine sauce) . We would have happily stopped with the second dish, but it went on, as do menus degustation with a third, fourth, fifth and sixth, ending with Grand Marnier ice cream topped with fresh wild strawberries.

I especially enjoyed a watercress salad surrounded with cheese butter balls, which you can spread on toast. That was the fifth course. The fourth was simply baby lamb chops (two of them crossing swords) with morel mushrooms. The third, asparagus in a cream sauce with grilled sweetbreads. I mean heavenly.

Owner Henri Sauvanet talked us into a 1984 Sancerre rouge from Le Close Du Ray, a wine gaining in popularity in France and rare in the United States. I had tasted the white Sancerre but never red. We tried it again recently at Le Duc, a fish restaurant in Paris. White or red, grab it if you find it.

Joet Philippe Rostang’s La Bonne Auberge, a one-star restaurant in Antibes, cannot be compared with La Ferme, although it tries. My meal, while decent, was not the kind I would stop for again, but if you are in the neighborhood with nothing better to do, it’s worth an evening.

Rostang, whose son Michel owns and operates a two-star restaurant named after him in Paris, is ever ready to socialize. Prices are not cheap, but you’ll have a fairly satisfying meal with some of the latest dishes circulating around France. For instance, we had the same mullet with olives and the carpaccio of salmon among others tasted elsewhere.

We had a rather ordinary but noteworthy meal at L’Auberge Fleurie in Valbonne, a 15-minute drive from Cannes. It is an off-the-beaten-track country place, but a wonderfully refreshing contrast to the perfection of La Ferme. This is peasant stuff, the kind of meal the people at Rostang and La Ferme might look upon with disdain.

The guests are the country neighborhood crowd, which gives the place local color you will never find at any hotel. It’s simple, straightforward, without a single attempt at pretension or perfection. “Come and eat,” it says.

Can’t Go Wrong

You get food slapped onto the table by waitresses who could have not have been better cast for the role. And for around 100 francs you can’t go wrong. I had a first course of raw salmon carpaccio drizzled with olive oil and capers, followed by a rabbit roll served with potatoes. There was cheese and three desserts, including a chocolate opera and a banana Bavarian torte.

One my favorite meals of that week was at Chez Nou Nou, the bouillabaisse place down at Golfe Juan, where the locals like to go and where the touristy spillover from Tetou (the bouillabaisse place next door) inevitably land.

Tetou, unlike Nou Nou, is on the Michelin map, but it’s far more expensive than Nou and no more better or worse. I loved Nou Nou. It’s an experience if you’ve never eaten bouillabaisse, Southern style.

All the makings of the plate are brought to the table--the tureen of soup, the plateful of seafood sitting on the tureen, the cloves of garlic, the toasted bread, the olives, the crock of grated Parmesan, the butter, radishes and olives, and, of course, the rouille, the traditional bouillabaisse red roux, which you mix into the soup or spread on your bread.

What you do is rub the plate with garlic. Then add some seafood and pour the soup into the plate. Then add the garlic toast and top it with the rouille, grated cheese. Add any potatoes, if given. You eat bouillabaisse in bits and pieces--some soup, seafood, crouton, rouille. This wonderfully fussy meal will keep you busy and smiling down to the last drop.

But nothing beats the last and least expensive meal of my stay on the coast. Au Mal Assis in Cannes is a waterfront dive where the Cannese go for their Sunday meal out.

Fish from the Mediterranean is their specialty, as you might expect, and it’s done to perfection. I had the 65-franc (about $10.50 U.S. at the time) fixed-price lunch of fresh fried perch and French fries called friture that I can still taste. Don’t miss their gallette filled with fruit of the season for dessert. Superb.

There are two places you must see in Cannes before leaving. The open market, Marche Foruille, is filled with the sights and smells of Provence and you can walk to it if you are in Cannes. Make the mistake of taking a cab and you stand the chance of being yelled at from point to point by the cab drivers who don’t understand why Americans won’t walk.

Glorious vegetables, herbs and flowers are more like decorations than products to be sold. The fish, the sausages, cheeses, the oils and vinegar in mind-boggling arrays are inspirations to take home with you.

Then on Rue Meynadier in Cannes’ business area you’ll find the Ceneri, the premier cheese maker in town selling roblechon, comte, jura, tome, Brie and Camembert. You can taste before you buy. It’s the perfect stop for a picnic on the beach if all else fails.

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Chantecler, Hotel Negresco, 37 Promenade des Anglais, Nice. Entrees about 220 francs; fixed price menus from about 300 to 430 francs.

Chez Nou Nou, a la Plage, Golfe Juan, Cote d’Azur. Full bouillabaisse meal with dessert about 250 to 350 francs.

La Ferme de Mougins, Avenue Saint-Basile, 06250 Mougins. Entrees from 98 to 135 francs, fixed price about 280 francs.

La Palme D’Or, Hotel Martinez, 73 La Croisette, 06406 Cannes. Entrees from 100 to 265 francs, fixed price menus from about 240 to 420 francs.

La Bonne Auberge, Route Nationale No. 7, Antibes. Entrees from 150 to 300 francs.

L’Auberge Fleurie, 06560 Valbonnais. Full meals from about 72 to 130 francs.

Au Mal Assis, 15 Quai Saint Pierre, Cannes. Entrees from 35 to 80 francs (bouillabaisse from 400 to 800 francs for two).

Ceneri, La Ferme Savoyarde, 22 Rue Meynadier, 06400 Cannes.