Maximin Finally Has Restaurant He Can Call His Own

The big, two-story room is opulently furnished, with red carpet, creamy yellow walls, gold-plated sconces, and tapestry-upholstered chairs. Shocks of indoor palm trees spill out from mirrored alcoves below a graceful second-story gallery. At the far end of the room, there is a full-scale elevated stage behind a two-part curtain, scarlet over gold.

Where exactly are we? Well, according to a well-dressed American woman sitting nearby and talking loudly to a friend in London on a futuristic portable telephone, “We’re at Maxim.” She almost has it right. Actually, we’re at Maximin, which--appearances to the contrary--is not a theater, but a theatrically pretentious but absolutely superb new restaurant, opened last summer in Nice by superstar chef Jacques Maximin.

Maximin earned his reputation cooking at Chantecler, the dining room of the posh Hotel Negresco, also in Nice. Initially, this seemed a perfect venue for him. But although Chantecler earned top scores from most French restaurant guides (a 19.5/20 rating in the Guide Gault-Millau, for example), it was reportedly ineligible for the culinary world’s ultimate accolade--three stars from the Guide Michelin. This, said insiders, was because Maximin was theoretically in charge of the Negresco’s more casual restaurant and even its room service in addition to Chantecler, and thus couldn’t be considered as a top-quality single-restaurant chef. In any case, Maximin soon grew too famous to be working for someone else.

No one was surprised two years ago, then, when he accepted a part-time post as consulting chef at Ledoyen in Paris, which had recently been purchased by noted nightclub owner Regine. And no one was surprised when, late last year, he found an old theater-cum-casino (built originally as a Nicoise outpost for the Folies Bergere) a few blocks from Nice’s central Place Massena, and turned it into a showplace of his own. It opened this past June.

What is perhaps surprising is the scale on which Maximin has set himself up. He is certainly nothing if not ambitious. He offers diners about a dozen appetizers and a dozen main courses a la carte , plus four prix fixe menus--traditional, Provencal, Italian (Italy is, after all, virtually next door to Nice), and a fourth which is based on a single theme, for instance, eggs, or perhaps tomatoes. Then he changes this entire catalogue of dishes once a week. The sheer abundance of culinary imagination (and mastery of technique) that this implies is simply amazing. Even more amazing, he seems to bring it off.

Maximin’s cooking might almost be called “contemporary rustic” in style; it is refined and technically impressive, but it is also based on French culinary basics, both classical and home-style, and it makes ample use of “poor” as well as “rich” ingredients. Thus, a week’s a la carte menu last fall included such dishes as a ragout of chicken kidneys and wild mushrooms, a gratin of mussels and crayfish tales in tomato sauce, zucchini blossoms stuffed with truffle mousse (a trademark Maximin creation), and a dessert of pears poached in red wine with pistachio ice cream and red wine gelee .

The same week’s prix fixe Provencal menu demonstrated Maximin’s abilities, and his respect for regional ingredients, particularly eloquently. It began with an unusual terrine of young, almost raw garlic pieces in a rich, herb-flavored gelee , accompanied by pieces of wonderful crusty toast spread with tapenade (olive and caper puree) and topped with plump, moist sardines. Next came a “salad” of thin bias-cut zucchini slices, each one topped with a tiny whole filet of sauteed rouget (red mullet), no more than 2 inches long, with each of these in turn topped with the merest wisp of Parmigiano cheese. The third course was animpeccable filet of roasted dorade royale (sea bream), with fried garlic and steamed cabbage dressed with vinaigrette.

At this point, the menu called for a filet of colineau or baby hake in parsley sauce. For this particular fish-sated diner, though, the waiter arranged to substitute what turned out to be the most memorable dish of the whole memorable meal--paper-thin slices of baby pigeon breast, rosy-pink and tender, formed into a crown around a mound of perfectly cooked red lentils, then topped with a slice of grilled foie gras , scattered with little pearls of carrot and zucchini, and finally surrounded with a garland of miniature cheese-filled ravioli. There were suggestions in the dish not just of Provence, but of Italy and California--and of both earth and air.

A selection of good Provencal goat cheeses followed, with homemade olive, garlic and walnut breads, and the meal finished, somewhat anticlimactically, with a thin galette of pears flavored with anise and almond custard.

There are plenty of good wines on Maximin’s wine list--not just the usual big names, but an admirable selection of fairly priced Provencal bottles. Service is highly polished. Originally, it is interesting to note, Maximin announced that he would add only a 12% service charge to his checks--unusually low for a top-quality restaurant--not raising it to 15% until he got three stars. He must already have three in his mind, though, since he ended up charging 15% to begin with.

Indeed, a week ego is apparently not one of Maximin’s flaws. That stage at the end of the dining room is where his kitchen is. And that curtain, believe it or not, rises solemnly about halfway through the dinner service--at which point, spontaneously, most of the diners applaud. Contrary to first reports, though, Maximin doesn’t come out to take a bow. In fact, he doesn’t come out at all to greet his customers, the way most top French chefs do. After Maximin and his assistants are finished cooking, though, it is possible for diners to tour the kitchen. And “tour” is the right word: There are special little pathways for visitors, past a window looking into the wine locker, past vitrines loaded with Maximobilia, past the showpiece oven, tiled with the names of other chefs that Maximin considers to be his peers. There might almost be red velvet ropes to regulate the traffic flow, a gift shop as you exit . . .

When the curtain goes up, incidentally, everybody in the kitchen may be seen to be wearing a tall white chef’s toque --except for Maximin, who is bare-headed. A jaundiced observer might be forgiven for wondering if perhaps that’s because his toque won’t fit his head anymore.

Leave the curtain closed, Jacques. Seal up the wall, even. Forget the show-biz. Let somebody else aggrandize you instead of doing it yourself. You don’t need all the hoo-ha. Just cook. You’re good at it. Real good.

Maximin, 2 et 4 rue Sacha-Guitry, Nice. Telephone: 93.80.70.10 (fax 93.62.37.79). Dinner for two, food only, $110-$220 a la carte; prix fixe menus at $60, $70, $100 and $110 per person (food only).

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