Unwittingly, I forearmed myself against this danger. On my way down to the Ardèche I broke my journey at an auberge in the Forest of Rambouillet, where Gault-Millau promised a 13-point “cuisine simple et ‘nature.’ ” The chef’s idea of simplicity that day was to stuff every vegetable in sight with a heavy pigeon farce and to serve these cannonball garnishes with—well, with whatever you ordered, be it my knuckle of lamb or my companion’s roast pigeon. After dinner I grouchily checked Gault-Millau’s take on the Hôtel du Midi. Only a single point more than for this temple of simplicity, and the promise of “fine and imperturbable classic dishes.” Something patronizing about that “imperturbable,” I thought. Not enough menu changes, they probably mean. Well, good. Imagine a theater critic calling Hamlet an “imperturbable classic.” Night after night, the same old perfect tragedy.
I confess to being prejudiced in the Midi’s favor before I arrived. The more so when the entrance terrace turned out to look exactly as it does in the photograph in my Elizabeth David. Apart from “Hôtel du Midi,” the façade still bears the name “Barattero” in large capital letters.The original Monsieur Barattero came from Nice to Lamastre in 1925 and opened his restaurant two years later; he died in 1941, and his widow, Rose, ran the establishment for the next 30 years or so, with one of her husband’s former apprentices, Monsieur Perrier, in the kitchen. After Rose’s death, the place passed to M. Perrier and is now run by his son Bernard. The current Mme. Perrier is front-of-house; a correct, almost stern figure at first, but (as Gault-Millau rightly, for once, observes) “full of intelligent suggestions.”
Our room was large, quiet, reasonably priced, and doubtless unsatisfactory to the modern business traveler: creaky floors, thin doors, approximate locking systems, furniture with no nod to recent fashion. It was indeed like being back in old France. I especially approved of the bath mat: thin, pink, and proudly embossed with the name “Barattero.”
As for the restaurant, let’s begin with the essential inessentials. The chairs are plain, straight-backed, rush-seated. The tablecloths are white. The front dining room is simple, its walls decorated with little but a framed reproduction of a French Revolutionary document. The cutlery is wonderful—old, and heavy in the hand. The knives, each with a large B on the handle, are so well-used that the serrated edge is worn to a mere scalloped decoration. And then the plates & guess what! They are of a normal size, smaller even than the ones you and I serve food on nowadays; in other words, the size to fit the amount of food put on them, rather than a vast blank stage on which vegetables may prance their stuff.
When Elizabeth David wrote about the Hôtel du Midi, she listed five signature dishes: galantine de caneton, pain d’écre-visses sauce cardinal, poularde en vessie, saucisse en feuilletage, and artichauts Escoffier. The second and third of these were both available, on the top-priced of three menus. The galantine (featured on the cover of the British edition of David’s French Provincial Cooking) is still sometimes served in winter, and the saucisse occasionally as an hors d’oeuvre. I asked about the artichoke dish. “We don’t do that any more,” Madame replied. “It’s a bit old-fashioned. Cooking has to evolve, you know.” But not that much, and not that fast, and not, fortunately, here. We ordered, naturally, the two imperturbable classics. But first an (unresented) amusegueule, an eggcup-size asparagus velouté with a scatter of baies roses (pink peppercorns). The pain d’écrevisses that followed would convert any quenelle skeptic with its lightness of texture and rich, creamy crayfish sauce. The presentation of the poularde en vessie was quietly spectacular. The bird is stuffed with girolles and its own chopped liver, roofed with tarragon leaves, and dampened with a little Cognac and white wine, then encased in a pig’s bladder and poached. The bladder neck is ceremonially cut in your presence and the contents revealed. The dish is sauced merely with the bird’s juices—now that is “simple et ‘nature’ ”—and accompanied by a simple green salad dressed with hazelnut oil.
Belatedly, I understood: If this was supposed to be ancienne cuisine, then it had a lot in common with the best nouvelle—indeed, as with the nouvelle vague, the whole quarrel, however useful for publicity purposes, was largely misconceived. I also realized that there was no immediate threat to my powers of locomotion. At least, not at this stage. A fine cheese board with a starring Saint-Félicien led to a tiny and exquisite anise-flavored crème brûlée. Complacently, we prepared to rise, but had misread the menu. This was merely a second amuse-gueule leading to puddings proper: a fork-crumbling chocolate cakelet with a molten chocolate interior, and then a post-David house specialty, soufflé glace aux marrons de l’Ardèche. Gault-Millau says the puddings “keep on getting feebler” and “need seeing to.” No, it’s the compilers of the guide that need seeing to.
The food that we ate (ducking one entrée course on the top menu) cost Fr 310. This was put in perspective a few nights later when we dined at another Michelin one-star in Champagne and my main course, a veal chop, was priced at Fr 280. The Midi’s wine list, which is Rhône-based, is also very reasonable. You can drink inexpensively and well, or drink superbly without being ripped off.
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