The Gastronaut

Early morning start today: I have an 8 am meeting with my first customer. The valet collects my car from the garage, then I drive up the Grande Corniche on the way towards Monaco. This particular customer is in a splendid location: from his plate glass meeting room windows, the view stretches from the seaside to the glinting snowy peaks of the Alpes Maritimes. Aren’t meetings better with this kind of scenery rather than with a view of a car park?

In contrast, I spend the rest of the day in the large industrial area north of Nice. Decidedly more down-to-earth, but also very convenient, as I can see four customers one after the other. Exit one customer, drive a couple of hundred metres along the road, enter another customer.

More visits in the afternoon, then back to the hotel. After checking in back home and a shower, it’s time for dinner! My chosen spot for the evening is l’Effeuillant at 26 Boulevard Victor Hugo, tel 04 93 82 48 63, in the modern city centre, specialised in Provencal cuisine. As I enter, I feel somewhat out of place: it is maybe more suitable for a romantic evening out rather than a single business traveller, but the waiter soon puts me at ease. I decide on the menu fixe. Firstly an amuse-gueule is served: a small toast with smoked salmon, plenty of olive oil, a few sprigs of fennel.

With the entrée, it is obvious that the chef has an artistic bent. I order a Terrine de fois gras de canard au Muscat de Frontignan, pain brioché. Instead of the usual limp lettuce leaf to garnish the slab of fois gras, I have an exquisitely decorated flower made of sprigs of chive with a tiny quartered tomato and a few drops of balsamic vinegar to serve as branches. The foie gras is sprinkled with a few grains of sel gros. It is so beautiful that I am reluctant to eat!! As we say in Italian, “anche l’occhio vuole la sua parte”!

The foie gras is excellent as well as beautiful, and is soon followed by the second course: Carré d’agneau tout simplement rôti, avec son jus d’ail, a succulent roast rack of lamb, with a very garlicky sauce and roast potatoes. I love lamb, but it’s hard to get in our part of Italy out of season, so I am glad to enjoy it.

The waiter arrives with a rumbling cart: the cheese course! I am presented with a wide selection, and choose the St. Maur, St. Marcellin, Livarot and a tiny piece of chèvre whose name I forget.

Dessert is a soufflé glacé à l’orange which is a rather posh name for a cylinder of orange ice-cream, but here again the chef has excelled in the decoration: with tiny pieces of exotic fruit, candied orange peel and a sprinkling of icing sugar, he has created another work of art!

A half bottle of Côtes de Provence red went down very well.

Now I ask you, can you show me where I can eat a comparable meal in England for EUR 31, let’s call it twenty quid?

From the restaurant it’s not far to the Negresco and the sea front Promenade des Anglais, and I walk briskly in the cool night back to the hotel.

This week I’m on a three-day trip to visit my customers and contacts on the Cote d’Azur. Not a trip I do every year, but it’s always “un vrai plaisir“. The locals are friendly, the climate is agreeable, the customers are generally “sympa“.

The drive to Nice is around 550 km. I leave at 8:30 and at a steady pace arrive at 15:00, with a short lunch stop before Genova. Weather good, temperature about 12C, not exactly balmy, but certainly warmer than back home. On the way to France I pass the dozens of greenhouses on the coast of Liguria, housing the famed Sanremo flowers. Mimosas in full bloom bedeck the hillsides.

Quick meeting with a small customer in the industrial area outside Nice, longer meeting at the airport with a potential agent for Poland, but who lives in Cagnes-sur-Mer. Claims to be able to sell millions but requires rock-bottom prices. Hrrumph! Then I drive along the Promenade des Anglais to my hotel, near the old town. It is dark, but the immense crescent of the Baie des Anges is impressive as ever: lined with fine hotels, the Negresco in primis, the West End, the La Pérouse just at the end beside the castle, where many, many years ago I spent my wedding night!

Tonight’s dining choice is an old-time favourite of mine, Flo in rue Sacha-Guitry 2, just round the corner from the hotel. It is a 1920s theatre that has been converted in a restaurant, whilst still maintaining it’s original structure. The foyer has become the bench for the huitrier, on the stage, beyond a huge red curtain and a plate glass window, is the kitchen with the bustling chefs and the diners are seated at tables where the audience would normally be.

I decide to eat fish: as a starter Tartare de saumon mi-fumé, jeunes pousses, parfum exotique. As expected, the classic minced salmon with a baby spinach leaf salad, but hey, what’s this?? A mango sauce! Strangely enough, the smoky, salty salmon is well matched to the sweet mango! What a surprise!

As main course I chose a Nage crémeuse de joues de lotte, ravioles au basilic. I am presented with a mysterious black cast-iron cocotte, the waiter opens it with a flourish, and proceeds to ladle out the contents. I have a delicious creamy monkfish stew, with tiny basil-filled ravioli, with morel mushrooms, a sprig of rosemary and a dried tomato. Incredibly tasty – only the French could make a dish of such perfection!

As a wine I choose a dry Muscadet sur Lie, 2001, but a red would have gone down equally well with the monkfish.

Dessert: being a chocaholic, I am sorely tempted by the Croustillant de Chocolat amer, crème anglaise à la vanille, but after much indecision I decide on the Croustade de Pommes gasconne au jus du vieil Armagnac. A worthy choice: I get a crunchy puff pastry castle with a puréed apple filling, the alcoholic aroma of Armagnac wafting all over. An excellent meal!

To aid digestion, a brisk walk up to the seaside, I watch for a few moments the bright lights of the planes landing at the airport on the other side of the bay, then on to bed.