Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Most people believe you should only drink white with fish and fruits de mer, but a good pinot noir will go with most seafood and is particularly good with moules.” He put his nose in the wine glass, breathed in, swirled it, breathed in again, then took a small sip to wash around his mouth. “Oh.” His eyes almost closed in ecstasy. “This is going to be so very good.”
Patrick filled Enzo’s glass, then Guy’s, but Enzo noticed that Madame Fraysse was drinking only sparkling mineral water. Guy raised his glass to touch Enzo’s, and they sipped at the pale liquid red. Its wonderful spicy light fruit filled Enzo’s mouth, and he caught Guy watching him for his reaction. “I hope,” Enzo said, “that watching me drink this doesn’t induce you to die a little.”
Guy laughed. “Never, when a bottle is shared with a friend. What do you think?”
“I think it’s an extraordinary wine, Guy.”
“What do you taste?”
It was, it seemed to Enzo, almost like a test. What did he really know about wines. He took another sip to roll around his mouth and said, “It’s light, elegant. But still rich. Full of plum, berry, and a touch of vanilla. Aged long enough, I guess, for most of the tannins to have turned to fruit.”
Guy grinned infectiously. “Spot on. You know your wines, Enzo. Not bad for a Scotsman.”
“Maybe we’ll try a whisky tasting some day, and we’ll see how you get on?”
Guy threw his head back and roared with laughter. “And I’ll bet there’s a thing or two about drinking whisky that you could teach me.”
Enzo smiled. “You would win that bet.”
He turned to the moules, breaking off a piece of bread to dip in their creamy juices, then extracting the first of them with his fork and popping it into his mouth. It was so soft and tender and full of flavour that it seemed to simply melt on his tongue. He used its empty shell as pincers to pick the others from their shells, savouring each one in turn, and cleansing his palate from time to time with some wine and the mildly dressed salad on his plate.
He looked up to find Elisabeth Fraysse watching him. Her smile was a little embarrassed, as if she had been caught spying on him. “I see you enjoy your food, Monsieur Macleod.”
Enzo grinned. “I do.” He patted his middle. “A little too much sometimes.” He mopped up more juices with another piece of bread. “What sort of waiting time is there for reservations at Chez Fraysse?”
“It’s about six months these days,” Madame Fraysse said. Enzo’s hand froze midway to his mouth, juices dripping from his mussel shell.
“You’re kidding? How can anyone know what they will be doing or where they will be in six months’ time.”
Guy said, “People who reserve with us know exactly where they’ll be and what they’ll be doing. They’ll be eating here.”
Enzo nodded thoughtfully. “You spoke earlier about trainees being with you for a ‘season’. What length is a season?”
“April to November,” Madame Fraysse said. “When Marc was alive he insisted we stay open all year round. But it was hopeless in the winter. When the weather was reasonable we could still only half-fill one of the dining rooms, even with three stars. When the weather was unreasonable, we would have cancellations. We get a lot of snow here in the winter months.”
Guy said, “After Marc died we took the decision to close from the end of October to the beginning of April. And we still make more money than most other restaurants do in a whole year.”
“We’re closing for the winter at the end of next week,” Madame Fraysse said, almost pointedly. As if warning him that his time there would be limited.
Enzo found himself momentarily distracted as he met the eye of an attractive young woman working behind the nearest stainless steel counter, where she was squeezing swirls of cream from a dispenser on to the tops of hollowed-out round courgettes filled with a steaming savoury stuffing. She had beautiful brown eyes and long blond hair piled up beneath her tall chef’s hat, accentuating fine cheekbones and the elegant line of a delicate jaw. The hint of a smile played around full lips, and Enzo felt his heart leap. Then her eyes dipped again to the courgettes.
“Shutting down in the winter also means that we stay true to the philosophy of Marc’s cuisine,” Elisabeth Fraysse was saying. “Perhaps even more than he did himself. Because, you see, out of season it was impossible to acquire the fresh herbs and vegetables that he insisted on using. Of course, he had evolved winter menus, but they were never quite the same.”
Guy said, “He only ever wanted the freshest of vegetables, prepared in the simplest of ways, so that they retained the essence of their true flavours. Which, of course, he enhanced with the herbs and wild flowers that only grow in these parts. The vegetable sauces and reductions and purees with which he decorated his plates were not just for presentation. They brought unique flavours to the plate to complement the meat or the fish. Of course, he was inspired by others, like Michel Guerard and the brilliant Michel Bras down in the Aveyron, but his cuisine was very much his own, developed from that wonderful palate of his.”
“And the herbs and flowers from his potager,” Marc’s widow added. “We’ve developed and expanded the kitchen garden that Marc started all those years ago. He would have loved what we’ve made of it. We have a gardener who looks after it full time now.”
“But, of course,” Guy said, “most of what it produces is not available in the winter. Which is one reason we never opened a restaurant in Paris. It would have required too great a compromise to the style Fraysse.”
Following a selection of local cheeses, washed down with the last of the DRC, desserts freshly prepared by the chefs of the patisserie arrived at the table. Wisps of steam rose from a cylinder of fondant chocolat placed in front of Enzo. A boule of creamy home-made vanilla ice cream sent rivers of molten heaven down its sides to marble the hot chocolate that oozed from its interior as Enzo broke into it with his spoon.
As he savoured its understated sweetness, he once more caught the eye of the blond girl behind the stainless steel. This time she was plating up perfect moulds of steamed chou fleur on pools of a syrupy mushroom and herb reduction. The evening service was in full flow, and Enzo was struck by how smoothly it was all going, each of the chefs contributing his or her own part to the well-practised choreography. Servers drifted in and out, food wafting past on steaming plates on their way to the dining room. Requests for service, or orders called, were delivered with impeccable politeness.
Trois foies gras, s’il vous plait, greeted by a chorus of oui ’s.
Service, s’il vous plait, answered by the unhurried arrival of a black-shirted server. Nobody seemed rushed, or stressed. It was not like any kitchen Enzo had ever been in.
The girl was still smiling at him, and Enzo stole a glance at Guy and Elisabeth Fraysse to be certain they hadn’t noticed. He reached into his satchel and took out a small notebook, and began scribbling in it, as if he were taking notes. He smiled at Madame Fraysse. “There’s a lot to take in on my first day. I don’t want to forget anything.” On the facing blank page he wrote in large numerals the number 23. And as he slipped the notebook back into his bag, he tore out the page, covering the sound of it with a theatrical cough. “Excuse me.” He put his hand to his mouth and crumpled up the page in his fist so that it was well hidden. Then he secreted it into his pocket.
He sipped his coffee, barely listening to the conversation at the table, which was desultory now, the subject of Marc Fraysse exhausted for the moment. He made eye contact with the girl several more times before refusing Guy’s offer of an eau de vie, and rising stiffly to his feet.
“It’s been a long day,” he said. “And I had an early start this morning. I think I’ll head for bed now, if you don’t mind. Thank you so much for a wonderful meal.”
Guy and Elisabeth rose, too. “It was nothing very special,” Guy said. “Except for the wine, of course.” He shook Enzo’s hand. “See you in the morning.”
Elisabeth offered him a cool handshake. “Goodnight, Monsieur Macleod. Why don’t you join me for breakfast in the dining room tomorrow?”
Enzo was slightly surprised. “I would like that very much.” He nodded. “Goodnight.” And as he passed the stainless steel counter where the blond girl was still working, he dropped the scrumpled up page from his pocket on to the floor, catching her eye one last time to direct her toward his note. As the sliding glass doors opened to usher him out of the kitchen, he glanced back to see her stoop quickly to recover it and slip it into a hidden pocket somewhere beneath her apron.
