Moderne Is Newer Than Nouvelle

By Mimi Sheraton

Put away the kiwis. Strike the pink peppercorns. Forget everything you were just beginning to like about vegetable pates and the grilled rare duck breast, magret de canard. The days of the nouvelle cuisine and its culinary trademarks are numbered. What the savviest chefs in France are cooking up now is being hailed as cuisine moderne, a blend of the classic and the nouvelle. Some observers prefer to call this new cooking actuelle (what is really being cooked today), while others describe it as libre (free), personnalisee (personalized) or, perhaps most appropriately, courante (trendy).

Although there is some argument as to the best name, there seems to be complete agreement that the most successfully innovative practitioner of the new cooking is Joel Robuchon, 40, the chef and proprietor of Jamin, in Paris' elegant 16th arrondissement. The dimpled, diffident Robuchon astounded the French food hierarchy (and himself) in 1984 when he won the coveted three-star rating from the Guide Michelin only three years after he bought the . restaurant. Not even the two stars he had previously earned as chef at the Nikko hotel in Paris prepared him for gaining Michelin's top rating in record time for the 83-year-old guide. What apparently beguiled the usually conservative inspectors and editors of the guide, as it does the 100 or so daily customers at lunch and dinner, is, of course, the exquisite food that generally combines savory and authoritative flavors with lightness and delicacy. Also considered are the remarkab- ly gracious and concerned service and the flossy pink valentine of a dining room.

"It is important to respect the integrity of the ingredients by preserving their flavors and aromas," says Robuchon. Working in a bright and airy kitchen amid hanging rows of gleaming copper pans, he oversees a staff of 18. Among them, they turn out pasta and homemade breads twice a day, as well as thin, crackling raspberry and orange tarts. Sooner or later all try their hand at the subtle and restrained garnishes created by Robuchon. He tends to favor a pointillist shimmer of color, sometimes achieved with tiny droplets of tomato sauce dotted from a knife point to rim a sauce of grass-green pureed spinach or by flecks of herbs and vegetables added to a terrine of rabbit set in a pale, jewel-like aspic. Wielding a tiny round cutter that he found in Japan, Robuchon scoops pinpoints of ivory apple and jade avocado to be tossed with lobster for an intriguing appetizer salad, and he lards snowy codfish with slivers of pink salmon before braising the combination.

As he charms the eye with color, Robuchon lights up the palate with seasonings. His best dish, canette rosee (roasted and then braised duckling) is spiced with a Chinese-style dip of salt, star anise, cinnamon, ginger, coriander and nutmeg. Other revelations in flavor contrasts were the diced kidneys and sweetbreads sauteed with earthy mushrooms and the high-styled version of tete de cochon (pig's head), here with the meat boned, diced and pungent with parsley, shallots, ginger, coriander and lemon. The accompanying mashed potatoes have inspired critics to wax eloquent.

Young though it is, cuisine moderne has already collected its share of delectable cliches, most notably ravioli filled with shellfish and anything steamed in a packet of cabbage. At Jamin, the seductive interpretation is ravioli with langoustine on melting leaves of cabbage. Although always immaculately cooked, Robuchon's creations are occasionally a bit too bland. ! Examples are his celebrated fillet of lamb in a salt crust and the chicken poached in a pig's bladder that puffs up like a jolly balloon. Because he finds the quality of French beef and veal inconsistent, he does not serve them.

To be sure that the kitchen's hard work is not undermined in the dining room, Robuchon employs a staff of more than ten as captains, waiters and busboys, which means that 45 diners are served by at least 30 employees. Among them is his slender, blond wife Janine, who oversees the checks. She also cooks dinner at home around 6:30, relying on bourgeois fare like gigot with flageolets. Robuchon loves it, as he did his mother's cooking back in his native Poitiers. Says he: "Such food is prepared with maternal love, and it cannot be judged by ordinary standards."

As might be expected, reservations at Jamin should be made at least six to eight weeks in advance. Like many proprietors of popular Paris restaurants, Robuchon tries for a balance between French and foreign customers, roughly a fifty-fifty split. "Nobody likes to be in a 'tourist' restaurant," he explains. What nobody seems to mind is the $30 to $90 check for dinner, which includes food and service but not wine.

Between meals and phone calls, Robuchon does more research in his kitchen, ever on the lookout for new combinations and dishes. Indicating the drawing on his menu of a lone, Lincolnesque figure, he says, "I am a compagnon and will always be one," explaining that he served as an itinerant apprentice, cooking in various regional kitchens before becoming a fully fledged member of the French chefs' guild.

Robuchon is branching out. It comes as a surprise to see boil-in-bag main courses simmering away in his kitchen. "It will be used by the French railways for their first-class passengers on the Paris-to-Strasbourg route," the chef says. "It cooks for 14 hours, then it can be kept without freezing or preservatives for eight days. Now I test it in large quantities, then it will be packaged in portions." To Joel Robuchon, not even the sky's the limit. "Who knows?" he says wistfully. "May- be someday men will eat my food on the moon." No doubt it will then be known as cuisine celeste.