Le Cul de Poule
Buttering Up Customers It’s not often that everyone in a party of four at a restaurant table (or boudoir-like dining area, but more on that later) goes into ecstasies over the butter, but that was the case the other night … Read More
Archive
Picasso et les Maîtres
Riffing on the Masters Picasso’s “Still Life with Sheep’s Head” (below, © Succession Picasso, 2008) interprets the incredible pathos of Goya’s original with rather less subtlety but plenty of drama. Yes, of course, Picasso was a genius, but there is … Read More
Taxi Jaune
Yellow Cab Cuisine Cheerful dining with often sublime results. February 2005; updated Oct. 15, 2008 THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED The cheerful Taxi Jaune, located in the wholesale leather-goods section of the Marais (where tourists often fear to tred), has … Read More
Van Dyck
Gentleman Painter “Portrait of a Family” (c. 1620). © Hermitage National Museum/Vladimir Terebenin, Leonard Kheifets, Yuri Molodkovets, Svetlana Suetova Anyone who thinks portrait paintings are boring should rush to see the new Van Dyck exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André. Although … Read More
Mantegna
Renaissance Fashions “The Holy Family with Saint Elizabeth and Saint John the Baptist.” © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden This mega-exhibition at the Louvre might better have been called Mantegna & Co., since the works by the Italian master Andrea … Read More
Emil Nolde
Storms of Color “La Mise au Tombeau” (1915). © Nolde Stiftung-Seebüll This exhibition, which promises to be one of the fall season’s blockbusters, will be a delightful eye opener for anyone who is not familiar with the work of Emil … Read More
L’Arôme
The Sweet Scent of Stardom All the elements of success: gray-beige decor, great food sources, a talented chef and well-schooled staff. It’s getting to be a bit much, all this gray-beige decor. Every aspirational restaurant startup has it. Have those … Read More
Bigarrade
Magical Mystery Meal The cooks fashion their mystery menus from unlikely looking ingredients. There’s an almost Biblical simplicity about the first moves in a meal at Bigarrade. One of the two waiters approaches with a rectangular piece of slate … Read More
A la Chataigne
Regional Byways Seasonal berries with a melon-ribbon bow. I take real pleasure in seeing a new restaurant open and take off seemingly effortlessly. A la Chataigne opened earlier this year, but when I was there very recently, it felt as … Read More
Georges Rouault
Through a Stained Glass Darkly “Bénigne” (1939). © ADAGP Paris 2008 Having never understood the appeal of the paintings of Georges Rouault, whose works can be immediately recognized by the heavy black outlines around the figures in them, I was … Read More