Dining with Darroze

Helene Darroze, who went on to run a Michelin-starred restaurant in London, England, was born to a family who operated another Michelin-starred restaurant in the 1990s. She continued her heritage, a celebration if ever there was one, after the family-run restaurant in Villeneuve-de-Marsan closed in 1999 and she opened her next bistro in Paris.
Dining in that first restaurant in southwestern France was so enjoyable that today it still remains happily lodged in my head, heart and taste buds because, even in France where fine food is an expected joy, Helene Darroze holds a very special place.
So special that I can remember an exceptional meal that followed an afternoon which included a stop at a roadside market for a nosh of fruit, water and pain au chocolat. As well as a drive past fields of corn and through communes such as Peyrehorade, Dax and Eugenie-les-Bains.
To honour the occasion at Helene Darroze you dressed for dinner held in a spacious dining room overlooking a garden and a cupola with a chanticleer. Service began with an aperitif of kir, next there were four bouches, followed by a gathering of potato salad that included shrimp, garlic and parsley.
After a suitable pause, the soup course, gazpacho, was comprised of two aspects. The first was vegetables in a bowl followed by some sort of unknown special liquid that was poured on top from a glass pitcher. The vegetables included a tomato that had been carved open at the top and then filled with feta and basil as well as an edible squash blossom stuffed with squash and olives on a dried leaf.
The main course was a Breton galette of ham with cepes (edible wild mushrooms)) wrapped in parchment, a few pieces of lobster on the top and spinach inside.
Dessert was so good that fortunately there were two of them. Why choose? Have both. The first was canelé, a French pastry, crispy on the outside, moist inside, with cherries. It looked like a gateaux Basque but tasted even better. Second came an array of cookies with a slice of spiced apple. And coffee for a closer, something I haven’t tasted since that time.
Of course, I haven’t tasted anything like any of the other offerings since that time, either.
Makes you wish there were such savoury dishes, just like those described above, readily available in stodgy old Toronto.