Hidden Kitchen

After a restaurant has been gushed over in the New York Times, on various foodie blogs, and by a random friend-of-a-friend who happens to be in Paris and comes over for dinner, it's perfectly reasonable to want to go to there with every fiber of your being. This was the case with Hidden Kitchen, which isn't really a restaurant at all - it's a private supper club run by two twenty-something Americans in Paris. Thanks to all the buzz, its existence isn't so hidden anymore. But the address has been kept a careful secret, and it's so hard to get reservations that Hidden Kitchen has remained mysterious and tantalizing. Somehow we managed to score three spots for Saturday, May 22 (one extra for Dimi), and the 10-course tasting menu did not disappoint.

That front door grille is all we can show you of the exterior of the apartment building in which you'd find Hidden Kitchen. Isn't it pretty? What we can tell you is that the supper club is located in the 1st arrondissement, and that we were stunned to learn that such a centrally-located apartment could fit such a long dining table in its salon.

Upon arrival, Laura (one half of the HK team) handed us champagne flutes, each with a single, submerged lychee infusing the apéritif with the flavor of fresh fruit. We chatted with the other diners - 16 in all, most American, a few Italian, a few French. Then, it was time to sit down for our amuse-bouche.

Braden, the chef, came out to introduce each course, and luckily I took notes as this one wasn't on the printed menu (which you'll see below). We started with this black pepper cracker topped with green apple and watercress, served beside chilled watercress and nutmeg soup. This resembled one of our amuse-bouches at Le Cinq back in February, and portended great things for the rest of the meal.

Next, spring vegetables, poached quail egg and Green Goddess dressing, presented niftily in a rye butter cookie over a spicy fava bean base. We were also served our first wine pairing, a 2008 Domaine de Villargeau, Coteaux du Giennois. If you notice the picture quality degrading gradually through the end of the post, it's because of rapidly fading exterior light, and rapidly increasing intoxication on my part. I'm such a lightweight. Professional pictures of all these dishes can be found here.

This homemade semoulina linguini with radish leaf pesto, pickled white asparagus, and ricotta salata unleashed a fiery debate on the best way to make your own pasta. The Italians had a few things to say about that. But no one debated the excellent taste and presentation of this dish. We were impressed that - in what turned out to be a tiny kitchen, and with only one server helping - they were able to prepare and plate a dish like this such that it arrived hot. Wine pairing: 2007 Domaine de la Pépière, Muscadet Sèvre et Maine.

Behold the beauty of this salmon with hibiscus bay leaf sauce and fingerling potatoes. Too bad the low light prevents us from appreciating the rich color of the sauce, and the way it complemented the salmon's pink hues. Wine pairing: 2010 Château de Roquefort, Côtes de Provence.

For a palate cleanser between the "entrées" and the "plats," we were offered lime sorbet over bourbon jello (!!) with a sprig of mint. They call this the "Mint Julep Cleanser,"and you can find the recipe on Hidden Kitchen's blog.

Braised artichokes with chicken liver mousse ravioli, fennel sautéed in a white wine sauce, and preserved lemon coulis - how many elements can you incorporate in one dish? We love our raviolis, though, so we certainly weren't complaining. Wine pairing: 2009 Domaine Chaume-Arnaud, Marselan.

Meat-time: Cumin encrusted flank steak with skillet polenta and smoked eggplant. Another interesting plating, the meat was perfectly cooked (read: on the rare side of medium-rare), and who doesn't like smoked eggplant? (Actually, I would be shocked if anyone has even heard of smoked eggplant.) That garnish on top is deep-fried eggplant skin - very clever, not to mention striking. Wine pairing: 2008 Clos de l'Anhel, Corbières.

If this were a regular meal and not a tasting menu, the white bean, dill, and beet salad seen here would be a side to the flank steak, but we're glad we got to appreciate it on its own. Braden used bucca soison, a distant cousin of Lima beans, and roasted them in garlic and thyme.

Finally, we made it to dessert. This strawberry shiso sorbet with a puff pastry and rhubarb was the perfect, super sweet complement to a remarkably light meal (considering the number of courses). Wine pairing: 2008 Château Pierre-Bise, Carbenet d'Anjou.

And of course no French meal would be complete without coffee - which in this case arrived with a distinctly American twist: glazed doughnuts.

Towards the end of the meal, Braden and Laura let loose their French bulldog, Tati (named for the discount clothing store), whose presence only underscored the curious nature of the evening - we were served dinner in someone's home, at a big table with a bunch of brand new friends...


. . . which isn't to say there weren't a few formal notes to the evening. At the beginning, we were provided with simple but elegant menus as a souvenir of the evening. And at the end, along with coffee and doughnuts came a request for a "donation" to cover the cost of the meal. Hey, whatever it takes to keep this thing going.


Over the course of the evening, we figured out the reason why the only thing Hidden Kitchen has been able to keep secret is its address: there's no hiding the satisfaction and enthusiasm of people who have just eaten one of the best meals of their lives.