I thought I would add a quick dispatch from down south, with my experience with the tasting menu at Racines, the vegetarian restaurant by Bruno Cirino, the 2* chef of the Hostellerie de Jerome. The restaurant is described as neither vegetarian nor vegan, but there is no meat or fish used in any dish. It is reportedly a passion project for the chef, with the pricing kept low, given the level of cooking and service. Sometimes it is tough to find restaurants in any city without the same tired vegetable mains for your vegetarian friends or partners, and to find one at this high level by such a distinguished chef is rare.
It reopened Nov 1st with a new tasting menu, with 2 or 3 amuse bouches, five courses, a cheese course (a artisinal local choice, plated with poached pear and a perfectly chosen in-house dried fig bread), the two dessert courses and a palate clenser. The execution was precise and highly technical, the plating immaculate, and each course found new depths of flavor teased out of the featured local vegetable or fruit. On this night Cirino was in house, and dining in the small dining room was chef Dominique Le Stanc, chef at La Merenda and former 2* chef of the Negresco. It was interesting to pop an eye over and see them interact.
