It was a cold January day, and I was meeting my culinary rabbi, Albert Nahmias, for lunch. I suggested pot au feu and he countered with cassoulet, the rich, slow-cooked casserole originating in the southwest of France, containing meat (typically pork sausage, goose, duck and sometimes mutton, pork skin and white beans, so off we went to the 15th and Le Gastroquet.
It was a cold January day, and I was meeting my culinary rabbi, Albert Nahmias, for lunch. I suggested pot au feu and he countered with cassoulet, the rich, slow-cooked casserole originating in the southwest of France, containing meat (typically pork sausage, goose, duck and sometimes mutton, pork skin and white beans, so off we went to the 15th and Le Gastroquet.
San Francisco’s legendary Le Central, where Mr. San Francisco Herb Caen, hizzoner Wille Brown and clothier Wilkes Bashford met daily for lunch boasts that ” our cassoulet has been cooking for 14,855 days”!
Young Julien Logereau, nephew of noted chef/restaurateur, Jacques Cagna, recently acquired this charming spot and spruced up its provincial decor, but had the good sense to retain Chef Igor Zenteno.
After the obligatory coupe de champagne, Albert went for pumpkin soup and I dug into a mound of crab salad moistened with grapefruit-fresh and palate cleansing. And now for one of the best reasons to dine here-a piping hot cassoulet, accompanied by a 2013 Medoc from Chateau Lalande, a very good wine from a very bad year.
The portion was so copious that we had no room for dessert, but an espresso and a 10-year old Calvados sent us out into the frosty air, warmed from our heads to our toes.
The cassoulet is so good that the restaurant could probably survive if it served nothing else but I will be back to surf the menu.
Website Le Gastroquet • 10 rue Desnouettes 75015
01 48 28 60 91
Closed Sunday
