A food trip to Provence bears fruit

Filipinos love food trips. But the owners of Lemuria Restaurant in Quezon City had an especially fruitful one in mind early this year when they bought air tickets for themselves and their chef  Golda May Rañada — a trip to one of the finest food regions in the world: Provence, France.

They were looking for inspiration a year after Lemuria, a fine-dining restaurant tucked in the woodsy hills of Horseshoe Village, had opened its doors to diner acclaim. Owners Kitt Schroeder and her husband Klaus were ready to update the menu, and decided to bring along chef Golda, who had been an inch away from visiting France 10 years earlier as a beginning chef’s apprentice. The wait was worth it, as it gave her fresh ideas for Lemuria. 

“I get to go to France, and I’m not working,” she recalls of the experience with a smile.

The Schroeders and Golda traveled from Germany to France, hitting at least 18 towns in a few weeks — places like Vaucluse, Malaucen and Vence, where the fresh markets are out of this world, and to Cassis in Cote D’Azur to sample the bouillabaisse.

Before, Golda had been the sous chef of Josemaria Sotto in several restaurants where she trained under him. “Golda was really meant for us,” says Kitt. “She had been abroad, but her contract was finished.” Golda came aboard to devise a menu for Lemuria; Kitt — owner of Brumms Quality Wines Inc. — personally selected the wines and acts as an occasional sommelier, pairing dinner entrées with the right Riesling or Pinot Noir.

The last time we encountered Kitt, she was introducing us to her debut menu: a French-Mediterranean affair with seared foie gras salad, poached sea bass, roasted Cornish hen, and goat cheese and tomato carpaccio. Schroeder had opened the restaurant above her prized wine cellar in Horseshoe Village, Quezon City in 2006 to much diner satisfaction.

On the tour of France, Golda got fresh inspiration by dining at the three-star Michelin restaurant Maison Pic in Valence, run by chef Anne-Sophie Pic, the first female French chef to be awarded a third Michelin star in over 50 years. The Schroeders and Golda sampled the classic Charolais beef tournedos steak and a blue-fin tuna layered with duck foie gras and were transported. Golda even got a peek inside the state-of-the-art kitchen, and met chef Pic herself. “It was the peak of my culinary experience,” she adds.

Back home, she set to work, turning her gustatory memories into a fresh menu. We sampled some of the new items to be introduced in January, starting with a porcini and squid salad prepared with essence of Berlinoise and a bleu cheese soufflé and spinach salad in orange vinaigrette. The porcini sauce had a rich flavoring, which turned out to be Pernod. My wife Therese said the soufflé had a “very unusual” taste; I found it light and fluffy, and with a hint of vinegar it actually did appetize. Kitt selected a Von Buhl Riesling for our appetizers, and we noticed a cute touch: a purple “flower” floating in the champagne glass. It was actually a lump of crushed violet formed with crystallized sugar, sourced from the Cote D’Azur mountains; added to the aperitif, it gives a fragrant taste.

One of the new entrées is squab stuffed with foie gras — just the kind of inspiration that could have only come from southern France. Chef Golda serves it with a rose petal confit glaze and almond gnocchi. The squab was imported French pigeon, and very juicy, almost dizzying paired with the foie gras. A fine dish.

For the main course, Therese had the St. Pierre: a cream dory fillet served with lentils, lemon thyme butter and chanterelle. She found it “very fine and fresh,” with the lentils bringing out a different side of the fish’s natural flavor. This dish was obviously also inspired by the fresh markets of southern France.

My main course was a Dutch Fresian veal rib eye steak, something sourced directly from the region where the Schroeders and chef Golda visited. Golda wanted to capture something of the Charolais beef tournedos served at Maison Pic, and she says the Fresian veal is “much more tender than Wagyu.” I wouldn’t go that far, but it was flavorful and tender. It’s served with a zucchini salad and an anchovy-garlic sauce, which I had served on the side; wisely, I felt, because the anchovy flavor threatened to overpower the veal. It did, however, complement the slice of foie gras served with the dish.

For our main course, we each drained a glass of Prahova Valley Romanian Special Reserve Merlot from 2000. Kitt has become an expert at Eastern European wines, and her 12,000-bottle wine cellar contains some real prized Romanian bottles. “I just concentrate on the dining room, check on the wines,” says Kitt. “I leave Golda alone in the kitchen.”

Next up was a treat: Chef Golda always has a stupefying array of desserts, and this time was no exception. We were presented with a clementine cake, a mascarpone-filled ponkan cake with orange cello and balsamic. This is something from the Drome region of France, where it’s really served with ponkan. The cake is moist, spongy and zesty, and the whole ponkan is puréed in coffee and caramel sauce.

We followed this with homemade bonbons and millefeuille, served in lemon, rosebud and almond crunch flavors with Valrhona chocolate. Yes, you could hear the south of France calling right about then. This was followed, fittingly, by Small Endings, chef Golda’s dessert pièce de résistance: an array of dark chocolate and macadamia rose crystal truffles paired with orange and ginger bruleé, nougat and coconut rocher. One thing about this dessert is it was not overfilling: everything is homemade, and not too sweet. We also sampled the homemade ice cream, to cap off our peek at the new menu.

Clearly inspired by a trip to south of France, the owners and chef of Lemuria hope to finalize their menu by early next year, when a large adjacent function area known as the Lavende (decorated in lavender — another nod to Provence) will be open for guest events, parties and conferences.

For now, they are savoring the memories of their French Provençal experience, a journey they hope to incorporate and share with Lemuria’s clientele.

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Lemuria is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. For reservations, call 724-5211, 722-2185 or 724-6306. It is located at The Winery, 5 Julieta Circle, Horseshoe Village, Quezon City.