One French institution embraces another

By Elaine Sciolino, New York Times News Service

Tuesday, May 19, 2015 | 2 a.m.

For 28 years, one of this city’s most famous restaurants operated out of a dark, starkly modern site on rue Troyon, a banal street in the 17th Arrondissement close to the Arc de Triomphe. Now diners at Restaurant Guy Savoy will enter a grand 4,300-square-foot top-floor space on the site of both the oldest institution in France and the oldest factory in Paris: the Monnaie de Paris — the French mint.

Chef Savoy officially moves his signature restaurant today (his only U.S. restaurant is at Caesars Palace), but the celebration already has begun. Hundreds of friends and associates turned up recently for a tour and a taste of some of the classics that have earned the chef three Michelin stars: artichoke with black truffle soup served with toasted mushroom brioche and truffle butter; a “club sandwich” amuse-bouche of foie gras and crisp toast served on a silver pin; and a perfect vanilla bean mille-feuille.

Dozens of Savoy’s food suppliers came from all over France to show off their raw ingredients, from rare blue-stemmed mushrooms and pale yellow “pineapple” strawberries to a 15-pound Breton turbot and a gray-white boiled tête de veau. Almost every day since then, regulars have been invited to partake of “practice” lunches and dinners.

The new restaurant sits at the top of a grand, red-carpeted stone staircase decorated with medallions and laurel wreaths. A series of dining rooms in shades of anthracite and brown are set along windows 10 feet high that offer a view of the Seine. The Louvre is on the far side of the river, the Pont Neuf to the right, the Square du Vert-Galant (a pointy-shaped spit of land at the tip of the Île de la Cité), straight ahead, the booksellers on the riverbank just below.

The rue Troyon location will open as a restaurant specializing in seafood in June. Next year, Savoy will open the brasserie MetaLcafé in an interior courtyard at the Monnaie.

The mint building was founded in 864 by Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald, and once produced all of the coins of the realm. It was rebuilt in the 18th century and sits on a 3-acre site on the Quai de Conti. Although France’s coins are now struck near Bordeaux, commemorative coins, jewelry, artwork and honorary medals like those of the Legion of Honor are still made here.

For Savoy’s 35 chefs and kitchen assistants, of course, the best attribute of the new space is the kitchens. Every piece of equipment, from the copper pots to the mirrored plancha grill, is new. The kitchens are at least three times larger than the ones on rue Troyon, with huge windows, some of which even offer views of the Seine and the Louvre.

“I’ve worked with Savoy for 26 years, mainly in a corridor in the basement,” Executive Chef Laurent Solivérès said. “This is the first time in my life I’m working in daylight. Everyone in the kitchen comes in smiling. Every day feels like Christmas.”