Baieta - A little kiss

This article has been published in Turkish on Gastereamag on 22.11.2018

I believe there are two types of people. The first are the people who are discouraged and choose to live a quitter life when face with difficulties in life, and the second are the courageous ones, who choose to learn from these difficulties and take a risk to start over again. Unfortunately I must admit that I’m might belong to the first group because my dreams have somehow always been taken from me by events beyond my control. However I’m also very very lucky that my family, especially my wife and my friends have always been there for me and at the end I always had another chance to become part of something new and better. Lately, chance is on my side once again and I’ve become a part of Gastereamag. I’ve even published my second article. I would like to thank dear Arzu for that, because she is one of those courageous people who had the crazy idea of convincing me to write something.

Since we have started off by talking about courageous people, I would love to introduce you to Julia Sedefdjian, whose restaurant I visited in June 2018. She is a very young lady, born on the last month of 1994. She has the courage, diligence and determination that only a few people have in the world. At 14, she has stood up to her parents when she decided to become a chef and enrolled herself at  the Lycee Hôtelier of Paul Augier.  While studying, she also started apprenticing at David Faure’s restaurant Aphrodite in Nice. (The restaurant has closed since then.) Working in a serious job has helped her mature and grow. From an early age she has learned the importance of taking responsibility, the amount of hard work necessary to succeed and how making sacrifices becomes a natural part of your life. At 17 she moved to Paris where she didn’t know anyone and found an apprenticeship in “Les Fables de la Fontaine” through the employment agency. Here she continued to work with seafood just like in Nice. Julia says she loves to cook dishes that combine fish and vegetables and this is evident in her menu as well. When I visited her restaurant, there was only one starter and one main dish that did not have seafood in it.

Julia is very attached to her roots and her restaurant that she opened in January 2018, is called “Baieta” which means little kiss in Nice dialect. It is this “little kiss” that greets you when you enter the restaurant. It is a beautiful black and white painting by Frédéric Agid.  In the painting the two partners - Sébastien Jean-Joseph in the kitchen, and Grégory Anelka in the dining room – are caricatured while kissing Julia. The amuse bouche is a pissaladière, a type of tarte/quiche typical to Nice. The anchovy, black olive and caramelized onion pissaladière is really delicious. The chef says that her favourite ingredients with fish are lemon, garlic, fresh thyme espelette peppers from Basque Country. As a starter I choose octopus that is served with espelette. The velvet crab is served in a white bowl with a juicy and sweet gnocchi. The sweet potato chips served at the top of the plate were wonderful. I have nothing to say against the gnocchi, nor the crab broth and the taste of the octopus. However, if you are used to eating octopus in the Greek Islands, at our late Lokanta Maya or Aman da Bravo, you would not be happy with the texture of this octopus. It was not one of those soft octopuses you would be used to that you could eat in two bites, almost without chewing.

Talking about “softness”, I have to mention how smooth and organized everything ran in the dining room. The well-informed and warm service, the distribution of the tables and the timing of the food were perfect. This is due to the previous experience of Julia and her team at a Michelin starred restaurant. Mentioning Michelin, I just realized that I forgot to mention a very important fact. Uuppss !! Julia Sedefdjian is the youngest chef to earn a Michelin star in France.  Yes, what you just read is true. At the age of just 20, she became head chef at Les Fables de la Fontaine, and next year was awarded by the red book. Naturally, this brings her to the spotlight. At the beginning she felt weird when she started working as head chef and realized that she wouldn’t have anyone to teach or guide her. However she is very open minded, curious, reads a lot and has a very small ego and therefore she is open to keep learning from everyone. She says that having her own restaurant has made her feel more independent, which has improved her creativity a lot. One of her mentors is Christian Constant, from a neighbouring restaurant on the same street. Her role model as a female chef is Anne-Sophie Pic who was the fourth female chef to earn 3 Michelin stars and was awarded best female chef in 2011. Not a bad role model at all.

Lately, as has been the popular move among other young chefs in Paris, it was a very courageous decision, to leave her Michelin starred position to open her own restaurant. The reason behind this move is to serve more reasonably priced by high quality dishes. The chef’s signature dish, ”the Bouillabaieta”, is an upgraded “bouillabaisse”, the renown Marseillais fishermen’s stew. I found myself wiping the plate with my bread no make sure there was nothing left. Of course they make their own bread as well and serve it with a flavoured butter that they change seasonally. I was very glad when the Bouillabaieta came that I hadn’t already finished my bread. I believe I will be curiously following the development of Julia’s dishes and her restaurant for the next couple of years.

Note: I’m sorry but I will refrain again from mentioning the wonderful wine I had with my dinner because my neighbouring writer Levon will keep pestering me until I bring him some.

Fichon - Impossibilities push for creativity

This article has been published in Turkish on Gasterea Mag on 09.08.2018

Although I didn’t realize it at the time, my story with Fichon goes back to 2011. It all began on a very busy work night in Lokanta Maya, our precious restaurant with Didem, when a gentleman, whose occupation I had no idea about, agreed to sit on the most uncomfortable barstool in the world and tasted most of our dishes. About 3 months later, in June, we found out that this gentleman was actually a very renown food writer who writes for Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, Saveur, Travel & Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, and had published an article in New York Times Magazine solely about Lokanta Maya. His name is Alexander Lobrano and he in turn introduced me to Fichon 6 years later in another one of his articles. Now, wherever I travel to, I always check his blog after my initial research about the destination. For me, his blog is kind of a guarantor of the restaurant choices I make.

Last year, when Ayca accepted a job offer, we came to Paris for house hunting. We had only 2 nights, and naturally we wouldn’t choose a restaurant without first consulting Master Alexander. When I logged in, the first article that caught my eye was about Fichon, and luckily fish and sea food was exactly what we were craving. We made a reservation right away to guarantee our table and took an Uber from our hotel to the restaurant. We really loved Fichon that night and daydreamed about how we could keep coming back when we moved to Paris.

The restaurant is located at the corner of two streets, in a triangular space. The tables are not crammed together like most of the other French restaurants. Yes, you do get tired of no elbow space after a while. Anyway, when you enter, the decor and the lighting makes you feel right away that this is a cosy and intimate place. Wooden tables are matched with silver painted chairs. The drinks bar designed after a fisherman’s stall is a cute decor trick. Charles du Pouget, who has designed the restaurant, was inspired by the journey the fish makes from the sea to our plates.  The sea blue back wall, backs of chairs designed after fishnets, chandeliers, herringbone patterned marble fish bar, the fish man’s stall inspired bar and sand colored raw columns are all a part of this journey. During the day, an amazing daylight fills the space from huge windows on both sides of the triangular space.

Before Lokanta Maya I had no clue about cooking or restaurant management (Sadly but truly, I’m still clueless about cooking) Therefore when we were setting up the managerial side of Maya with Didem and Okan, I decided to strengthen my previous business management experience by taking a restaurant management course in MSA. Unfortunately, both because it was a very busy time at work, and because I’ve never been a particularly good student, I didn’t utilize the course as much as I should have. However one thing dear Osman Serim has told us from day one has stuck with me. He told us that, when opening a restaurant, one should always concentrate on the type of food one likes to eat the most. He said that, this is why small scale places always reflect the character of their owners. And this is what I have always observed afterwards in restaurants that I find successful. And Fichon is the perfect example of this theory.

Matthieu Dewilde runs the restaurant. We went there at least 6 or 7 times and he was always there, on top of his game. He attended to all his customers with care, he was always a part of the service. I think he is a bit of a workaholic. His careful attention to customers almost makes you think he might not be French after all. Matthieu is actually a sommelier and has been in business for more than 10 years. His restaurant has been open since 2016. He has a master’s degree from INSEEC Bordeaux Wine Marketing and of course, his restaurant has an amazing wine list. He buys directly from producers. 90% of his wines are biodynamic (Please refer to Levon Bagis if you have any questions about biodynamic wines :) )  Two thirds of his wines are white. And if you are already asking ‘Do I have to drink wine?’ Matthieu has cocktails and amazing beer options as well. In short, you will not have a problem with drinks. I would mention my favorites white wine here, but I’m afraid Levon will make me carry bottles of it my luggage to Turkey, so I’ll refrain.

And on a more serious note, I always believe that impossibilities push for creativity. This is exactly what happened here as well. Because of the structure of the building, it is impossible to put in a sufficiently strong and large ventilation system, it is impossible to fry anything in the kitchen. Therefore everything is served grilled, steamed, raw or smoked. Which means you actually eat a quite healthy meal. The whole menu is about fish and shellfish where freshness is a must and when you order an oyster or a shrimp it comes still smelling of the sea. I have never seen them compromise on this. When the food arrives, you realize a certain elegance in the presentation which is owed to the Japanese chef Katsuhiko Sato. The menu changes with the seasons so there is always something new every time you go. The grilled octopus has been my favorites for the past 2 years, however I still have my eye on the smoked salmon that Ayca orders (maybe the time has come for another visit to Fichon).

Paris is filled with so many good restaurants that the idea of becoming a regular of a place seemed almost impossible. Hundreds of food writers and publications keep servicing reviews on new places, on top of which new places you discover and want to try while roaming the streets. There are infinite choices available. You cannot imagine how many lists I’ve created and recreated already.  Fichon has actually succeeded in making loyals out of us within this huge pool of choices. It is the first place we think of when we want to eat incredibly delicious seafood, paired with a very good wine, careful service and calm atmosphere.