Unemployed at last!: Destination: Dessert

I have been a little wary of giving too much attention to old favourites in Paris on the grounds that Paris 2002-3 = le long gone and Paris 2007 = le now. Testament to this is the fact that my former favourite bar in Paris, La Patache, which was conveniently located on the ground floor of my apartment building on rue de Lancry, has changed hands and thus changed. Alas. (Nerdly aside: If books were written on my favourite places in Paris, Fisher Library would categorise them under the subject heading De la Rue, Trixie -- Homes and Haunts -- Paris. Someone, please, write a book and make it so.) This said, it was never really in question whether I would return to Le Cannibale, a very, very fine bar on the rue J-P Timbaud in the 20th arrondissement. It boasts lamps made from superannuated concertinas and over the bar hangs a great Goya-esque painting of a demon apparently eating a child. The ceilings are vaulted and hold up dim chandeliers; candlewax drips in the window-sills; there are big mirrors in gilded frames on the walls and the clientele reflected in them is, happily, the anti-chi chi – at least by over-groomed Parisian standards. The bar staff look like they have been flown in from Berlin and should actually be plotting artistic upheaval somewhere else; miraculously, they are quite sympa as well.

Le Cannibale is a bar, so you can drink whatever you want there, a good thing, in my opinion. It’s a bar in Paris, so you can also eat there. In fact, the food is entirely excellent, and the cheese and charcuterie plates alone constitute a reason to visit. Admittedly, nuestros amigos españols have got bar food sorted out in the form of tapas and pinchos. Still, I’m mighty partial to the assiettes de fromage et de charcuterie. A few slabs of pungent cheese and some bread on a plate are indisputably superior to chips and wedges and stodgy spring rolls and so on. Same goes for a board arrayed with slices of pâté and terrine, a dose of good old saucisson ancien (with apologies for the tautology) and some cornichons? Fingers crossed that by the time I return to Sydney, cheese and/or charcuterie plates will be standard bar tucker. Unlikely, methinks.

So, to recap, everything thus mentioned about le Cannibale – the décor, the staff, the location, the booze, the food – is generally excellent. The desserts, on the other hand, are just too fabulous for words; mere superlatives do not suffice. I had mentally stamped Le Cannibale in my mind as a Great Place for Desserts and would not have coped well with disappointment. Happily, memory did not deceive me. Le Cannibale is where I first encountered le marquis au chocolat, a truly extraordinary dessert. If I have never cooked a marquis au chocolat for you, hassle me to do so when I’m next in a kitchen near you, although bear in mind that French Chefs Do It Better (but only because they have better butter and cream). It is a little like… a mousse without the egg whites? A solid buttery chocolate custard? A really really rich brownie without the flour? I ate many desserts here which left serious impressions – the benchmark tarte tatin, a crème brûlée aux poires, lots of Berthillon icecream... This time around, there was no marquis au chocolat, but there was a fondant au chocolat meringué, that is, a melting chocolate cake with chocolate meringue baked on top.

The pepperminty crème anglaise did get a little skewed in the transition from waitress to table. It would be churlish to deduct marks for presentation, particularly as the ripples were at least a third my fault, and even if I did, this would still be a perfect dessert. It was a flourless chocolate cake that I was disinclined to share, floating in the kind of custard that soothes all ills, I gasped, but I’ll swear on Finnegans Wake, I did not hallucinate: it was real.

Right at the beginning of the meal that terminated in this magnificent dessert, a round of kir was ordered. We were more than three, but three kirs nonetheless found themselves before a grainy Marc.