French Restaurant Review: Aldehyde, Paris
At Aldehyde, in Paris’ Marais, chef Youssef Marzouk tells the moving story of his family and recalls the ancestral tastes of coastal Tunisia.
When I first moved to Paris from London more than 30 years ago, I was besotted by the French capital, but I still missed the British sense of humour and the gastronomic diversity of eating out in London, which had restaurants, it seemed, from almost every country in the world (rather amazingly, one of my favourites from those long-ago days, a cheap and cheerful Russian table called Borshtch n Tears, is still trading). Today, happily, the restaurant scene in Paris is more cosmopolitan than it’s ever been, and this includes not only food from faraway places like Singapore (The Hood is excellent) or the Philippines (Reyna and Bobi are both great), but other European countries and former French colonies, like Tunisia.
For many years in most French cities, the diverse cuisines of North African were muddled into a boilerplate menu of couscous and tagines, served with no reference to their origins. Youssef Marzouk, a brilliant young Franco-Tunisian chef, whose family is originally from Sfax, has set out to change all of that with Aldehyde (the name of the molecule contained in fresh coriander), which I think is the most fascinating and original of the crop of restaurants to open in Paris for la rentrée, when the French get back to work after their summer holidays.

Portrait Youssef Marzouk, © ALDEHYDE, BOBY; REMI TESSLER DESIGN
Marzouk’s original interest in cooking came from the fact that his father is a pâtissier specialising in North African pastries, while his mother is a restaurateur. “I’ve always been interested in food,” says Marzouk, recalling how watching Bon Appétit Bien Sûr, the late Joël Robuchon’s TV cookery show, as a child further stoked his interest in a culinary career. His parents, however, wanted their children to have more prestigious professions, so Youssef got a degree in chemistry before eventually returning to his first love, cooking. His fascinating career began in the kitchen of the Ritz hotel in Paris and has included stints as pastry chef and assistant chef with chef Tomy Gousset and then at Le Cheval Blanc, where he was captivated by the work and signature sauces of Michelin three-star chef Arnaud Donckele. His small, intimate restaurant in the Marais has an open kitchen and is decorated with objects from Tunisia, plus family mementos and mostly Tunisian faience.
“My cooking tells the story of me and my family,” says Marzouk, and after three amuse-bouches – a tiny tartlette of finely-riced carrot seasoned with cumin, girolles in tapenade façon Bonne Maman, and a sublime miniature tomato salad with burrata and orange-flower water – I immediately deciphered the secret ingredients that are consistently present in Marzouk’s cooking: his sincerity and his prodigious intelligence. Our first course – a beautiful, succulent bite that reminded us that the Mediterranean world has a deep, shared culinary culture of ingredients and techniques, including artichokes, figs, olives, oil and capers – was a miniature Roman Jewish style artichoke garnished with fig. A plate of exquisitely delicate duck-filled ravioli came in a luscious sauce Phnom Penh, an edible souvenir of Marzouk’s travels in Southeast Asia, yellow pollack with a stuffed zucchini flower and a sunny yellow sauce of fresh turmeric was suddenly shyer, while the lamb that followed was stunningly refined with an espuma of mechouia, a Tunisian condiment of tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic and pepper.

© ALDEHYDE, BOBY; REMI TESSLER DESIGN
Three delightful desserts concluded the meal, the best being the last one, ‘Chocolat façon After Eight’, a reference to the After Eight chocolate-covered mints that Marzouk’s grandfather had loved. This tasting menu was not only an intriguing gastronomic adventure but a deeply moving discovery of a young chef, his family and the ancestral tastes of coastal Tunisia they still crave even though resident in France for a very long time. Dining here was a truly unique and delightful experience.
Aldehyde, 5 rue du Pont Louis Philippe, 4th arrondissement, Paris – Tel. (33) 09 73 89 43 24
From France Today Magazine
Lead photo credit : © ALDEHYDE
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