French Restaurant Review: Matka, Paris

Matka (Mother), which recently opened in an ancient stone house in one of the oldest and most beautiful streets in Paris, is another superb example of the recent flowering of the city’s international dining offer.

Polish chef Piotr Korzen moved to France in 2015 to expand his gastronomic horizons and cooked in Provence before landing a job in the kitchen of Thierry Marx’s restaurant, Sur Mesure, in Paris. Now at his new restaurant, he applies French technique to sublimate, sophisticate and lighten traditional Polish dishes cooked from his mother’s and grandmothers’ recipes. According to Korzen, the Polish and French kitchens have more in common than one might think. “After World War II, many Polish culinary traditions were forgotten or little used. But three or four centuries earlier, Polish cooking had a lot in common with the French kitchen in terms of making sauces and creating exciting contrasts of taste and texture,” says Korzen, elucidating the elegance of his contemporary Polish cooking with a French touch. Dining with a friend, we were delighted by our starters: a masterfully made chlodnik (cold beet soup) for me with a lively garnish of chopped beets, gherkins and lemon; and a suave duck tartare for my friend, an Austrian winemaker from the Wachau. Curious, he asked if duck tartare was common in Poland, and we were told that the Poles are keen on steak tartare, but that the duck tartare dressed with a green tea consommé which we had enjoyed was Korzen’s own, wonderfully earthy invention.

We were both pleasantly surprised by the glasses of Polish Pinot noir we chose to accompany our first courses, too, since I feared the wine might be thin and tannic like reds from Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Instead, this pour from vineyards south of Kraków was pleasantly crisp with a nose of cooked red fruits. Our main courses were excellent as well.. Korzen’s pierogies (dumplings) were filled with fluffy potato, garnished with farmer’s cheese and crescents of red onion, a deeply satisfying dish that showcased his talent as a chef to refine the rusticity of a dish without losing its gastronomic soul. Similarly, the filling in a beautifully made stuffed cabbage was a fine forcemeat of slow-braised lamb, crispy rice and tomato with earthy quenelles of mushroom duxelles. These dishes teamed well with another carefully structured Polish red, Triada Domaine de L’Opera, which is made with Cabernet Cantor, Cabernet Cortis and Baron grapes. We shared an excellent sernik (Polish cheesecake), which came topped with red fruit compote for dessert, and were quietly amazed by the improbable lightness of Korzen’s fully-flavoured cooking.

The cosy main dining room has a wood-burning stove, so I’m very much looking forward to coming back here this winter, especially since the Polish kitchen has such a rich battery of winter soups and stews.

Matka, 78 rue Quincampoix, 3rd arrondissement, Paris. Tel. (33) 01 44 93 58 14,

From France Today Magazine