William Ledeuil is an old acquaintance of Identità Golose: he participated in the 2009 edition of the congress in Milan, and surprised the audience with a lesson in which he showed that very classic French flavours can go very well with aromas from South-East Asia, of which he was crazy about: Vietnam, Japan, Thailand. We still recall his Stewed croquets with Thai herbs and chilli pepper.
At the time Ledeuil was (and still is) at the helm of Ze Kitchen Galerie, a restaurant with a Michelin star that charms Parisians with its strong Asian accent since 2001. A few years later he opened Kgb, which stands for Kitchen Galerie Bis, also on Rue des Grands Agustins, in the 6th Arrondissement. With this second adventure Ledeuil started to take a new look on French hors d'ouvres, with dishes eaten straight from the cooking pan, Asian style. He defines it une cuisine hors des sentiers battus, "a cuisine off the beaten track", and on July 6th he started the third chapter.
It’s called Kitchen Ter(re), in nearby Boulevard Saint German 26 and the offer is focused almost entirely on Italian pasta and Asian broth. A blend of Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine that had the people at Le Monde immediately proclaiming it a miracle with their title "Les mille pâtes de William Ledeuil".
Ledeuil has a very personal and unusual style in approaching Italian food: he uses Italian formats like
caserecce but they’re made in France by
Roland Feuillas with stone-milled organic flour from selected cereals and ancient wheat varieties (while the bronze moulds are Italian).
Pasta dishes in the menu include durum wheat
Dentelles – like short
reginette – with squid, tomato, seaweed and galangal. The squid is wrapped in very fresh herbs of oriental origin (Asian cuisine has always been a passion of the chef): Thai basil, rocket salad, coriander, seaweed.
Then there’s spelt
Girolette with Iberian pork and kimchi,
Caserecce with glazed chicken, harissa and lemon confit,
Coquilettes with green curry and basil. And
blésotto, a wheat risotto made with Thai pesto, chanterelle mushrooms and Pecorino. Every pasta finishes its cooking in a Thai broth, the classic
tom kha kai, enriched, depending on the recipe, with
nuoc-mâm, galangal, palm sugar, kaffir lime, citronella, curry.
Durum wheat Dentelles – sort of short reginette – with squid, tomato, seaweed and galangal. Lunch at Kitchen Ter(re) is around 30 euros, dinner is around 45
The outcome is surprising: unexpected flavours, and pasta al dente and perfectly thickened. An extremely interesting experience, especially for an Italian. Too bad the dining room is very cold, rather impersonal and the wine list is quite costly. But the very kind staff compensates the overall service.
Then in the menu there’s also: Asian scented gazpacho, octopus salad and tomatoes with strong Thai aromas, fried soft shell crab. Desserts include Fior di fragola sorbet with peach and melon on a gelatine of verbena and citronella.
