Restaurant Review: Spring Restaurant, in Paris

Restaurant Review: Spring Restaurant, in Paris

Emmanuel Fradin for The New York Times
By CHRISTINE MUHLKE
Published: April 29, 2011



For a while there, Daniel Rose had a pretty sweet gig. Spring, the young Chicago-born chef’s restaurant in the Ninth Arrondissement of Paris, was booked months in advance. A darling of the press, he was also the dauphin of his tiny open kitchen, which allowed him to chat with his 16 diners as he prepared the market-driven menu on his own slightly disorganized time. Your appetizer might have landed around bedtime, but you felt lucky to be there. (And you were.)

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And then Mr. Rose, below, realized it was time to grow up. He relocated Spring, opening the new restaurant in the First Arrondissement last July in an august 17th-century building. The kitchen, with room for four cooks, is still open, permitting Mr. Rose to charm guests with his menschy bonhomie. The quietly casual room has just 28 seats. It still books up months in advance. (The secret is to call in the afternoon for that night’s cancellations.) Downstairs is Spring Buvette, a humming, no-reservations wine bar.

The luxury of a team has allowed the 33-year-old Mr. Rose’s food to grow up, too. During a December visit, the multicourse menu — ours included seven — was an impressive journey through the early-winter market: poached sea bass served room temperature with a snappy vinaigrette, oysters and a cap of frizzled leeks; silky veal “candy” cooked sous-vide and sweetened with butter-poached heirloom beets; rich and crispy shredded veal breast confit, cut with orange.

All three dessert courses — yogurt sorbet with coconut cookies; poached pear with fromage blanc, frangipane and cacao nibs; chocolate ganache with salted caramel, chestnut and a coconut tuile — disappeared without conversation.

Indeed, Spring is such a destination that diners tend to sit in rapt silence. That can lead to between-course conversations in the “So, how’d you get a table?” vein. An older pair from Georgia had become friends with a couple from New York by the second course.

When the Georgia gentleman returned from the downstairs bathroom, which is in the wine bar, he reported to his new friends, eyebrows cocked, “They’ve got a real rock ’n’ roll crowd down there!” Leave it to Daniel Rose to combine the best of both worlds.

Spring Restaurant, 6, rue Bailleul, Paris; (33-1) 45-96-05-72; springparis.blogspot.com. Market menu is 64 euros ($90 at $1.40 to the euro) for at least seven courses at dinner; 38 euros ($53) for three courses at lunch.

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