What is a day like for one of the world’s leading chefs? This article from France Magazine gives you a peek at the life of Pascal Barbot, chef at the critically acclaimed “L’Astrance” in the 16th arrondissement. L’Astrance was recently named #22 of the top restaurants in the world.

Pascal Barbot
The Paris Chef who just can’t commit
by Susan Hermann Loomis

In person, Chef Pascal Barbot is everything that his admirers say he is: an unpretentious young man who bounces instead of walks, has an insatiable curiosity and a truly humble desire to serve simple, joyous, seasonal cuisine to diners who fill his tiny restaurant tucked away in Paris’s 16th arrondissement.
Talking with him, you would hardly guess that the 25-seat L’Astrance, which he opened five years ago with Christophe Rohat (like Barbot, formerly of Alain Passard’s Arpège), is one of the hottest tickets in town. It takes a full month to get a reservation now that Michelin has awarded it two stars and Gault Millau has given it a 19/20 score—and named Barbot Chef of the Year.
“My cooking has a strong base in milk,” Barbot explains, as we talk one day in the handsome upstairs dining room decorated in dark gray with calendula-yellow chairs and banquettes. Suddenly I remembered the appetizer that had won my heart during my first visit to L’Astrance. I’d called later to ask what the delicate little foam on top was and, to my immense surprise, learned that it was milk mixed with a touch of vinegar.
It turns out that Barbot has his heart in his native Auvergne, a rustic region in the center of France where milk—usually in the form of cheese—plays a huge part in the culture. “I love milk, I grew up around milk, I use it in everything,” he says. “Everything” includes a fabulously light potato and fromage frais dessert that is lightly sweetened and very pure, as well as a wonderful carrot purée poured on cardamom-scented yogurt and topped with frothy milk.
Like many of Paris’s great chefs, Barbot haunts food markets daily to find the best possible ingredients. Tuesdays may find him at Rungis, the huge wholesale market outside Paris; other days, he’ll visit the nearby market at Iéna in the 16th arrondissement, or perhaps seek out a marché that specializes in exotic ingredients. While always looking for seasonal products, his real criterion is what looks best at the moment. This makes him the sort of chef who is unwilling to commit, to the point that L’Astrance has no written menus, simply suggestions of the day.
Guests are offered elliptical choices such as saumon tiède (lukewarm salmon) or St. Jacques cuite et crue (cooked and raw scallops), without any details. “That way, I can create dishes on the spot with whatever I’ve found at the market that morning,” Barbot says.
Saumon tiède, for example, may appear on the table with melted leeks or with soy sauce and mustard. If foie gras is offered, it might come accented with tart verjus or accompanied with truffles. If a gorgeous turbot leaps out at him at the fishmonger’s, he may bring it back to the restaurant and serve it with a pork knuckle and a condiment of melted onions and grapefruit.
For Barbot, cooking is clearly much more a matter of poetry than of menus and recipes. “No two dishes I serve are ever the same,” he says. “So no one who comes to this restaurant ever has the same thing twice.”
To get another take on this vibrant, young chef, I ask what he cooks at home. His response is a flat, “Cook at home? I don’t eat at home.” What’s more, he says he rarely goes out. Pressed, he admits to eating whatever he finds at the market that day. As it turns out, Barbot is as humble as any good French home cook, not quite believing that anyone would want to hear what he has to say about the dishes that are dear to him, beyond what he makes for guests at the restaurant.
“Sometimes the things I make at home are simply horrible,” he admits. “Like putting soy sauce on pasta just so I can taste both. I like to pick up things and try them together—I love fiery sweet pepper paste with fruit, or wonderful tomatoes with mozzarella, you know, simple things.” He becomes increasingly animated as he remembers more dishes. “I also make my own flavored oils, milk-based sauces….” He trails off into a private culinary reverie before returning to the conversation, which has switched to his vacations.
“I never plan anything in advance,” he says. “For instance, my vacation starts this Friday, and I’m not sure yet where I’ll go. But wherever I go, I’ll try to take some cooking classes, because I love to do that.” He talks enthusiastically about classes he took in New Orleans and Thailand. “I like to get new ideas, pick up new flavors and techniques.”
These ideas naturally fuel his creations at the restaurant, resulting in such dishes as cured lemons served with young duck, Parmigiano-Reggiano that is turned into a fondue, and thin slices of abalone and perfectly cooked pigeon swimming in a mandarin-orange broth with a touch of licorice.
Barbot jumps up and says, “Come see the kitchen.” On the way, I shake hands with a tall young American chef. The rest of the staff includes a Japanese pâtissier, a Chinese line cook, a dishwasher from the Dominican Republic and an Argentinean woman who is putting the final touches on a cake her grandmother taught her to make. “I’m so glad, I’ve been after her to make something from her family and her country,” Barbot says. “Last week, the American cooked, and we had barbecue and chocolate chip cookies. Both were delicious.
“I love bringing foreigners into the kitchen because they teach me, ” he adds, with a mischievous glint in his eye. “I get them to cook staff meals, and that way we can all taste their specialties. Of course, I cook for the staff, too. I guess you could say that is my home cooking these days.”
He talks about some of the dishes hemakes for them, such as lentils with a cornichon granité (“It’s just lentils with a twist”), fresh coconut with cabbage (“I serve it with roast pork, it’s nothing complicated”), and tuna with cilantro oil (“It’s so simple—the real trick is cooking the tuna perfectly”).
Barbot tightens the strings on his apron as I say goodbye. Walking back into the Paris afternoon, I can’t help but smile. No wonder it’s such fun to eat at L’Astrance—everyone preparing the food is bursting with his own culture, his own ideas, his own desire to share what he knows. And Barbot is wide open to learning it all.