Chef Claude Troisgros opens mixed restaurant and performance in Rio

The dining experience at chef Claude Troisgros’s new restaurant in Rio could be something like a theatrical show with multimedia overtones.

It has a precise start and end time (two hours and 20 minutes exactly). It has a stage, where artists (chefs) perform a work. It has projections of visual effects, accompanied by soundtracks. There are musicians singing and playing (not live, but on walls turned into canvases). There is poetry recited.

There’s only one element that’s rarer in theaters: a nine-step menu being served throughout the show.

The technical file also looks more like a play — it has an artistic director, soundtrack, costumes, but also creation of dishes and recipes.

The result of this can be seen from this Wednesday (25) at Mesa do Lado, a restaurant/experience that works in a room with access from the back of Chez Claude, in Leblon.

It is a kind of expanded sensorial experience, having as a creative basis the duo formed by chef Claude Troisgros and artistic director Batman Zavareze. They worked for a year to create the product, whose objective is to connect all the senses with the taste.

The “show” has three acts. The guiding principle is a nine-course tasting menu (with wine pairings, mainly), performed in front of an audience of only 12 people. In the first act, snacks and entrees; in the second, fish and meat; and in the third, the desserts.

Consistent with the history of the 66-year-old chef, acclimatized to the Brazilian spirit over more than four decades, there is a sense of Brazilianness in the choice of ingredients and combination of flavors: spicy sprinkle biscuit with truffle; scallop with gnocchi, pork belly and tucupi dashi; cavaquinha, squid and vongole with cannelloni and palm oil; wagyu with cassava, sweet potato, smoked okra.

But an explicit reverence is also made to the origins of Troisgros, a member of a dynasty of first-rate French chefs, when he presents the salmon dish with sorrel, a classic of his father and uncle that was pivotal in the rise of the nouvelle cuisine movement. French in the 1970s.

The most impressive dish is perhaps an entry, the second, entitled “this dish has no name”, where there are daring combinations supported by very traditional products, but also modern techniques such as spherification.

There are various flavors, textures, colors, in explosive but delicate contrast —the salinity of the oyster and the salicornia seaweed, the velvety texture of the avocado puree, the crunchiness of the cauliflower, the acidity of the mustard caviar and the tomato pickle, the spiciness of Cuesta Azul cheese, the sweetness of artisanal honey, grapes and tomato jam.

While eating and drinking —all drinks are Brazilian—lights pop up on the floor, ceiling and walls (and by the customers); soundtracks vibrate in the air; and videos are projected, showing testimonies by Troisgros and scenes from the production of ingredients, as well as poetic and musical interventions by artists such as Camila Pitanga and Roberta Sá.

In the bathroom, intimacy is encouraged by poems being read.

The intention was to place the audience as if they were inside a screen all the time, explains Zavareze — and that is why the guests are placed at six two-seater tables, millimetrically placed on the stage (to meet the visual effects and movement of the participants). waiters).

Returning to the technical file, the soundtrack is by Max Viana and Linox; lighting, by Césio Lima; the costumes, by stylist Marta Macedo. The program was handcrafted by the artist Marcia Martins, and the tableware by the ateliers Denise Stewart, MG Cerâmica and Atelier da Vila.

A super production for just a few people at a time—and a price to match.