French cuisine with a twist.
We love French cuisine. That is why all our dishes belong to French cuisine, but with a unique and pleasantly surprising twist. From, for example, a tender côte de boeuf and traditional steak tartare to a richly filled bouillabaisse and creamy cheese croquettes. Every season, our chefs provide a new menu full of surprising flavor combinations that match the French cuisine.
But what exactly is the French cuisine?
Explanation: French cuisine
Most of us are familiar with the croque monsieurs, steak tartare, crepes salad Niçoise and escargot. But what else is typical of French cuisine? We are happy to give you some more explanation.
To make it difficult: there is not necessarily one French kitchen. In France, each area has a distinctive kitchen.
- For example, in the southeast of France cooks 'Provencial'. This is with a lot of olive oil and Mediterranean herbs. They also often enjoy a Bouillabaisse (fish soup) here.
- In the northwest, they love butter, crème fraîche and shellfish, such as scallops.
- Southwestern France consumes a lot of foie gras, aubergines, garlic, porcini mushrooms and roquefort cheese.
- In the northeast, they prefer heartier meals that show similarities with German cuisine. Think of potatoes, sausages and sauerkraut.
Local French kitchens
France also has several well-known local cuisines. Take, for example, the Loire Valley, with typical dishes of freshwater fish and white wine from the Loire Valley. Or the Basque cuisine. This one is characterized by chilies and tomatoes. Although nowadays you can enjoy almost all dishes of French cuisine in every region of France, the regional differences are still noticeable when you travel through France. You will see differences in eating habits and cooking skills.
French chef Auguste Escoffier
World-renowned French chef Auguste Escoffier played an extremely important role in internationalizing and redefining French cuisine. For example, he started seasoning dishes to enhance the taste rather than to disguise it. Auguste also used more and more fresh ingredients. And he served meats in their own gravy. Those are things that are very normal nowadays, but once were revolutionary. His influence on worldwide cuisine cannot be understated.
World-renowned French chef Auguste Escoffier
A new chapter
He invented dozens of world-famous recipes that are popular and eaten to this day. Think of Pêch Melba and Crêpes Suzette. These can be found in his book 'Le Guide Culinaire'. This revolutionary book consists of 5000 detailed recipes. This laid the foundation for the modernization of French cuisine.
The history of French cuisine
Did you know that French cuisine had a different way of dining until the 19th century? That was the so-called Service à la Française. This was a way of serving where all dishes were served on the table at the same time. There were no courses and no menu. The dishes were also announced by the chamberlains. But this changed around 1810. Then the Service à la Russe was introduced by chefs from the Russian ambassador. Dishes were served on the table in a fixed order one after the other. That turned out to be popular with the French nobility. Although French chefs tried to stick to their Service à la Française, the emerging bourgeoisie preferred the multi-course dinner. This changed the dining tradition in French restaurants in the late 19th century. To this day, this has remained the norm.
French cheese and wine
French cuisine is of course also known for its wide range of cheeses and wines. And a good wine should not be missing in French cuisine. That is why we at Florent also spend a lot of time tasting, selecting and serving special and tasty wines. For example, the wine must always perfectly match the dish on the menu. That is evident. But we also want to go beynd being just complementary, we also want to surprise. That is why we also have an unusual selection of wines. For example, we serve internationally oriented, classic and new world wines.
Lesson of French technical terms
In the open kitchen, our chefs make frequent use of various French technical terms. These words sound very beautiful, but what do they actually mean? That is why we would like to give you a small lesson in French technical terms:
- Abaisse : piece of dough, rolled out thinly using a rolling pin.
- Appareil : filling composed of different products.
- Assaisonner : herbs.
- Barderen : cover or wrap with fresh fatty bacon.
- Blancheren : briefly cooking food, after which you immediately cool it so that it does not cook any further.
- Bordure : decorate the edge of a dish with puree.
- Brider : tie up poultry or game to give it a nice shape during cooking.
- Brunoise : diced vegetables or meat.
- Chinoise : in Chinese diamond (cut).
- Clarifiëren : making clear.
- Court-bouillon : spice broth for cooking.
- Frapperen : cooling with ice.
- Julienne : cutting vegetables or potatoes into strips.
- Macedoine : a salad of vegetables and / or fruit that has been cut in equal parts, usually cubes of one or half centimeter in size.
- Mirepoix : coarsely chopped vegetables.
- Plisseren : skinning of vegetables, for example.
Hungry already? Then come and visit us to taste the delicious dishes from the French cuisine. Book a table and hopefully we'll see you soon!
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Visschersplein 75
3511 LX Utrecht
Opening hours.
Every Tuesday to Saturday, from 6pm to 10pm.
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