"We only tried CO because it was around the corner from our cousin's flat in the less stylish 18th arrondissement, near Porte de Clignancourt, and she'd heard some good things about it from friends. After a week of satisfying, but therefore predictable traditional French cooking, our dinner at CO was a real surprise. Their excellent Icelandic chef comes out with his equipe to serve each course, and everything they served was breathtaking. With a party of five, we ordered everything officially offered on the menu (although we observed a diner, evidently a friend of the owner, who ordered 'hors de la carte'). My wife and I ordered the vegetarian 'menu of the fields': baked and fried shallots, in a 'soup' of fermented celeriac, with crunchy, bready bits underneath and smoked kelp. Main was a single, incredible leek, served with a stripe of vinagrette, enriched with violet mustard, and a side of new potatoes and relish of leek. Our companions got the cockerel and the mackerel (a poem about the meal would therefore be 'doggerel'), each quite creative and using all the bits. I suppose you could call the approach 'molecular': a powder over the leek was in fact a sort of ash made from the greens, and some of the fermented elements of the meal, such as the celeriac soup of our starters, were first vacuumed with a bit of salt, then left for two weeks.Everything was bursting with flavour, the combinations utterly surprising but everything worked. Add to that the fact that the whole atmosphere is quite casual and relaxed, and one only wonders how long this chef will be working in such an out-of-the way restaurant."
