Before the summer, I warned readers that Pharamond was about to close, and during the summer, I kept an eye on the renovation work going on. The new Pharamond opened its doors in late September. I caught an insipid, tepid review of it in one of the weeklies, which spoke of anything but the food, and finally went to see what was what for myself.

Reader, it’s brilliant. The patron used to be the wine steward at L’Ami Louis (a sometime haunt of Jacques Chirac and Bill Clinton), and it shows in the wine list, which comes in a leather-bound slipcase, if you please. Some of the wines go back to the 1920s and ‘30s. You could do worse than go just for a bottle of wine.

At the end of our meal, too full to try the desserts, we finished off with coffee and a marc de Bourgogne made in 1933 or ’34 (they’re not sure), which had matured to a golden chestnut brown, mellowing sublimely on the way. Who would expect that kind of find outside of really big restaurants that have the capital to tie up in an extensive cellar?

The food is pricier than it was in the restaurant’s last incarnation, and the menu at first sight looks limited and old-fashioned. I mean, who makes vol au vent any more? But what a vol au vent! It was a sensational blast from the past: superbly nutty puff pastry was filled with button mushrooms and sweetbreads. The mushrooms had developed their full flavor yet were not rubbery, while the sweetbreads melted, melted…in perfect harmony.

Or snails. Who gets excited about snails these days? Pharamond, that’s who. There was something so earthily authentic about them, something so down-homey in the mix of parsley, garlic and butter that they awoke dim, distant memories of my first, tentatively tasted snails at a family meal in Burgundy in my student days.

It’s the sourcing, not the saucing, that does it. Here’s a chef who’s not afraid to trot out nigh-forgotten provincial favorites and give them just enough of the treatment to let the products (and their loving producers) take nine-tenths of the credit. Humility as an art form.

This was doubly demonstrated with two of the main courses, poule au pot and onglet aux échalotes. Poule au pot is basically boiled chicken (an old “boiler” chicken that needs a lot of cooking) and rice. But cook your chicken in the right kind of stock and truffle the rice, and you have a dish that restores your faith in the grand French tradition of simple bourgeois cooking. This is what we should and would all be eating at home if we had the time to seek out the producers and do the products justice in the kitchen. Ditto for the onglet, a piece of steak cooked with crispy fried shallots. That’s it. Wikipedia tells me the cut is a “hanger steak,” that there’s one to a steer and that it’s very tender and has an intense flavor. All true. But this one was not just tender; it had the character and rewarding texture that can only come from a beast that died happy. I could also wax lyrical about the fries, the portion of which was so generous that I had to leave far too many of them on my plate. Good potatoes, hand-cut, no trace of greasiness and totally satisfying. Sigh.

Pharamond has a listed Art Nouveau interior with colorful, floral-patterned ceramic decoration, and its upper floors, where food has been served since the 1830s, are a must-see. The new owner has brought back into service the private dining rooms on the third floor that seat from two (for a very intimate tryst) to about twenty. The second floor seats about 45. The rooms are museum pieces in themselves, with magnificent frosted-glass windows.

What does Pharamond lack? A bit of front-of-house presence. The very discreet patron’s partner has a day job running four bakeries and arrives late to keep the customers happy. Until she brings her blithe presence along, however, the crimson surroundings have a touch of the vampire’s den about them, especially as downstairs diners were a bit thin on the ground that evening.

But that’s a small quibble. Pharamond is a place to watch and support for as long as your wallet can take it.

Richard Hesse

Le Pharamond: 24, rue de la Grande Truanderie, 75001 Paris. Métro: Etienne Marcel or Les Halles. Tel: 01 40 28 45 18. A la carte: Around €60.

© 2006 Paris Update