At Villa9Trois, “with a fork, pollack flesh, perfectly cooked with mother-of-pearl, reveals all its brilliance”

PSometimes escape happens where you least expect it. On the heights of Montreuil, in Seine-Saint-Denis, a few blocks from Jean-Moulin-Les Guilands park, in the quiet rue Hoche, is an unsuspected gastronomic nugget, Villa9Trois.

At the entrance, a small sign announces the color: “Watch out for the bees”. This is followed by a vegetable garden, a few beehives, a chicken coop and an elegant citrus greenhouse. The highlight of this bucolic spectacle in an urban area: a large tree-lined terrace adorned with XXL parasols, unfortunately closed on this cool May evening.

Inside the old 19th century bourgeois building^e century, the atmosphere is cozy and the service particularly attentive. At the helm of the kitchens, chef Camille Saint-M’Leux, 27, who worked for Taillevent and Le Cinq, is one of the rising figures of French gastronomy. He obtained his first Michelin star this year and qualified for the final of the international S.Pellegrino Young Chef Academy competition, reserved for chefs under 30, thanks to an atypical signature dish: beef from Châteauneuf, a chuck with squid ink and smoked herring roe, served without any garnish.

Topped with a refreshed dill curly

Aesthetically less radical than this charcoal-colored monochrome, another plate from the tasting menu hits the mark with its accuracy, balance and precision: pollack. The fish, caught by small boats on the coast of Brittany, is presented here in its simplest form, just covered with a frisee refreshed with dill and braised on the barbecue, all topped with a koji butter sauce of barley. With a fork, the meat, perfectly cooked in mother-of-pearl, reveals all its brilliance. The fish was hooked for two or three days before being brined in salt, rinsed and very quickly put in the oven.

A sublime interplay of textures unfolds between the fondant of the place and the crunchiness of the frisee. The white butter sauce ties it all together, as does a small oyster tartare nestled between the fish and the salad, which you discover after a few bites. It serves as a condiment for this dish without added salt and brings an iodized freshness that awakens the palate. Suddenly, we are transported to the Morbihan coast where this pollack was caught and where Camille Saint-M’Leux – whose favorite fish it is – spent his childhood, on the island of Hoedic, hunting. underwater with his father.

To highlight this dish, a granitic rock Riesling from Domaine Zind Humbrecht enhances the iodized finesse of pollack and gives a taste of great holidays. All this just a few minutes beyond the Paris ring road.