Crisp Paupiettes of Sea Bass in Barolo Sauce

Just before Daniel Boulud took over as executive chef of Le Cirque in New York City in 1986, he spent some time in Lyon, France, cooking with the legendary chef Paul Bocuse. Boulud was impressed by a dish Bocuse made of red mullet encased in thin slices of potato, which were carefully cut in rounds to mimic the scales of the fish itself. The crispiness of the potatoes offered a textural contrast to the delicate fish within; it was, according to Boulud, like a new-age take on fish and chips.

Bocuse’s inspiration for this dish had come from another chef, Frédy Girardet, who was then making fish encased in tiny “scales” of sliced zucchini at a restaurant in Crissier, Switzerland. When Boulud returned to New York, he created his own version of the dish using sea bass, Idaho potatoes, leeks, and Barolo. (He chose Barolo for the sauce to connect the dots between his French cooking and the Italian roots of Sirio Maccioni, Le Cirque’s owner.) The result, Crisp Paupiettes of Sea Bass in Barolo Sauce, Boulud refers to as “a succession of inspiration.” In 1988, the year Boulud became a F&W Best New Chef­ (and the inaugural year the accolade was awarded), F&W noted that the dish was one of Boulud’s specialties. (“The potato is very crisp, and the fish is very moist,” he is quoted as saying.)

Boulud left Le Cirque in 1992. In 1993, when he opened Restaurant Daniel on the Upper East Side, he brought the paupiette recipe with him. The paupiette remained a staple of Daniel’s menu, and the recipe was published in Food & Wine in 1999. But around 2010, the executive chef at Daniel told Boulud that they should take the paupiette off of the menu so that the kitchen could evolve.

“I couldn’t believe that my chef challenged me with my own dish,” Boulud says. “That was the most popular dish we ever had.” Boulud agreed to make the change so long as his team created a new, unexpected dish using the same ingredients. To this day, the original paupiette has not made another appearance on the menu at Daniel—but every six months, the team creates a new interpretation using black sea bass, leek, potato, and red wine sauce.

Around the same time that the paupiette left the menu at Daniel, chef Gavin Kaysen (a 2007 F&W Best New Chef) put it on the menu at the now-closed Café Boulud. Kaysen’s rendition stayed true to the original except for one addition: He added mashed potato underneath the fish—something creamy to contrast with the paupiette’s crunch.

If the original paupiette ever returns to Daniel, it’s likely that Boulud won’t change a thing. “Some dishes we work over and over, every year doing a new interpretation because it’s a new season and we have a new menu,” he says. “But with the paupiette, there’s nothing to reinvent.” — Nina Friend