Yariv Berreby of KGB wants to transform French cooking. (Julia Pelish photo)
[During a visit in the spring to Paris, some foodie friends were excited to take me to KGB, which turned out to be an outstanding restaurant in the Latin Quarter. Here’s an account, along with notes a few other places I dropped in on during my stay. This article was first published on the Toronto Star’s Travel site.]
PARIS — One of the most innovative young chefs in Paris happens to be an Israeli man inspired by Asia’s cuisine and culinary philosophy.
Yariv Berreby’s food at Kitchen Galerie Bis (or KGB), a recently opened restaurant near the Left Bank’s Latin Quarter, isn’t fusion or microgastronomy, he says. It’s more about what’s been happening in Paris in the past two years, which is an attempt to change traditional French food as well as the French diet.
“We don’t want people to eat until they’re so full they’re bursting,” Berreby says in his kitchen. “We want to concentrate not so much on lots of butter and cream, but on using fresh ingredients and making the experience more satisfying, not uncomfortable.”
To retain the flavour without going to the tried-and-true richness of dairy products, Berreby uses lighter ingredients and modern culinary methods, such as foam that reduces the density of sauces without removing taste from a dish.
Adrian Brijbassi 