Ruinart · 4 RUE DES CRAYÈRES
A weekend interlude
at Ruinart.
Five courses, an exceptionally thoughtful Champagne line-up and a place where gastronomy does not accompany the house style, but reveals it from a new perspective.
A visit to Ruinart is special in itself, but continuing the day in the private dining room of 4 RUE DES CRAYÈREScreates an altogether different intimacy with the house. After the historic weight of the chalk cellars, the bright contemporary interior and the table’s restrained details seemed to slow time. The menu aptly called the experience a ‘weekend interlude’: it was indeed a beautifully composed pause.
The imprint of climate in the glass
The aperitif was Ruinart Blanc Singulier Édition 19with cheese feuilleté and verjuice. Made from 100% Chardonnay with no dosage, the cuvée comprises 77% wine from 2019 and 23% from a perpetual reserve. For me, this was one of the opening’s most compelling ideas: a wine that does not seek to hide the effect of an extreme year, but expresses its character within the Ruinart style.
Ruinart Millésimé 2016 followed with beans, sea asparagus and a vegetable emulsion, then Ruinart Blanc de Blancs in magnum with cod cooked in brown butter, lemon, capers and Champagne sauce. The magnum format complemented the dish’s layered, saline and citrus-led character beautifully. Ruinart Rosé in magnumwith roast veal, seasonal mushrooms and cauliflower took the meal in a deeper, earthier direction while preserving the line-up’s lightness.
The finest Champagne lunches do not present wine and food separately. They create a third experience through the meeting of the two.
The surprise that truly remained one
The menu described the final two glasses only as a ‘surprise wine’ and an ‘exceptional wine’. At the table, they proved to be Dom Ruinart 2007, followed by L’Exclusive Ruinart in its silver-coloured holder. Keeping their identity secret was a wise choice: beside Chaource and a seasonal fruit dessert, the finale became not merely another great bottle but the dramatic culmination of the entire lunch.
What I carried away was more than the memory of the line-up. It was the way Ruinart could tell one lucid story about Chardonnay, a changing climate, the house’s history and contemporary gastronomy: precise and elegant, yet entirely free of stiffness.