You may not know her, at least not yet. And yet, the Brazilian Manoella “Manu” Buffara is the “best chef in South America” according to the 50 Best which also ranks her tiny eleven-seat restaurant in Curitiba, in the south of Brazil, 21st in the world. And since this fall, this woman of just 40 years old has signed the restaurant menu Dome Blue at Printemps Haussmann! A first in Paris for someone who started in Italy, then in a restaurant Noma from Copenhagen and Chicago before returning to Brazil, and who makes it a point each time to cook as natural and as local as possible.
“It would have been impossible to do the same thing as what I serve in my restaurant in Brazil,” Manu Buffara confides to 20 minutes, but we tried to adapt some recipes as best as possible, with spices and ingredients that we could find here. »
Darings and pleasures
With the complicity of Clément Blondeau (executive chef of Printemps) and Bryan Esposito (pastry chef of Printemps), she imagined a unique menu, at once lively, daring and pleasant, as the best possible link between France and Brasil.
“For fall and winter, it was about offering warm cuisine, which could please a rather female clientele who came to take a break from their shopping,” continues Manu Buffara. I tried to mix my recipes with French ingredients that weren’t too confusing. And I discovered that in France you had a whole bunch of fantastic fresh produce, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, incredible seafood like this fish that I didn’t know about, amberjack, or your crab, which is very soft and very subtle to slip into brioches. »
Besides the crab roll that we happily share for a gourmet aperitif (15 euros) and the amberjack served slightly overcooked on the day of our report (35 euros), we admit to enjoying the tartare served on a fried corn tortilla (15 euros) and sea bass marinated in large cubes in a very delicately seasoned sauce with grilled fish skin chips (15 euros). We also fell for the beef fillet whose creamy black beans look like chocolate puree (35 euros)!
We skipped the desserts, but those with a sweet tooth have the choice between the pear condimented with caviar with its flower of milk ice cream and toasted bread (16 euros) or the apple, a signature dessert based on an ingredient which Manu Buffara says he has “ discovered all the qualities in Normandy”: apple compote, frosted apple, flower of milk ice cream and apple cake croutons (9 euros).
Until April 30, 2024 at Printemps de la Femme (6th floor). 64, boulevard Haussmann (Paris 9th). Such. : 01 42 82 58 84. At lunch, Monday to Sunday.