Richart’s story can be found in other places but the short version is that Michel took the business over (from his father) and updated it using contemporary art as one of his primary influences. Indeed, design is the immediate distinguishing feature – bold bright colors that look too intricate and impossible to place on chocolates. The chocolates below, while striking in their simplicity, don’t show the detail and color of other designs. Designs are “printed” using cocoa butter.

Permanent flavor families are offered as well as special editions throughout the year. The permanent families include Balsamic, Roasted, Fruity, Citrus, Herbal, Floral, & Spiced. Special offerings include themes based on seasons, children’s themes, and even a yearly contest that features a lucky kid’s design.

The chocolate used is 70% minimum of the Criollo bean from Venezuala. From there, they claim to grind it finer than other chocolate makers – from 20 to 12 microns – to ensure an “ultra-smooth palate experience.” The chocolates come with a variety of fillings – ganache, praline, and coulis. The ganache is made with cream from Normandy or Bresse and the coulis contains actual fruit pulp.

The flavors are as vibrant as the design – crisp, bold, bright, and clean. Some flavors, particularly the orange, taste like an entire piece of fruit has been concentrated into the small chocolate somehow. It’s amazing how such small squares have such impact.

From Left to Right, Back to Front:

Grapefruit Praline – bitter grapefruit upfront yields to a sweet hazelnut finish.

Mandarin / Green Orange Ganache – very orange, nearly concentrated in impact, vibrant.

Kumquat Coulis – crisp kumquat flavor with some bitterness from its pulp in the coulis, fairly long finish.

Bergamot Ganache – the chocolate remains strong with bergamot inflections, the ganache quite creamy and very smooth.

Citrus Essence Coulis – orange, lemon, and bergamot flavors dance around, none dominating, but maintaining the citrus essence throughout.

Orange Zest Coulis – intense orange flavor with a fair amount of bitterness that slowly decays and cedes to the underlying chocolate notes.

Lemon Ganache – intensely strong lemon flavor, almost a concentrated lemon confit taste, big and very bright.

The coulis citrus chocolates are the best – the fruit flavors are boldest and cleanest, presumably from the inclusion of actual pulp. All are intense and pack more flavor than most chocolates from any other producer. The chocolate shells are not always the freshest, unlike Paul Young (London) or Kee’s Chocolate (NYC), but the explosive flavors make up for deficiencies in the shell. If you could get them fresh from Lyon (Richart’s home base), they could oust Paul Young from my top ranking.

- chuck

Official Site: http://www.richart.com/

What I find interesting is that the cuisine is not WD-50, Moto, or Alinea; instead, as you’ll see below, the dishes are far more organic in nature with just a few experimental tweaks. The dishes looked largely Asian-influenced (particularly SE Asia) but everything contained some hints of gas-mol. Oddly, I read in an article that he considers his food a refinement of Italian flavors w/ Japanese flavors. Maybe, if you’re strictly talking flavors, but I don’t quite get that one.

1. The Fancy Bread Structure
This was served w/ some very delicious miso cream cheese.

2. Cracked Pepper / Corn / Crab Soup w/ Popcorn Milk Froth
A very comforting soup. An intense pepper taste followed the sweetness of the corn. The Popcorn froth presumably gave it a very buttery finish. Very Good.

3. Alaskan King Crab w/ Caramelized Avocado, Fish Roe, & Chili
It looks pedestrian but the roe gave it salty bursts in every bite while the chile gave it a perfect heat (re: nearly too much to be too much but just slightly restrained.) There was a fair amount of mayo which slightly detracted but that’s splitting hairs. The caramelized avocado was a special treat. Very Good.

4. Maine Lobster w/ Bok Choy & Gnocci
The main dish, the most expensive, and by far the worst. Nothing going on here but slightly overcooked lobster sitting on a bed of bok choy. Pretty bland dish when you consider the intense spices of the former two. Not Good.

5. Boston Goat Cheese Cake w/ Pear Syrup
Very light, yet creamy, it could give Lady M a run for her money. Very Good.

Overall, a very unexpected surprise. Louis the clothing store is not what it once was but this restaurant is something to be excited about (at night.) They don’t serve a tasting menu but I’m sure they would if you made arragements ahead of time. The cuisine is definitely different – quality asian w/ molgas techniques (rather than molgas w/ some asian ingredients ala WD-50.)

If you have one dinner in Boston, Uni is probably the better bet but this place has some serious potential. We’ll probably need a few more points of reference to legitimately put this place on the map but I’ll allot some time for it on future Boston trips.

You can read the menu at their site:
http://www.louisboston.com/restaurantl/

Beginnings
1. they sat us at a table instead of the bar – ugh

2. my friends aren’t used to dining out; we had a ‘budget’ of $75/person.

3. my friends are husband/wife rowing partners and they had an event the next morning. we only had 1.5 hours to eat and no wine.

4. they didn’t want red meat or any derivative (like foie gras.)

5. i told the waitress – “let the chef pick, $75/person, no red meat/foie gras” and i warned her i was taking notes in hopes of not repeating my 2nd-rate yasuda meal (especially since we couldn’t watch them at the bar.)

that’s what i had to work with – sounds like a fun, huh?

Conclusions:
1. This is a destination restaurant for the US. Get on a plane now, visit Boston for a weekend, and eat at uni.

2. It is a Nobu-like restaurant on steroids – each dish has 1-3 main ingredients w/ 3-4 auxiliary ingredients. Most dishes sing w/ an inventiveness that puts Nobu to shame. There are some mis-steps where things get muddied but most are top-notch.

3. The Fish is on. The quality is somewhere between Manresa and a Kuruma but he also served more exotic things like live scallops & lobster sashimi. (To continue the Nobu comparison i started above, Nobu’s fish is a level below Uni’s fish.)

4. Presentation is king. I should stop cheaping out and buy a camera – this restaurant deserves pictures. Some of the presentations were breathtaking – the scallop resting in its shell on mountain of ice; salmon resting on a large hot rock.

5. GO! Even the non-dining couple were bemoaning they wish they could: a) drink, b) spend longer than 1.5 hours, and c) spend more than $75. They reassured me they would be repeating w/ the “let the chef do what he wants” command that they found so amusing

6. Spend $150/person and i bet you will get one of the better meals in america. At $75/head, our meal was a tremendous value.

The Detailed Menu w/ Comments

1. Tomato/Basil Non-alcoholic Martini w/ strawberry/tomato popsicle
palette cleanser, we were a little shocked considering the ‘no alcohol’ policy but then waitress told us it was NA. the capers in the drink served as a perfect counterpoint. the popsicle was not sweet at all – quite an interesting feat considering the 2 ingredients.

2. Tuna Ceviche w/ lemon, coconut, fried shallots, & fried ginger
a nice ruby red cube of fish that was chopped into finer bits; it had a nice fiery spice that lasted for 2-3 courses. the fried shallots & ginger added a texture & taste twist.

3. Hiromasa (Kingfish) w/ yuzu & shiso vinaigrette
nice fish, a touch too much lemon

4. Salmon “something”
we were guniea pigs! a brand new dish they unveiled for us (or so the waitress said.) a nice cube of salmon cut into 4 chunks, heirloom tomatos, raw radish, chives, & sesame – the freshness of the salmon made this dish a favorite.

5. Live Diver Scallops w/ black truffle vinaigrette, lemon zest
*excellent* live scallops served in their shell atop a large bed of ice. the scallops were sliced very thin, sprinkled w/ the vinaigrette, lemon, & sea salt. wonderful and “bright” – the briny essence of the sea.

6. Lobster Sashimi w/ Jalapeno puree
mmmm…. to me, the jalapeno was unnecessary (although it was tasty by itself.) the lobster was very sweet and, to me, it was a crime to mix it with anything. wonderful. why do people cook lobster?

7. Fluke Sashimi w/ chilean peppers & saffron
this was the main misstep; the flavors were muddled together and thefluke, usually a delicate fish, had a very strange texture. i was wrapped up in conversation so i didn’t really investigate what went wrong.

8. Hamachi Sashimi w/ Shiso flowers
back to basics – a somewhat thick piece of excellent hamachi. this was unlike yasuda – i could taste the essence of the fish – when i bit down, the slight saltiness of the fish filled my mouth.

9. Seared Tuna w/ Ginger & Papaya salad
a *perfectly* seared piece of tuna – the cube of tuna was a very deep ruby red w/ less than a millimeter sear on the outside. perfect.

10. Tuna w/ Foie Gras & Pear puree
i had to get a foie gras dish but i’m surprised they served me more tuna after the last dish. the juxtaposition of textures & temperatures between the tuna & foie gras was interesting, but it was missing something – not sure what.

11. Panna Cotta w/ Dried & Smoked Corn & Shiso flowers
the dried & smoked corn & shiso flowers made this dish. the corn was kinda hard but they perfectly balanced the sweetness of the panna cotta w/ their savoriness – the anti-dessert for the american palette. excellent stuff.

An excellent meal, especially considering the limited options in Boston.

- chuck