Portrait by Eric Leleu. See more of his stuff
is a semi-regular column featuring the haunts of chefs, restaurant owners, F&B managers, and other marginally sane people with good eating recommendations.
Franck is . For the 20+ years before his eponymous bistro opened, he cycled through kitchens, dining rooms, and clubs, at turns chef, waiter, and general manager. He's done bread in Miami and hotels in Havana and is slowly taking over Ferguson Lane. , the identity he settled on for his new bar after a brief flirt with "Ferg & Sons", opened in May.
Franck came to Shanghai in 2004 to run La Fabrique, a dining lounge/club casualty. To the city's benefit, he stayed on. In 2007, he followed in his grandfather's footsteps, and opened his own bistro. Franck's chef is Japanese, and so are much of his tastes. I pried one good Japanese recommendation out of him, for a Japanese chef he's been following from restaurant to restaurant.
Here's that, and four others, in his own words.
1. Baker & Spice's Pain de Miche
It's the worth the trip across Shanghai to get pain de miche, the sourdough bread. And then to bring it home, eat it just toasted with some salted butter, and my mom's jam that I always bring from France. That's just awesome breakfast. That bread is really ahead of the rest... le pain de miche, the sourdough. A bit sour, and nice color, crunchy. You can have the whole one, half, or quarter. Beautiful, beautiful. I told David many times, it's.... I'd love to have it and serve it for my guests. But they don't produce enough yet -- that one takes a long time. Maybe in the future.
2. Goga's Burger
Made by . I really like it. I'll go back to for that. Just a simple burger with wasabi mayo, red onions, tomato, some bread. Just grilled, you know, and Brad himself making it, checking everything, and just passing it to you. The feeling is great.
[Ed's note: It's an off-menu item with beef from -- cough, cough -- Turley's home country. Gotta ask for that one special.]
3. Le Petit Jardin's style
Just go to for a coffee. You feel like you're not in Shanghai. The owners, they are so cool. She's a Shanghainese and he's from..... I don't know where. They used to live in Canada. She's very good on the design. Small bar, very cute. All my friends are like, how did you find this place?
It's a lot of restored things. They've got New York style, you know. She has a lot of taste. Really a lot of taste. For me, it's just for the coffee in the afternoon. When I go by Huashan Lu to do my banking, and maybe shopping, after that I just stop in. What do I do? I just sit there. You have the cat around -- you feel like you're in your grandmother's place. It's cool. It really changes your feelings about the city. Everybody loves it. No one wants to leave. They have a kind of veranda, this old fan, nice flowers. Really a lot of personality. It's the place to stop for a small break, a coffee...
4. Madison's Apple Tarte Fine
Have you tried the apple tarte from ? It's a long time I didn't have a great apple tarte like that. It's a tarte fine with caramel served on the side. It just made my dinner experience like -- just, "wow, man!" I was really surprised by this. Doesn't seem to be difficult, but eh -- the right apple, the right light pastry, just very thin. Crunchy, warm. Goat cheese ice cream on top, and then caramel on the side. Good. Good way to finish a meal, definitely.
I think it's good when you start a fight for the last piece:
"Ok, go ahead. Finish it."
"No, no, no. YOU go ahead."
"No, really, go ahead and --- ahhhh!!! Hey, how come you ate that?"
5. Adachi, the guy
I haven't tried the new yet, but I like this guy. He used to work, you know, at . I mean, first at the Misato just next to the Red House, and then after they moved to the City Hotel. I used to eat tako wasabi, you know? The raw octopus. Raw octopus with wasabi and soy sauce. Oh man, I love that. It's one of my favorite appetizers. Every time, "tako wasabi, tako wasabi." And they had a beautiful deep-fried fugu. Wah! I like it because it's got a lot of gelatines with a little bit of lime on top.
But then Adachi had a problem with the Shanghainese wife of Mr. Misato, and he just like -- pppttt!! There were two chefs: the other one from Osaka -- the small one with the specs -- and Adachi with the nose, the red nose. A strong guy. Misato fired both of them at the same time. I don't know, maybe some cultural thing. So Adachi went to open his own place. He left Misato about a year ago, year and a half.
Adachi -- you need to know what I do. He likes wine. I always bring a couple of wines and we share. I bring like a nice white Burgundy, so that's what I did at Misato all the time. Always ate at the counter. And then I happened to meet some guests [of Franck], that are my regular guests, Japanese. So a couple of times we end up having some umeshu, and some other stuff, and the guy would bring out a big bottle of sake.
The first Misato, the little shop on Jinxian Lu, it was just amazing. Ok, ok, the furniture and stuff is simple, but, hey, you know, it's like this. Slide the door, get in -- bam, small counter, Adachi is there. And then Mr. Misato walking around. Cheap, good, fast, the Japanese channel on TV... I mostly went on Monday nights, and I brought a lot of people. Simple, good sake, good beer, we bring a couple of bottles of white Burgundy or whatever. Whatever they charge us is never a problem, and it's spectacular dinner. Oh, man. I like this kind of environment. That's really what we need in Shanghai.
[Ed's note: Adachi's new shop is called, appropriately, Adachi. It's out on Guyang Lu, in Gubei, and its listing is . It's a bit more upscale than the old shop on Jinxian Lu Franck describes above, but quite popular with Shanghai's Japanese community.]
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