Where I Ate Last with Tony Astle: Chez Fonfon

Tony Astle is still in France, and this week he ate at Chez Fonfon in Marseille, a classic French bistro that has been operating for more than 70 years. 

He sampled la Poutargue, a fresh and citrusy fish dish, and the specialty of the house: la Bouillabaisse du Vallon.  

LISTEN ABOVE 

 

Recipe of the Week: Baked Rice Pudding with Tea-infused Prunes   

Ingredients:  

120 g short or medium grain rice  

1.2 l milk  

120 g raw sugar  

½ tsp vanilla essence  

1 Tbsp butter  

pinch salt  

nutmeg, ground, to taste  

8 or 12 moist prunes  

250 ml boiling water  

1 tea bag  

1 Tbsp raw sugar  

  

Method:  

1. Wash off the rice in cold water.  

2. In a saucepan, heat the milk, sugar, vanilla, salt and nutmeg.  

3. Drizzle in the rice. Heat to simmering point.  

4. Transfer to the oven (preheated 180C), add butter in cubes, and bake for approximately 1 hr 15 min. Baking without a lid allows a caramelised rice skin to form.  

5. Toward the end of the rice cooking, boil the water.  

6. In a bowl place the prunes, raw sugar and tea bag.  

7. Pour over the boiling water. Stir to dissolve sugar. Steep for 10 minutes.  

 

Assembly:   

1. When the rice pudding is cooked, portion into bowls.  

2. Remove the prunes from the tea-infusion and add them to the portioned rice.  

3. Add a dollop of cream. Dust with icing sugar.  

4. Eat and enjoy! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The new gyms as a hospitality scene where I ate
last with Tony Astell on Kerry Woodham Mornings, jumping the gun,
desperate to get into it. Chef Tony Estel from the
iconic Antwines restaurant back with us. And you were in
Marseilles recently, Tony.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes, I was in Marseilles, but actually at the moment,
I'm in Turin, which is to Reno, which is the
capital of Piedmont in Italy.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Yes, you are just across the border. Fantastic, but we
you wait. Last was che Ffon. What a fun name
it was.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
It's a very old name actually, but Marseille is the
home of Bua Base, so we decided we should we
should drive there and we did a bit an excursion.
We did the day and we went along and definitely
had our full of Buya base, which is interesting really,
I mean, it's an interesting I just love it. But

(00:57):
what I do find is that the sometimes a little
bit overcooked because it's it's quite a difficult dish to do,
but if it's done properly, it's served in two courses,
so you end up with the most beautiful bouyon, which
is made from all the fish and all the bones
and shells and things, and it's it's very, very very strong.

(01:19):
And they serve it into in two separate dishes. So
you get it. You get a bowl and they give
you you know when you we I think we used
to call it fairy toast. You used to have bread
and you just bake it in the oven. Yes, And
and they of course, and they give you a lot
of garlic mayonnaise which is which is called rue and

(01:40):
it's it's a saffron garlic. Well, they give you two
types of there's two types of garlic mayonnaise. But and
you spread that on the creusee on and you float
that into the booyon and you you drink the bean
on first. And then they bring you the fish that
they've already steamed, and they give it to you on
the plate. And it also has potato. It's quite a

(02:00):
big dish.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
Oh, it's a meal in itself, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
It's huge. I mean, we had five different fishes and
it was unbelievable. But I mean I felt like a
bit of a stuff pig at the end of it, all,
I might say. But it was absolutely beautiful. But I
do find that the fish is a little bit overcooked.
But this restaurant was absolutely packed and it's very famous
this restaurant, and Marsia has been there since nineteen fifty two,

(02:28):
so it's been there for a long long time. However,
it was not a cheap dish. I mean it was
sixty five euros per head just for the main course,
which we're in in our Pacific pesos of course, that's
about ninety dollars I suppose, which is quite expensive.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah for a soup.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, and it is a sup but it's actually a meal,
I know. Yeah, diferents.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
You forget you. But like we get so parochial about
the fish in our country. Like you think the kimawana
here is the best in the world, and then you
go over season think you do it pretty well yourselves.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, we do it. Look, I mean, we have amazing
fish at home. I used to actually do a bouya
base myself, but it was it was very, very, very
time consuming and at the end of the day, I
mean I just love making all those beautiful bouyongs and things.
You know, it's just unbelievable. But what we started with
on that there's another famous fish that they have is

(03:25):
called laputa geu and it's actually it's a smoked fish
row and it's dried for seven years. Good lord, so
you can just imagine a piece of old fish that
have been sitting in your cupboard for seven years. But
it's it's very intense and flavor and they slice it
so so thinly, and they served it on once again

(03:47):
a lot of garlic mayonnaise. But it was a citrus
type of thing and it was absolutely beautiful, I must say,
But it was that even that was twenty eight I
think twenty eight euro which is still nearly six or
fifty something dollars, which is quite a lot of money.
So it does cost a lot of money. So we're
all complaining at the moment how everything's so expensive in

(04:09):
New Zealand, but I can assure you in Europe things
are very very expensive. We went to another restaurant, which
I will review probably next week, was a freestar Michelin,
and that was in where we're staying in France at
the moment, and it was absolutely amazing, but it was
just for the food three hundred and fifty euro per

(04:30):
head six hundred and something dollars.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Holyck.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
It was nine courses can you imagine We rolled out
of there like there was no tomorrow. But the food,
I'll tell you, I'm so excited. I'm going to review
this one soon. It was an absolute mind blast.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Okay? And then was what about Love Chef on Forward?
Did they do anything new, different, exciting or was it
just a classic done well?

Speaker 2 (04:55):
And look, it was like walking into the past because
it was right in a fishing village and you sort
of were on the motorway and then we weren't quite
sure where to go, but went down these stairs and
down and down and down, and then we came up
and there was a little fishing village right there, and
that's where the restaurant has been forever. But it was

(05:16):
like a time warp. The waiters were unbelievably and unbelievably young,
but the host had been there probably since the beginning,
and they actually it was a time warp. But there
was nothing on that menu that was new at all.
It was very very old fashioned.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Love that How many ticks?

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Tony Well, I probably would only give it about two
or two and a half because it really was I
think for the price. Look, the service was amazing, but
the food didn't match it. It was. I just found
that they could have actually cooked the fish less than
it would have been much better. But the broth was unbelievable.
But I'm sorry. You can't just give it keep giving

(05:59):
it ticks to because the broth was good. Because I
think they did overcook the fission. I think that's probably
just an old fashioned way of doing things. If I
was doing it, it would have been very, very fresh.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
All right, Tony, thank you so much. That is cheffontfont
in Marseille. The recipe of the week is baked rice
pudding with tea infused prunes. It's absolutely beautiful, cheap, well inexpensive,
we'll say not cheap, an inexpensive, gorgeous way to serve
up a filling and tasty pudding. As we was still
got a few cold nights, so the baked rice pudding

(06:30):
with tea infused prunes. Go to our website, you'll find
that there