As Paris slinks into its normal August torpor, and hundreds flee for their annual vacation, the far flung outposts of French cuisine in Jakarta continue to bustle and hum. Jakarta is a mosaic of villages and life in village Kemang has gotten much better with the addition of four retail vendors of French cuisine in the last two years.

If you start on the east end of Jl. Kemang Raya, you come to the Gourmet Boutique, a cozy store run by Rini and Christophe Jaureguiberry. They opened their doors two years ago in April, filling their shelves with organic produce from France and Valrhona chocolate, one of the few chocolates identified by domaine (place where it is grown) and one that makes all cakes a dream. The deli case sets any right minded gourmand drooling, stuffed with raw milk cheeses so much more robust in taste than their anemic cousins found on other shelves, and cheek by jowl with such delights as Merguez sausage, fat French hens and smoked duck breast. In response to customer demand and with a weather eye on food trends, the store stocks change frequently.
They are now selling fresh organic lettuce from a local supplier and they can’t keep up with demand for baby spinach flown in from Australia. They will soon add a freezer so Christmas celebrations can get even better, with frozen quail and other specialties complementing the fresh oysters already being flown in. They are generous with their space; they added a chiller that sells the fabulous Praline ice cream and countertops are gaily beribboned with cellophane bags of madeleines and meringues, also from the kitchens of Praline. Everything in the store is absolutely fresh as they decided the expense of air shipments were worth the gains in taste. The dry goods they stock add a hint of spice: flavors of the orient imbued in the harissa (hot sauce from Morocco), orange water and couscous spice, all from Christophe’s eclectic upbringing, which included stints in the Middle East and Asia.

The store is an evolution in their life. They met when Rini was working in purchasing and Christophe was the supplier for one of the major hotels in Jakarta. For him, the food business is family; his father was a chef and also had a long tenure teaching at the hotel school in Bandung. Christophe lived in Jakarta when his father was the food and beverage manager for the Sari Pan Pacific and thus Asia was a natural site for him when he finished his education. For Rini, this profession is a way of sharing her knowledge from frequent visits to Europe with an increasingly adventuresome Indonesian community. The store caters to well-traveled Indonesians who miss the tastes of Europe and also to the expatriate community that live around the boutique. One of their missions is to share and develop culinary knowledge; their own staff are encouraged to try out the products and ask questions so they can better help customers.

They think that the palate of Jakartans is getting more sophisticated and they hope to continue playing a role in refining the taste buds of the community. They view their work as building on the pioneer efforts of William Wongso, who has been educating the Jakartan palate since the sixties. Because of this dedication to taste, they are very discriminating in selecting their product lines, and it shows in the quality of the food. Rini would like to start a cooking class so customers can learn ways to use the ingredients but doesn’t have firm plans yet for when that expansion will take place.

Cooking classes are also something that chef Francis Mestre envisions as a way to expand the reach of L’Atelier du Chocolat. Like the Gourmet Boutique, L’Atelier du Chocolat started two years ago. Francis comes from a family business of chocolate, food and restaurants near Paris. He pursued specialized training to become a chocolate expert and was looking for new challenges. After meeting his wife Diana in Indonesia on holiday, the Jakarta market seemed like a good spot to begin. Market research indicates that Asia as a whole is a ripe for more sophisticated foods and they are the first shop in Jakarta to offer high-quality, locally made, chocolate. Currently Indonesians only eat 50grams of chocolate per year per person, compared to the Swiss who eat seven kilos of chocolate per person per year.
L’Atelier du Chocolat uses only Valrhona chocolate and all the products are made here, using primarily imported ingredients. Vanilla beans are one of the few local ingredients they use, which are still very costly despite being grown nearby. In addition to investing in raw ingredients, they have built specially tempered show cases that maintain the chocolate at 16-18 degrees and 55% humidity. Chocolate making is a delicate art and the tropics add extra challenges in maintaining quality. They are training a new generation of chocolate makers; currently they have five staff in their production rooms. They prefer to hire new graduates to train. This ensures the highest standard of food handling and care for the quality of the chocolate.
They have over sixty fillings for their chocolates and vary them constantly. They have classics, such as hazelnut filling and trendy, such as spicy cardamom. The local market hasn’t responded well to sour mixtures but does a brisk business in the praline with a banana flavoring. At Idul Fitri last year, they made a white and gold mosque out of white chocolate and Christmas time brought decorations in the shape of Santa Clauses. On Valentines Day, in addition to the timeless heart - shape chocolate, they made racy boxes with hand-painted scenes from the Kama Sutra, all out of edible materials and filled with yummy nougat and praline. It is stunning to see what they accomplish. The shop on Kemang now has a shoe made entirely out of chocolate: it looks as if it could be a Manolo Blahnik. In fact their display of chocolate shoes at their second branch in the Plaza Indonesia Basement fooled a neighboring retailer of shoes, who strolled over to check them out and was surprised when he found them to be edible! Funny chocolate postcards with different sayings and hand-drawn pictures are a popular item with teenagers.

The Mestres know that that their current pricing and quality only reaches the high-end market so they plan to expand with a second line, still with an emphasis on quality but more affordable. They have tried some of these chocolates out on executive chefs around Jakarta and have gotten a good reception. Lucky us! The future is sweet for Jakartans with good chocolate in more places and maybe even classes in how to make your own sweet bonbons. If you go to the shop and sample the wares, you will need to digest so keep strolling down Kemang Raya (avoiding the sidewalk motorcyclists and food stalls) and fetch up at our third French outpost, FJ Bistro.
FJ Bistro, started by Fadjar and his wife Lisa, is their fourth enterprise. Fadjar is an old hand in the Jakarta restaurant scene, his other restaurants include the GalloNero and Chianti. He was trained as a chef in Switzerland and raised in Holland. These experiences gave him an appreciation for the cuisines of Europe. The FJ Bistro is modeled on a “lifestyle” boutique in Paris. Fadjar thought Jakarta was ready for something new and since his business already contained boutiques and bistros, why not a fusion of the two? Two floors of the building sell prêt-à-porter clothing, the downstairs hosts a bistro with fusion cuisine and across a courtyard, is the tea shop. His menu is eclectic and has drinks like fresh raspberry-mango juice which is incredibly good and tangy, and pastas that reflect his love of Italy.

The real Gallic element is not so much the food but the tea shop, where he is the only purveyor of Mariage Frères teas in Indonesia. Mariage Frères teas, dating back to 1854 are among the choicest in the world. Fadjar had protracted negotiations with their Paris headquarters before he was allowed to be the representative in Indonesia. They needed to vet his storage, his space and overall design before they gave their consent. He stocks over 40 kinds of tea. One of his best sellers is Marco Polo, which is redolent of vanilla and other heady aromas; another is Casablanca. You can buy the tea in the tin (very elegant in gold and black) or specify how many grams you want. On a rainy day (and the rainy season is coming up) nothing is better than a cup of tea from Mariage Frères, unless it is one accompanied by a madeleine from Praline.

Praline, the last stop on our Kemang Gallic tour, is an authentic crêperie. Didier Basse, the executive chef, also comes naturally to food, having studied to be a chef in France, Australia and London. He arrived in Indonesia in 1988 and has had ample time to study the market and find out what is missing. Like the Gourmet Boutique, he began his business two years ago. He initially expected that his clientele would be primarily expatriates but he is pleased that 80% of his customers are Indonesians.

The menu is based on authentic buckwheat crèpes and most of his ingredients are imported, primarily from France. The crèpes are both savory (smoked salmon is a big seller) and sweet, with jams and sauces. He has insisted on an authentic experience and thus his crèpes have not been altered for the local market. He has not added sambal to make them spicier although he does try out new tastes with his staff first before selling them in the restaurant.

In addition to the crèpes, he makes a complete line of ice creams that are best sellers. He feels that there is little competition. Hagen Daz, marketed as a luxury brand, is imported and more expensive then his ice-cream, which is made right in the restaurant with local milk His flavor range changes depending on inspiration; seven years ago, he found there was little appreciation or understanding of sorbets among his clientele, but now sorbets are among his top sellers. He does special orders for five star hotels and recently made pineapple and lychee sorbet.

All these outposts of fabulous Gallic flavor are open seven days a week. Le Gourmet Boutique, Jl Kemang Selatan 9, 718-5233, gourmetbtque@cbn.net.id; Praline, Plaza Bisnis Kemang 1, 719-2320; l’Atelier du Chocolat, Plaza Kemang, G6, Jl. Kemang Raya 86-88, 7818186 and FJ Bistro, FJ’L building, Jl. Kemang Raya No. 25.