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Gone are the days when a starving artist could sit for hours at Le Dôme in Montparnasse, drink coffee (or something stronger) and eat Toulouse sausages for a pittance. You can ask my associate publisher who is no doubt still trying to explain away our dinner expenses while we were both attending SIAL in Paris last October. Nevertheless, I was pleased to find that a) the iconic restaurant was only a couple of blocks from my hotel, and b) that the filet de sole meunière was as good as ever. This dish, consisting of a sole that almost drooped over the sides of the large dinner plate, served in a brown butter and lemon sauce, is indicative of the quality of seafood for which the restaurant is known. Sole meunière is a classic of French cuisine, at once simple and yet not easy to pull off, as any cook who has ever burned the butter or overcooked the sole can tell you. The butter must be browned to nutty perfection, with the lemon serving almost as a condiment, a zest of flavor at the end of the cooking process, and above all, the fish must be moist and flaky. When done well at the hands of a talented and experienced chef, it is simply sublime.

Surely, I'm not the first person to be amused and baffled by the fact that Le Dôme ("the dome") sits a couple of doors away from La Coupole ("cupola" or "little dome"). It took me 20 years of traveling to Paris to figure this one out but I finally have a clue. La Coupole is situated in a former wood and coal store (you don't see many of those around today) that was purchased in 1927 by the managers of Le Dôme. I can only assume that they were former managers and were striking out on their own, and giving a nod to their former employers with the name … or was it a dig? In any case, Le Dôme began life much earlier, 1898 to be exact, and was one of the first such cafés in Montparnasse. For years, it was the spiritual home and watering hole of many artists and writers such as Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso and Ezra Pound. Le Dôme evolved to become a high-quality seafood house. Today, although it is a favorite destination for many tourists, it remains an excellent restaurant well worth discovering on your own. La Coupole hasn't fared as well, according to most critics, but it is certainly worth going there for drinks and hors d'oeuvres and to savor the outrageous Art Nouveau décor.

A Mille-Feuille by Any Other Name …
The excellent fish and the always-fun atmosphere at Le Dôme notwithstanding, the inspiration for this column came not from the main course but from the dessert. I remembered once having the mille-feuille (meel-foy) there, one of the house specialties, and so I ordered it again, figuring the success of the sole bode well for my dessert selection. I was right. The mille-feuille was delicious, albeit too big to finish by myself, and it got me to wondering whence this curious dessert hailed, especially since it is often called a Napoleon. Did the diminutive emperor invent the dessert? Was it named for him after the fact? Or was there some other reason the dessert was named such? It turns out the correct answer is none of the above.

Let's begin with what a mille-feuille is before we discuss what it isn't. The name of this decadent dessert means "thousand sheets or leaves," referring, of course, to the many thin layers of puff pastry -- pâte feuilletée in French -- in between which are layers of pastry cream. Since a conventionally made sheet of puff pastry can have hundreds of leaves or laminations, and a mille-feuille is usually three layers, the name probably represents a conservative estimate. In any case, it is in essence a very simple dessert, and if one begins with frozen, ready-made puff pastry, it is really very simple to make. The version at Le Dôme consists of three layers of puff pastry, baked separately and served with a generous swath of pastry cream between the layers that are stacked atop of one another. The whole thing is dusted with confectioner's sugar and presented with no garnish. Assuming everyone has enjoyed their dinner, this is a dessert that could easily satisfy two to four people, which is why I left more than half of mine on the plate. But what about that Napoleon connection?

Mille-feuille (sometimes written as millefeuille or mille feuille), like so many of the great French pastries, is thought to have originated in the Austro-Hungarian part of Europe, specifically from the town of Szeged, Hungary, according to several sources I read, where a version iced with caramel is called a Szegedinertorte. A pastry similar to the French is found in Italy where it is called mille foglie, and where they also make savory versions. Very popular in the English-speaking world, it is known variously as vanilla slice, cream slice, custard square and sometimes Bavarian slice. The connection to Napoleon turns out to be no connection at all, but rather a corruption of Napolitain, the French term for one from Naples, Italy, where there exists a tradition of multi-layered confections. Confusingly, there is such a thing as a Napoleon in France. Similar to a mille-feuille, it is filled with almond paste and is usually glazed with icing or even fondant. Napoleon is also the name used in the United States, where it is often served with icing and sometimes stripes of chocolate.

Searching through some of the cookbooks on my shelves, I had a difficult time finding a recipe for mille-feuille. Plenty of pastry cream recipes, mind you, but not a mille-feuille or Napoleon in sight until I looked in my wife's Prudence Penny Cookbook (Consolidated Book Publishers, 1957), a book originally published for the San Francisco Examiner newspaper in 1938. This old and battered cookbook contains so much practical information and advice that it is a frequently checked resource in our house. Leave it to an old-fashioned tome to have the most straightforward recipe for this dessert, where, incidentally, it is called a Napoleon. According to Prudence Penny:

"Divide ½ recipe Puff Paste into three portions and roll each portion into a sheet as thin as possible without breaking. Prick thoroughly and chill. Bake in a hot oven (400º F) until brown, cool and spread the pastry sheets with cream filling. Spread the top with confectioners' frosting. When ready to serve, cut into blocks 2 x 4 inches."

To make the pastry cream, split a vanilla bean and drop it into a quart of whole milk and bring it to a boil. Beat half a dozen eggs with a cup of sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Whisk in a couple of tablespoons of cornstarch or arrowroot. Pour the hot milk into the egg mixture a little at a time, making certain to mix thoroughly. Bring the whole thing back to a boil briefly until it begins to thicken. Remove from the heat and let cool.

A properly made mille-feuille will probably never win any awards from the American Heart Association, but taken in moderation, it is a delicious and fun dessert for special occasions. It is also a dessert that lends itself to experimentation. I found several recipes by Emeril Lagasse on the Internet, such as Fig & Balsamic Syrup Mille-Feuille, Raspberries Macerated in Red Wine Mille-Feuille with Lemon Chantilly Cream, and a couple of savory versions like Scallop & Truffle Mille-Feuille with Meyer Lemon Crème Fraiche & Truffle Vinaigrette, and a Smoked Mozzarella, Lamb and Grilled Vegetable Mille-Feuille. And, of course, if you're ever at Le Dôme, by all means, try one there. And don't forget the sole meunière.

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