To Maxime Gilbert, the name of his restaurant is something of particular significance. “Écriture means ‘writing’, and when you start a restaurant, you start a story,” he explains, when we meet just a few days shy of the venue’s grand opening. It’s an apt choice of restaurant name, and the connection with the written word plays out throughout the space. Upon exiting the elevators, you’re confronted with a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled with tomes on the arts, while on a smaller shelf just flanking the open kitchen there are a few beloved cookbooks penned by culinary greats, from Paul Bocuse to Yannick Alleno.
It is also fitting if you consider that Gilbert has been working on his draft for the restaurant for over a year, after leaving Amber at The Landmark Mandarin Oriental in September 2016 to join the Le Comptoir group. Right from the beginning, in a departure from the norm, Ecriture is open for both lunch and dinner service—a testament, perhaps, to how confident Gilbert and the team are about their masterpiece, no longer a work-in-progress.
