Best Aphrodisiac

Everyone knows the traditional aphrodisiac foods: black olives, truffles, chocolate, strawberries and oysters. Leave it to the Marseilles-born Patrick Quillec, father of six, to make sexy dishes out of two icky-sounding ingredients: beef tongue and plump snails. The snails come canned from France, cooked in a white-wine-and-vegetable broth, but Café Paris chefs bake them with garlic, butter and fresh lemon juice until they are hot, quivering and succulent. "Garlic is an aphrodisiac in its own right," Quillec says, "so it's doubly potent." And though chilled beef tongue sounds like something from randy old Henry VIII's dinner table, Café Paris' executive chef, Max Millier, slices it like roast beef (which it resembles in taste and consistency) and serves it with a piquant mustard sauce, crisp cornichons and pearl onions. It's one of this restaurant's great culinary secrets. "Once people are adventurous enough to share it," Quillec says, "they fall in love with it."