The name la Bicyclette came up numerous times in some English speaking blogs/websites on Paris must eat this year. A few times I wanted to go but discouraged. Restaurant was either closed at night (dinner is only available on certain nights) or closed for summer vacation. Late September, I checked their Facebook and noted they organised a few special thematic dinners in October, I was in time to reserve, after a few SMS, the reservation is done. (I must admit that this year’s reservations are mainly made with online reservation systems, Facebook chats, or well, with SMS. Very few places want you to actually call them.)
The principle of the night: everyone arrived at the same time, ate the same dishes. Tarif was 35€/person.
We arrived at a local bistrot, people were pretty relax, most of them had glasses in their hands and chatting around as if everybody knew everybody. The theme of the night was a summer Brittany voyage, referring to the bike trip made by both the chef and the owner together during their summer vacation. They met up with a few local producers, farmers and natural wine makers. The dinner was the fruits of their trip.
We started with a home made sweet clover butter and some good bread.
Pork kidney, gribiche sauce and chard beignet. Kidney was barely ‘cooked’ by warm oil. Excellent.
Green crab soup with Timut pepper
Clams with kombu (seaweed) and coriander
Devil fish with lemon sabayon and capers - another favourite of the night
Pork, celeriac and Cévenole sauce
Gwell (Brittany speciality fermentated milk) sunflower seeds
Last tomatoes, new Caledonia vanilla
The producers were listed on the chalkboard.
When mister went to pay the bill, the owner asked how we came to know the place, I cited John Talbott. He instantly said the place used to fill only with locals until the arrival of Talbott, tourists started to arrive. He wanted to know more about him… and we had a brief discussion on Chowhound etc. The owner was fairly happy with la Bicyclette since its opening in March. He said dinner was closed in the week due to the residential nature of the neighbour, but he would be looking forward to organise more of these type of thematic nights.
Food was well prepared, with simplicity and good products. If you like this type of cooking, you shouldn’t miss especially the 19€ lunch.
Note that the restaurant is situated in 19th district, it’s next to 11th and not far from Repulique.
