My wife and I were in Paris last week with our two daughters. The warm weather was almost absurdly beautiful - not a cloud in the sky during our five days. Our dinners there were a mixed bag, ranging from wonderful to very frustrating. Many thanks to all the posters on this board who informed our choices, particularly Onzieme and sfCarole. I will discuss our meals in order of preference.
Our unanimous favorite was Attabler, for the delicious simplicity and generosity of the cuisine and the humorous warmth of the Patron and his assistant. We craved some white asparagus after seeing it in markets all over town - and Attabler’s was our favorite of the trip: six fat, perfectly cooked, warm toothsome stalks accompanied by a delicious vinaigrette; at €18 per portion a veritable bargain compared to the overly fussy (grapefruit and asparagus together do not work for us!), measly (three skinny stalks sliced in half vertically), and fibrous version we had for €35 at Origines (more about which later). Our main courses of sausage, steak tartare, onglet Rossini, and supreme de volaille were all excellent, with the surprise standout being the chicken in a wonderful white wine sauce. I remember the Trou Normande fondly, but not dessert - which indicates my priorities. Attabler felt like a wonderful neighborhood restaurant which we would love to frequent.
The most stimulating dinner we had was the €130 tasting menu at Amalia. The cuisine was original without trying too hard and virtually everything was delicious. The service was polished and very friendly - and we appreciated that the chefs served and explained many of the courses. To list a few highlights: the veal tartare with sea urchin ice cream was a tasty riff on vitello tonnato; the pasta with foie gras butter and aged Comté luscious; and the gnocchi and scallops was a playful surprise since until you bit into each delicious morsel you fished from the sauce you weren’t sure if you were getting mollusk or pasta. The portions were perfectly sized - generous enough that you could continue to savor and explore each dish after the surprising first bite, unlike at Perception (more about which later) where each course seemed amuse-sized. The desserts did not quite match the rest of the meal (though the Sicilian licorice was a revelation in the black garlic and lime dessert), but in all fairness we may have been exhausted by the over three hour parade of food. And therein lies my one cautionary note about Amalia: if you are not a fan of loooong meals, this is not the place for you. But to be clear, this was by no means a stuffy, formal experience; there are only ten or so tables in the restaurant and interestingly enough three of them were occupied by single diners.
We also really liked Dame. The food was not exceptional, but was very good, and once again the service was friendly and efficient. As at Attabler, all the other diners seemed to be French. No white asparagus here, but the green was tasty, as was the smoked haddock. We enjoyed our shared entrees of steak and magret - and the frites were delicious! The wine list was excellent; I particularly enjoyed the Clos Cibonne Cuvee Olivier, a Provencal red I haven’t seen in NYC. The proof that the portions were not overly large and the pace of the service prompt but not rushed is that we loved our after dinner stroll up to Sacre Couer. I would recommend Dame primarily for groups rather than couples - the experience felt akin to a Sunday roast meal.
Perception was perhaps our most disappointing meal. We had loved our tasting dinner meal there last April so much that it was the one dinner we chose to repeat. This time the food was mediocre - the beef course was as chewy as the whelk amuse - and the portions were minuscule (cue the hoary Catskills joke…) We had enjoyed the Korean variations on French cuisine, but this time it seemed as if everything was finished with Gochujang. The service was perfectly competent but lacked the friendly back and forth we enjoyed so much at Attabler, Amalia and Dame. Perhaps part of the issue was that the very charismatic waiter we had last year was replaced by a young man whose English was difficult to understand; this would not have mattered except that he persisted in long, indecipherable explications of each dish’s multiple ingredients. I know that many Hungry Onion posters are Perception fans - and so too were we…I hope that our experience was a one-off disappointment, but I would urge anyone looking for a tasting menu in Paris to choose Amalia instead.
And now the stinker. I had been happy to find that Origines was open on Monday night and only a fifteen minute stroll from our rented flat in the 7th. I hadn’t anticipated that many other Americans would share my discovery - which overwhelmed the kitchen and resulted in an extremely frustrating experience. The evening began very pleasantly when we were greeted by the charming chef-proprietor who took our coats and escorted us to our table. The maitre’d and the sommelier were also friendly and welcoming. The trademark amuse of a finger of smoked haddock Croque Monsieur was very tasty. As noted above, the white asparagus was not to our taste, and the morels with mashed potatoes forgettable, but not a problem. However, we then found ourselves in over booked restaurant purgatory: between thirty and forty-five minutes elapsed between our appetizers and our main course; and the previously helpful staff studiously avoided making any eye contact with us when I tried to ask them for an update. Adding insult to injury, when the main courses finally arrived instead of the lobster my younger daughter had ordered she was presented with a single langoustine no larger than an index finger. When we pointed out the mistake, the maitre ‘d insisted that she had ordered langoustine not lobster. Eventually he offered to bring her lobster, but we were exhausted by this point and demurred. To be fair, the pigeon that my wife and I had ordered was excellent, but the whole comedy of errors had sapped our appetites. My frustration peaked when we were presented with the bill: nothing looked familiar and when I questioned it it turned out that the maitre’d had given us another table’s (more expensive) reckoning. At this point, I asked to see our friend the Chef, thereby mortifying my daughters. To his credit, he came out promptly and apologized for the long wait between courses, explaining that the kitchen was slammed by so many diners arriving between 8 and 8.30pm. He removed the langoustine and the lobster from our bill and said that he would talk to his staff the next day about the importance of communicating with customers when things are going south…I feel slightly bad about chronicling the whole story here because the Chef handled my complaints so graciously, but Origines is not an inexpensive restaurant and the staff should not go AWOL. Hopefully if you choose to go there your mileage will vary…
Phew - enough with the venting…On a happier note, Le Petit Vendome was wonderful again this year; we loved the frites and enjoyed constructing our own delicious jambon-Cantal-cornichons-beurre sandwiches at our table (sandwiches only served at the bar or to go). Baron Rouge is our older daughter’s happy place and the controlled chaos on Sunday afternoon there was a blast; delicious No. 2 oysters well-shucked and served perfectly chilled and a fun platter of two cheeses, salami, butter, cornichons and rillettes for the four of us to share standing at a hightop. And we continue to believe that the best croissants we’ve ever had come from a small patisserie in the 7th called Notre Patisserie on the Rue Amelie.
