I have now been to Pantagruel at its new location near the Palais Royal and my review is here.
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Great write-up, thanks Onz. Come back when an egg isn’t on the menu? Really? Looked and sounded like a great meal, though. Awkward serving and crowded tables are both pet peeves of mine, especially the former.
Dinner at Pantagruel last week was outstanding. Some of the most ambitiously adventurous cooking we had encountered this year. Actually the egg course was not that impressive, but oyster, fish and meet courses were simply fantastic. Great balance of flavors and textures, bravo! Very attentive service and good wine list.
One thing to note, table arrangement in the front dining room is very odd, as diners who are couples are seated side by side facing out, which really eliminates any kind of privacy or intimacy but instead exposes you to the rest of the restaurant. Moreover, there was a very loud group of 4 that pretty much ruined the dinner for the remaining 5-6 tables that were all unwilling participants in their loud conversations. I wish we could have enjoyed this marvelous food in peace and quiet.
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I will have to put it back on my list since they moved.
Onzieme’s review was the incentive for the two of us to have lunch at Pantagruel yesterday. Our table was in the room on the rue de Richelieu side, attractive and comfortable with no noise from the street. We took the 65€ lunch menu plus the lobster sandwich with a 25€ supplement.
As mentioned in Onzieme´s review, most of the dishes are served three ways with quite a bit of palaver and a description of each dish delivered in a very quiet voice. We started with 3 amuse bouches all around mushrooms, followed by their emblematic egg entrée. The lobster sandwich was delicious and the concentrated orange condiment with it was very good. One of us had the meat dish (biche) and one had the fish (dorade). The dessert around apple and pepper was being served for the first time, in 3 different ways naturally. We finished with a hibiscus and red fruit infusion accompanied by a blackcurrant pâte de fruit that was nothing like the ones your grandparents used to eat.
The food is first class, all the beautifully presented dishes had a wonderful combination of flavours and textures and the lunch menu was excellent value for money. However there were some issues - 3 actually! We were told the egg entrée would be accompanied by bread but it failed to materialise. After a while we pointed out we were waiting, still no bread. It finally turned up but had clearly been forgotten. Secondly, our glasses of flat water were topped up with fizzy water. That was noticed and rectified by the server but it’s the sort of mistake that shouldn’t happen in a restaurant of this level. Lastly, the credit card machine is programmed to propose adding a tip of 5, 10, 15 or 20%. As there’s no obvious way of paying just the amount of the bill and given the language barrier, this would certainly incite the large number of foreign tourists who eat there, unaware that service is included, to leave a large tip.
Yes the food is wonderful but given the service hiccups and the pressure to add a tip to the bill, I’m not at all sure we’ll be back.
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I thought that food was brilliant, but service is between aloof and incompetent at times. Wish service was more hospitable.
