I had dinner at L’Arcane after a walking tour of Montmartre, which is a beautiful part of the city. It was a short walk from Sacré-Cœur. They have three options for dinner - a menu surprise, a menu découverte, and a menu dégustation. They are all “blind” tasting menus, with the difference being the amount of entrées in each. I had the menu dégustation, which had 5 courses - three entrées, a plat, and a dessert.
Simple menu.
Some good bread. Slices of bread along with a whole epi-like roll.
Amuse bouche - a couple of langoustine tail pieces, with peas and a mint foam. Delicious little lobster/crawfish-like langoustines, with an interesting fresh taste from the mint foam.
First entrée was tempura fried frog legs with wild garlic and some sort of green vegetable puree on the bottom. The frog legs looked like little lollipops and I made the mistake of trying to bite one whole and crunched on a few bones. They were more like tiny fried chicken drumsticks. Pretty good. Tasted like frog.
Second entrée was hake with crawfish and grapefruit ravioli, served with a sauce made with Sancerre wine. Skin-on hake was well cooked, as well as the crawfish. Nice buttery slightly acidic wine sauce. The grapefruit ravioli - basically ravioli stuffed with grapefruit bits - was quite interesting and added a sour citrus flavor to offset the buttery sauce and the seafood. Not sure it worked for me completely but it was definitely interesting.
Third entrée was a whole langoustine tail, with lovage and white turnip. Bathed in butter and on top of a creamy sauce. This was excellent - my favorite of the three entrées. Very fresh tasting langoustine, perfectly cooked. The lovage added a nice vegetal flavor. Crunchy turnip pieces.
The main course was Bresse chicken, dusted with some slightly spicy spices and served alongside a risotto and a morel sauce. This was great! The chicken consisted of a breast, a part of a wing, and also a medium rare (?) chicken oyster I think. Each chicken piece was very flavorful and with different textures. The breast piece was quite tender and flavorful, and the wing bit had a bit of fatty slightly crisped skin on. Most interesting was the piece of I believe the oyster of the chicken, which was medium rare and still a little pink inside. Did not get salmonella . The “risotto” was actually orzo, and had a creamy cheesy sauce with a few bits of morels in it. The morel sauce on the side was excellent, rich and creamy and with also a caramelized brandy-like taste. I wish I had gotten a picture of it mixed up, there was quite a generous amount of delicious morels in it. I’m glad they had the sauce separate from the chicken as I ended up eating them both mostly separately since the chicken was very tasty on its own.
The pre-dessert was a rhubarb cheesecake with some sort of gelée. Rhubarb was underneath the cheesecake. Nice and a little refreshing. The sorbet was I think also made of rhubarb.
Dessert proper was a pear sorbet with earl grey cream and a hazelnut praline. A mix of the denser nutty chocolate encrusted praline on the left, and the light pear sorbet on the right.
Finally some mignardises to finish. A shortbread with lime, a pistachio madeleine, and a calamansi pâte de fruit.
Very good meal and friendly service.