L'Hotel (Paris) 01 /2013

This charming small restaurant in the Rue Beaux-Art is in the hotel where Oscar Wilde lived in Paris for the last six years of his life.

   

The restaurant is reached by passing through three small dark lounges. The room is
 small but quite lavish
                                                                 but the columns are not marble and it creates a faux impression.

.                                                               . As we have discovered at several fine restaurants here the toilets are some way away and are often reached via narrow winding staircases. It is easy to bet confused in trying to find the way back to the eating area!
                                                                                                                                                                                        Seating is on fairly low satin covered chairs with cushions and prettily upholstered lounges. making them comfortable.

Tables are white clothed with napkins and good quality cutlery.                                                                     Three waiters adequately looked after the patrons.

They have a set price lunch which is very reasonable for three courses about $75, or an a la carte menu for those who want more choices. Wine can easily more than double the bill. Before the first course the chef sent out an extremely fine amuse bouche a light parsnip puree over some tiny cubes of potato. Superb.

This was followed by a set of four tastes: A small cube of smoked salmon, a truffle cream filled pipe of biscuit, a small cheese bread and a cone of fenestrated chips. This was also a delectable little entrée.

The first course was a choice pate or scallops. The pate de foie gras was pan seared pressed and came with pink grape fruit and milk bread. The acidity set it off the pate beautifully.                                                                The scallops, from Normandie, were presented with artichoke, artichoke mousse and thin slices of apple and had a lemon butter sauce. Ever so slightly over seared for my personal taste the dish otherwise was a creation of gentle flavours with each part making a contribution that blended to make the whole so much better than its parts.

Mains were fish or fowl. The two broad strips of roasted Bresse chicken breast were accompanied by potatoes, bacon and artichokes again making a superior dish.

The fish was cod, cooked in the skin was as good as it could possibly be. The skin was crisp and the fish delicate. It came with sweet onion and a shell fish broth. The taste and feeling of it lingers on, it was so very very good.

A cheese plate was thin slices of yellow comte with a fine slice of jellied pear and grated truffle. Little as it was the truffle aroma was very powerful. The pear and cheese were excellent.                                                           Dessert was elaborate: Chantilly noisettes, pate de marron (Chestnut), marron biscuits, flowers, lemon cress and gold leaf! This was beautifully presented and delicious, almost too pretty to eat.

Finally we had coffee and petit fours.

This meal, at a one star restaurant, cost one tenth of our New Years Eve dinner had we not added an expensive bottle of champagne and was better balanced, less elaborate, and the better for that too, and far better value for a really good meal, about what a three course meal would set you back at a decent suburban Melbourne bistro. Definitely somewhere very nice to go for lunch in Paris

Score 16.5/20