Le Meurice (Paris) 01/2013

                                                                The restaurant at this grand hotel on the Rue Rivoli, opposite the Tuilleries is renowned for the magnificence of it’s dining room as well as the food presented by Chef Yannick Alleno. We had decided that the set price New Years eve menu was too expensive to bare at about A$1700 / head before drinks but decided to have lunch a few days later. There were two set menus A$150 or A$320/head and an a la carte menu with dishes ranging from about A$80 upwards for entrees and up to about A$300 for mains. The menu in the evening is very little different, most of the degustation being the same, and about A$30 dearer. This is very much the upper end of top class Paris hotels, a room for one night is about A$1400.
 

When we were seated and remarked on the splendour of the room                                                                 the waiter assured us that the food would match it and the service would be exemplary and it was indeed faultless.

Show plates  are cut out in the centre and remain on the table for dishes to be served in them.

An amuse bouche before the meal was a pretty presentation of squash three ways, as a biscuit, as a lokum with date and as a mousse. It was sweet and flavoursome with a slightly pumpkin like taste.

                                                                The first course was raw shellfish, oyster, scallop, clam, calamari and sea urchin coral served with a sweet red cabbage jelly with Juniper berries and a touch of ponzu. This was decorated with edible foraged flowers and tiny enoki mushrooms. Very simple but simply delicious for crustacean lover. The meld of flavours were the work of  a master(10/10).

Translucent shredded cod with olive oil had a garlic which had been deep fried and filled with petal shaped potato with vinegar and water cress.  A simple set of ingredients that blended perfectly to make a delicate dish. The cod quite wonderful, So simple, so good.

                                                         Poached duck foie gras in consommé, melting daikon radish. We were beginning to feel the genius of Yannick Alleno’s cooking. The dish was again marked by the same characteristics of simplicity of ingredients combined gently, without being over fussy to produce exquisite combinations.
 

                                                                   Wild sea bass came next with fricassee of potatoes and black truffle in a jus. This is an exceptionally fine fish at any time but could not have been better than this.
.                                                                   As with all the dishes a waitress brings them on a large tray from which two waiters take them and bring them to the table in unison. If they are covered the waiters the raise the covers simultaneously revealing the food. If one leaves the table before finishing a dish a waiter quickly appears, provides a fresh napkin and covers the dish again until you return!
                                                               Fillet of milk fed lamb with fresh herbs, cutlet with sweet peppers and black pudding.  Cooked as requested the lamb was what can only be obtained from the best butchers. Another distinguishing feature of all these dishes has been the jus. In every case it has been light and flavour some and formed part of the dish rather than dominating it as happens very often even in very good restaurants at times. Mashed potato, creamy and smooth came separately.

 Thin tartlet of  Parmiggiano Reggiano, riquette salad mixed with taggiasche black olives. Comments would be superfluous. I do not usually care for the taste of olives but here, again, nothing was dominant and the parts were greater than the whole.

                                                           Several desserts followed, including sponge cxake with lemon, cristal leaves with tequila sorbet.
                                                             Roasted heart of pear with caramel, stuffed cocoa biscuits with chocolate, which was magnificent and sundry other sweet delights.

We drank a splendid 2009 St Joseph Domaine Pierre Gaillard and a very good Volnay - Pitures 2005 made by Jean -Marc Boillot wine by the glass at quite moderate prices.
Truly the best lunch either of us has ever had.
Score:19.5 /20

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