prashant's Profile
Paris 2* and 3* with a vegetarian
I am a vegetarian and have so far experienced tasting menus at two three-stars: l'Arpege and l'Astrance. l'Arpege, as others have observed, is masterful with vegetables, and our lunch there had an excellent balance of tastes and textures. l'Astrance, on the other hand, had a couple of incredibly fantastic dishes, but the others were downright mediocre. Seems like Chef Barbot goes for broke on each dish, and that made the mishits stand out even more during our meal.
Both restaurants were gracious on the phone while discussing our dietary requests. Service at l'Arpege was warm and friendly; l'Astrance was somewhat aloof and distant. I would return to l'Arpege soon, but have no desire to try l'Astrance again despite a couple of memorable courses.
I plan to try vegetarian lunch tastings at Pierre Gagnaire and le Cinq during my next visit in October...
Chocolate is food right?
The Pate d'Amande Pistache and the Kalouga are absolutely unmissable!!!
uhockey's thoughts on Paris Restaurants - Part 2 - l'Arpege, Ledoyen, Jean-Francois Piege, Cafe Constant, L'Astrance,
I had lunch booked at Gagnaire two days after Astrance. Unfortunately I fell ill and had to cancel. You can imagine how I felt about that especially after the relatively disappointing experience at Astrance!
uhockey's thoughts on Paris Restaurants - Part 2 - l'Arpege, Ledoyen, Jean-Francois Piege, Cafe Constant, L'Astrance,
I had a similarly conflicting experience at l'Astrance. Some of the dishes were incredible, some of them left me scratching my head in dismay and surprise.
My wife and I are vegetarians; we reserved two months in advance, and had multiple very pleasant conversations with the staff about our dietary restrictions, so we could only assume that they had ample time to be prepared for our meal. We were pretty surprised, then, when ingredients and condiments were repeated throughout our meal.
Our meal was 6 courses not including one amuse, a palate cleanser and three desserts. However, black garlic featured prominently in 2/5 savory courses. Japanese cabbage featured prominently in two of the other savory courses. A couple of these dishes were stunningly executed, but the flavors were too strong and distinctive to be repeated over the course of one meal.
Also, there were citrus notes in pretty much every course. I have read other reviews which also mention that Chef Barbot likes to use a lot of these flavors; it wasn't an issue for me, being a fan of citrus in all it's forms, but it did impart a slightly one-dimensional feeling to the menu.
Finally, just like uhockey, we were not offered the Pommes. We saw tables on either side of us getting it, and we even asked our server about it, telling him that we had been looking forward to trying this dish. Absolutely no response...
Despite the excellent wine pairings and some superb dishes [a green asparagus dish with cedrat ravioli, and the best poached egg I've ever tasted, with Parmesan cream, morels and Japanese cabbage being standouts], I would not return again. At this price point, I would much rather return to l'Arpege, le Cinq or Guy Savoy, all of which offered friendlier service, a wider creative range, and, as uhockey has perfectly pointed out, a much more giving nature than l'Astrance.
Dress Code
I have reservations at both these restaurants next month. I'll be calling l'Astrance today to reconfirm my reservation. Will ask them about this and post the info here.
Dress Code
I was made to feel pretty comfortable having lunch at Savoy without a jacket... the atmosphere wasn't formal at all.
Review: Il Refolo, Fiaschetteria Toscana & Il Ridotto | Venice
Our first day, we had pizza at Aciugheta. I had an eggplannt pizza while my wife had the napoletana without anchovies [we are ovo-lacto-vegetarians]. The quality of the ingredients was pretty good, but the crust on both pizzas was fairly badly burnt. We would have ventured further away from San Marco, but the airline lost our luggage after a 9 hour flight. We had a forgettable bottle of Soave with the meal and a powdery chocolate mousse. The pizza was all right, and it was OK for a first meal in Venice while we were deaing with luggage issues.
We had lunch one day at Ai Artisti in Dorsoduro which is in some guides. We had a couple nice glasses of Cattaratto which was very fresh and fruity. The owner had to make us wait 10 minutes for our table, but compensated with a nice complementary glass of dry and refreshing prosecco. We had the antipasti platter which was excellent except for the asparagus which was of doubtful provenance. A pleasing experience for a quick lunch.
Desserts at La Zucca were especially noteworthy. I had a bang-up berry tiramisu and my wife had a panna cotta with very nice shaved almonds. Pastas were very well cooked - perfect spaghetti with grilled zucchini and pesto, a simple tagliatelle with tomato sauce and fresh ricotta was extremely light and tasty. We had two sides - the roasted fennel and grilled green beans. The first was OK, the second excellent. A nice experience with cordial and pleasant service.
Review: Il Refolo, Fiaschetteria Toscana & Il Ridotto | Venice
The service was, unfortunately, both hurried and harried. The restaurant was full, so I can understand the 'harried' portion, but we had barely sat down before we were given menus and asked for our choices. I would say our waitress made her second trip to our table to ask for our choices within 5 minutes of our being seated. That's a trifle quick, in my opinion, but again, given how full the restaurant was, I wasn't terribly perturbed about it.
Review: Il Refolo, Fiaschetteria Toscana & Il Ridotto | Venice
We had a horrendous experience at Il Refolo last week. Greek salad with mushy tomatoes, extremely unremarkable, over-cheesed, under-sauced, pizza, bigoli with vegetables, an awful tiramisu that tasted mostly of sawdust, and a panna cotta so rubbery it could have been a stand-in for Flubber. We were excited to eat there based on all the glowing reviews on this board, but were sorely disappointed. We had a more acceptable experience [though not fantastic by any means] at Osteria La Zucca on the other side of the square.
coming to paris - any fun/neat/odd foodie can't miss places?
Do not miss the chocolates, macarons and ice-cream from Jean-Paul Hevin. Incredibly delicious. While the macarons at Pierre Herme can be overpowering in their creminess [I still enjoy them very much], do try a croissant there - it's buttery goodness. I also like their cannelles a lot.
Also, try to visit Denise Acabo's very expensive, but one-of-a-kind candy store [A l'Etoile d'Or] in the Pigalle area. The only place in Paris to stock Bernachon chocolate bars as well as Jacques Genin's and Michel le Roux's heavenly caramels.
I wonder how many of these places will be open in August, though...
3-star Paris lunches
I went earlier this month. Jacket not required IMO. People were dressed nicely but not in an overly formal way [as per the spirit of the restaurant].
I can attest to champagne prices - Billecart-Salmon rose was 24 E / glass. Ouch, but oh such a wonderful way to start a great meal. Do not miss the seabass with scale recommended by souphie. It's awesome.
Great affordable lunch places near Madeleine /Opera
If you're not looking exclusively for French cuisine, Gambino on rue Gomboust is a nice Italian place with surprisingly good pizza. Their 'pizza genovese' was excellent.
Ice cream in Paris?
Christian Constant was the best that I tried during my recent trip. The saffron ginger icecream was incredible - unmissable.
Other good ones: the vanilla bean at Kayser. That was a pleasant surprise since I walked in for a pain aux cereales and did not expect to see icecream being sold there. The pistachio, gianduja, fraise de bois and fior di latte at Pozzetto are all good with special props to the pistachio. The mango at Berthillon is worth the wait in the sometimes painfully long lines.
If anyone is planning a meal at Savoy, I had the best salted butter caramel icrecream of my life there. They serve it side by side with a scoop of awesome creme caramel. It doesn't hurt that you can have multiple helpings :-)
Pierre Herme - that jam?
This must have been Christine Ferber jam if you got it from Pierre Herme. Here's some contact info via Clotilde of C&Z.
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2004/09/chez_christine_ferber.php
Lunch at L'Arpege and gourmet vegetarian spots
My wife and I are booked for vegetarian lunches at l'Arpege and Guy Savoy next month - during my email exchange with l'Arpege we mentioned clearly that we eat no meat or fish in any form and they indicated that this was OK. Lunch is 140 EUR pp at l'Arpege and 100 EUR pp at Guy Savoy..
