Centrally located just a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe, this two star Michelin restaurant presents beautifully and creatively embellished food. Chef Akrame garnered a great CV working at El Bulli with Ferran Adria and then with Pierre Gagnaire before working at Konfidential in the 1st district. Nowadays he owns Akrame and L’Atelier Varanda, one in front of the other at Rue Lauriston. Akrame holds about 25 customers and the Chef and his sous-Chef work the dishes. At Akrame, menus are imposed. Several formulas are suggested depending on the appetite and the budget. So you will only discover the dishes once you are served. As the Chef likes to remind, allow yourself to be lead and surprised, and trust him. After being warmly welcomed into the cosy, but very modern and hip dining room, with its muted colour scheme, black leather chairs and pictures of tattooed women, we were given a delicious selection of amuse bouches to munch on while we sipped our champagne, and asked which sized menu we would prefer. I went with the 6 course degustation menu.We also got some bread with homemade butter - the butter was something special - rich and creamy and very delicious. The course started with two good starters, a simple yet rich cauliflower and coconut combo and then a wonderful razor clam dish with enoki mushrooms. The cauliflower and coconut starter was very smooth and the two main ingredients melted together perfectly. The better dish of the two was the clams with mushrooms, incredibly tasty, who knew that these two ingredients would work so well together. My wife is often disappointed when eating at great restaurants being a vegan. Even though you let the kitchen know about this well in advance they still haven't got anything prepared and they often just throw some vegetables on the plate. Not at Akrame though. Chef put together a lot of great dishes and my wife was extremely happy, she said that it was the third best vegan meal she had had so far, after The Fat Duck in Bray and Merediths in Auckland. These were her three favorite courses. The next courses was very delicate. The first one was clams in red wine foam - a play on the traditional dish Coq au Vin, coques in french means shell. It was a magnificent course - the fresh clams was covered in a delicious broth and red wine foam. Stunning!!! The second course was another triumph for Chef Akrame, a raw lobster that the staff pours hot celery consomme over at the table just barely cooking the lobster - it is playful and very tasty. After these courses, I was served a Pollack with some wonderful artichokes and a peanut creme...yeah, you read it correctly - peanuts. Somehow it works, the peanut creme is mild and delicious and doesn't overtake the fish. The artichokes came in different textures and all in all this was a very good course. After the fish, Chef Akrame served a nice palette cleanser, a very refreshing ice mojito served in an ice cube. Fun and a great transition to the last savory courses. The two finishing savory courses was sweetbreads with tomatoes and goat cheese with chicken consomme. The sweetbreads were cooked to perfection and with different variations of tomatoes it was a simple but well put together dish. The goat cheese worked very well with the chicken consomme and some herbs. Both these dishes were good, not exceptional. After the savory section, we were given a frozen peach disc as a palette cleanser and then three desserts were delivered to our table. All of them were good but the standout in my mind was a dish called Milk. The name describes the course perfectly, it was milk ice cream, with a milk creme. I know it sounds bland but it was really, really good. We ordered the 6 course wine pairing as well, and we were served a great selection of french wines that really complimented all the dishes. And we have saved the best part until last - Akrame will not break the bank. It is not cheap but compared to some of the other two Michelin starred restaurants in Paris, it is affordable. And with some of the seasonal dishes and with an ever changing menu, Akrame is a place that you can revisit, over and over again.
1 Comment
Marilyn Grant
9/2/2014 03:09:24 am
Magnificent! Thank you for sharing so beautifully.
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