Joël Robuchon is a French chef and restaurateur. He was titled "Chef of the Century" by the guide Gault Millau in 1989 and also awarded the Meilleur Ouvrier de France (France's Best Craftsman) in cuisine in 1976. In 1996, Joël Robuchon retired, closing his restaurant and handing it over to Alain Ducasse. He cited the daily strain as well as the wish to leave while he still had a choice. Robuchon was unable to stay away for long and in 2003 he launched l’Atelier de Joël Robuchon. He wanted to do something different and was quoted: ‘What I have in mind is a place with a very relaxed convivial atmosphere. That’s what I think people want. There will be lots of interaction between the chef and the customers’. And this is exactly what L'Atelier is - it is great french food (two Michelin stars) but in a very modern and informal setting. At L’Atelier you can choose between the counter or the tables for a complete freedom with a menu of more than sixty references renewed and varied where it is emphasized on seasons and daily market products. We went with the bar counter with a great overview of the chefs putting finishing touches on the courses. If you love food, and watching the theater of the kitchen, once you sit down it's a great experience: great food delivered at a rapid pace. Robuchon says his inspiration for L'Atelier comes from the tapas bars of Spain, where he has a house. So I ordered the degustation menu but also got a couple of extra tapas - the foie gras hamburger was one of these extras - and it was definitely worth it. The menu started with wonderful foie gras shot with parmesan, rich, extremely flavorful and a great way to kick off the menu. My wife being a vegan had difficulties finding items on the menu but after a while the chef said that they would accommodate her dietary restrictions with four courses, and according to my wife - they were all very good. Her menu started with an eggplant spread with marinated tomatoes. It was very colorful, inventive and with a great flavor profile. The next course is magnificent. It is smoked salmon served as a tartar with a delicious scoop of french caviar on top and to top it off, a small gold leaf. You have the smoothness of the raw salmon with a touch of smoke combined with the sharpness and the crunch of the caviar. It is simply food heaven on a plate. A great dish!!! The two next courses were also great. Lobster with asparagus seems easy enough but the rich broth that accompanies the dish elevates it to a completely different level. It is followed by a wonderful ravioli of parmesan and mushroom. My favorite was the lobster, but that is not a surprise. It is hard not to love a good lobster cooked perfectly. The next course was a pea soup with dill. I wasn't sure how that combination would work but it is a great combination. Dill enhances the pea soup and I can't wait until i get home and try experimenting with these two flavors. This great course was followed by a cod, also cooked to the perfect texture. What made this course was the combination with an au poivre noir that had great depth. A surprising combination as well but it also worked out great. The next course was pigeon with Joel Robuchon's famous mashed potato. His puree de pomme has just four simple ingredients: potatoes, butter, milk and salt. These are silky, creamy, smooth and luxurious pureed potatoes that will make your taste buds smile. So what is it that sets this dish apart from traditional mashed potatoes? Perhaps it is that he boils the potatoes skin-on, then peels them and runs them through a food mill. Perhaps it’s the way he stirs cold cubed butter into the steaming hot potatoes. Maybe it’s the jaw-dropping quantity of butter (2lbs potatoes to 1 pound butter) – or perhaps it’s the intense stirring required while incorporating the butter. All of these things makes for the best mashed potatoes I have ever had. Thankfully the waiter serves us an extra bowl so we really can engulf in the butter-potato flavor symphony. I then had the Foie Gras Burger and i can only summarize these little sliders with a big WOW. Fluffy bun that was baked earlier in the day with a piece of perfectly prepared beef patty and then topped with foie gras that melts in your mouth. When the dish is placed before you the aroma of the dish will make your mouth water instantly. Foie gras fills your nostrils and then you take a bite and you experience the richness of this dish. Best burgers ever!!! After the burgers we moved into the sweet section of the dinner. Beautiful desserts with sharpness and freshness. Berries were in seasons and they were excellent, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and strawberries, they were all presented before our palette. Eating at L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon is a fun experience. You see the food get assembled in front of you. You get a two Michelin star dining experience in a very casual, comfortable environment. The show kitchen, a good wine list and an approachable staff makes this restaurant a can't miss in Paris. Whilst L'Atelier is not cheap, if you are looking for an event rather than merely a meal, it offers good value. We loved it and will be back.
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5 hours of food heaven, 5 hours of my taste buds going woohoo, 5 hours of one dish after another being served to my eyes, my nose, my mind and my palette, and 5 hours of sitting in a restaurant with a big grin on my face. Stumbling out in the warm Paris night, these thoughts swirls through my mind and I smile because thanks to Guy Savoy I just had the longest meal of my life but also one of the best. Situated in the 17th district, Guy Savoy is located only a few blocks from the l’Arc de Triomphe. He scrupulously selects his french and local ingredients according to their origins and treats them the utmost respect orchestrating extraordinary variations on flavors and textures that have earned him his golden reputation (and three Michelin stars). The end result is some of the best food that I have ever had - classics reinterpreted with cutting-edge culinary techniques. Inside, with brown walls, African art and abstract modern paintings, the restaurant decor was serious, but the colorful plates on the table showed Savoy’s festive side. I decided to go with the 18 course degustation menu and they were able to accommodate a tasting menu for my vegan wife as well (not 18 courses though). We were warned that I had a 5 hour experience in front of me, but if the food is good why not extend the joy. We started with two amuse bouches, the first one was a simple foie gras toast but the second one was amazing - a pea soup with fresh peas and a poached quail egg Already at this point, I was hooked. This is what I prefer a three-star experience to be, great culinary techniques that I haven’t seen before, combined with fantastic presentation and food that I actually like to eat. Scrumptious!! The next course was a delicious trio of tomatoes, which clearly were in season when we visited Paris. Every restaurant had a couple of tomato dishes but this one was spectacular. I also bought the Guy Savoy cookbook they sold in the restaurants and to my very happy surprise the recipe of this course was included. Now I just need to sharpen my french so I can get all the ingredients right. After the tomatoes, Chef Guy served a giant langoustine, who looked more like a baby lobster, clean, crisp and cooked to perfection. Then I had razor clams, an ingredient that very fast has risen to become one of my favorite seafood ingredients. The razor clams were served on their shells, cooked perfectly, and just complimented slightly by some lemon, a tiny bit of garlic puree and some fried parsley. This was a very well composed dish. How do you top a dish like the razor clams?? Well, you throw in caviar in the mix. The next course was zucchini flower with caviar and smoked sabayon. The zucchini flower was dried but had an interesting taste and the combination with the caviar and the sweet sabayon was amazing. It also had some Brunoise vegetables to give it some crunch. So how do you top caviar and sabayon? I didn't think it was possible and then the kitchen serves two amazing fish courses. The first one was the cheeks of Sea Bass with celery sponges. The sous chef brought the whole fish head to the table and then very carefully cut out the cheeks and put it on the plate. I heard about fish cheeks before but I never had it and it was amazing. The whole dish was elevated by the fish broth served tableside as well. After that I had a Red mullet with squid, served with some squid ink vegetable paper that was incredible. And the colors of this dish was fantastic. The pictures doesn't do it justice. At this part of the dinner - I was thinking, Chef Guy can't serve any more seafood - it is simply not possible. But it is possible. Suddenly the sous-chef rolls up a table next to ours with a funky white pillow on it. On the table is also a couple of small copper pans and a wonderful cut of raw salmon. The pillow is dry ice, and the next course is salmon cooked three ways. First, it is cooked on dry ice, second moved to my very hot plate and finally cooked in a steaming vegetable broth that is pour into the plate. It creates a wonderful texture and the chervil cubes made of jelly compliments the dish nicely. Are we done with seafood now?? Nope, Chef Savoy has one final seafood card up his sleeve, and it is a stunner. A lobster and chantarelle tart with a delicious sauce. I almost licked my plate - which I know is not considered good etiquette in any restaurant, especially in a three star one. But I almost decided to do it anyways - it was that good. What about my wife's vegan dishes? Guy Savoy does a great job of catering to any dietary restrictions and from my wife's reaction throughout the meal, she was very happy and satisfied with the plates that was served. She summarized her experience by giving Chef Savoy her number two ranking of best gourmet places to eat if your are a vegan, number one is still the Fat Duck in the UK. Picture above are two of the dishes she had, A great chantarelle dish and a wonderful chocolate gelato with raspberries and avocado. My next course was foie gras with berries and aubergine. The course would have been better without the aubergine but it was still very good. Chefs are very often remembered for their signature dishes and when people mention Guy Savoy they often highlight the Artichoke and Black Truffle Soup. It has been a signature dish of his since the 1980’s, and it tremendously rewarding . The intense broth perfumed with a distinct earthy flavor of aromatic black truffles and the strong nutty and tangy flavors gets better with each sip, leaving you wanting for more. An mushroom brioche is also served alongside, with some black truffle butter on it. When spreading the black butter on the brioche the waiter proclaims ”butter makes everything taste better!” And in this case it did. A dish that I could eat every day for the rest of my life. The next course was a lamb course with a saddle, rack, shoulder and sausage made of lamb. It is one of the best lamb dishes I have ever had. The knife cut through the saddle like butter, the flavors were intense, the lamb was cooked perfectly, and you could really enjoy the variety of lamb and how different the various parts taste. An incredible dish. Cheese was on the menu next - and the waiter rolled out a table filled with cheeses. It was the biggest selection of cheese I have ever had at a restaurant. There must have been 40 different types of cheese to choose between - I picked 5 and they were all great. After the cheeses a very nice palette cleanser was served - a little summer sandwich. Nothing spectacular, but a good transition. The following course was simple yet very flavorful, a wonderful vanilla creme with some whipped lemon egg whites. The menu ended with some fantastic desserts where the highlight were a strawberry and wild strawberry profiteroles. The berries had intense flavors and it was a perfect ending to a great dinner. The problem is that it wasn't the ending, the desserts just kept coming and coming and when the waiter finally rolled out the trolley of ice creams, sorbets, conserves and traditional biscuits, I was full beyond reason.
But what an amazing night, the food is truly spectacular, the wine list extremely impressive and the service as good as it gets. If there is a restaurant that deserves three stars then Guy Savoy is it. It is also a very expensive restaurant but once in a while when you feel like going on a culinary journey and be blown away by food that you quickly realize that you could never cook at home, then Guy Savoy in Paris is one of the best alternatives in the world. L'Arpège is Paris is one of those restaurants that I really wanted to write about. I wanted to write a glowing review of a restaurant where you can enjoy three star Michelin food that tastes amazing but at a restaurant where the shining star is vegetables. But I can't write a glowing review. L'Arpège is a good restaurant and the vegetables are the shining stars but it is not the mind blowing experience I was hoping for. In January 2001, Alain Passard made the headlines, having declared that ‘my menu will be entirely and exclusively dedicated to vegetables’. His decision was motivated mainly by personal choice, but in part by health concerns too. Though his vegetarianism is more theoretical than practical—L'Arpège still caters to fish and poultry eaters—he does cultivate his own vegetables outside Paris, which are then zipped into the city by high-speed train. Passard purchased L’Archestrate, located on the corner of rue de Varenne and rue de Bourgogne, from his mentor, Alain Senderens, in 1986. He renamed it L’Arpège, in tribute to his love for music, and gave it an Art Deco style interior. It earned one star in the Michelin Guide in its first year, and earned two soon thereafter. It earned three Michelin stars in 1996, which it has maintained since. I went with the Les Jardins en Septembre tasting menu, and they were able to cater a full vegan tasting menu for my wife as well. After some very tasty Amuse Bouches, we were served starters. My favorite was a perfectly cooked egg yolk with syrup. Very rich and rewarding. Another great course was the Tomato sushi - we could tell that tomatoes were in seasons since a lot of courses had these as main ingredient. They were colorful and packed with flavors. I am a tomato man so this fitted me like a glove. The next two courses really highlighted the tomatoes, the first one was a tomato tartar, the second one great tomato gazpacho with mustard ice cream - sweet but with great mustard undertones. The next two courses was a vegetable ravioli and a gratin with onions and Parmesan cheese. The second course was my favorite where the onion worked really well with the strong flavor of Parmesan. Some herbs on top and four wonderful baby tomatoes completed the the dish. My wife was served a similar course at this time of the menu. It was gorgeous to look at with small tomatoes and rings of caramelized onions together with herbs, corn and wonderful vinaigrette. She loved this course. My favorite amongst the next three courses was lobster cooked with transparent vegetables. The lobster was fresh and cooked to perfection, but it was somewhat bland. Three courses of non-vegetables followed. A good monkfish and a lamb that was cooked well but lacked personality. The standout dish a soup that was topped with ham-flavored whipped cream. It sounds weird, but it was delicious. I wonder if you can use the same technique for bacon. My wife had two red pepper dishes that looked great and tasted very good as well. Her favorite was the couscous with vegetables, the couscous added a nice crunch to the dish. The menu ended with cheese and desserts. The standout was a melon and strawberry ice cream that had great flavors and depth. So to summarize, L'Arpège is expensive, it is unique in its focus on vegetables. The service is top-notch and the wine selection is impressive. The atmosphere in the dining room is great and it has three stars. Still, I leave L'Arpège feeling a little disappointed, I was hoping for more. Maybe the Chef had a bad day, maybe my expectations were too high, but the food was a little too bland for my taste and some ingredients very repeated too frequently. L'Arpège is a very good restaurant but it will not crack my Top 20 list.
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.
Finding a great open restaurant in Paris on a Sunday could sometimes be a challenge, and that is why we were very happy when we were able to secure a reservation at Les Tablettes de Jean-Louis Nomicos. Trained by Alain Ducasse, Nomicos most recently cooked at Lasserre, but now he’s taken over the space formerly occupied by La Table de Joël Robuchon in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. To provide the perfect setting for his cuisine, the interior draws inspiration from the form and texture of a basket, interlaced strips of walnut cover the walls and ceiling, weaving a vault over the diners’ heads, designed by architect Anne-Cécile Comar. It really makes you feel like you are in a giant basket. Before the dinner, I-Pads are brought to the table at the beginning of the meal loaded with the menus, the wine lists and a little film about black truffles and the chefs signature dish. The short Mediterranean menu changes frequently according to the availability of fresh seasonal ingredients and the inspiration of Nomicos. The dinner started with some wonderful Amuse Bouches. Great appetizer to get the taste buds going. The degustation menu started with squids, I am not a huge fan of squids, they are often overcooked and gets to chewy but here it was cooked perfectly. If I have any complaints about the course it would be that it was too dry. It was followed up by a very flavorful roasted lobster in a pungent broth. Nice depth but maybe too heavy on the broth. After these two starters, Chef Nomicos really showed off what he can do. The next course was a sea bass with some stuffed zucchini flowers and it was a tremendous dish. The zucchini flowers looked okay but when you cut into them this wonderful creme oozed out and really complemented the dish. My wife being vegan had a great vegan course, colorful, flavorful and very beautiful to look at. I am adding a picture of it as well - sometimes chefs have problems creating something for my wife but this course was fantastic. The next course was Chef Nomicos signature dish. It is long penne-like pasta tube that are filled with foie gras and truffles. He then pours the most rich veal au jus on top of everything. It is simply amazing, rich, flavorful, but still well balanced. After the signature course Chef Nomicos served a good beef with some soft onions, olives and tomatoes. Well balanced, but not spectacular. After the beef, the menu provided a trio of cheeses. Cheese is always a nice wrap-up of the savory section of a meal. The first dessert was strawberries - nothing fancy but strawberries grown slowly in a rich soil tastes so much more than the ones you get in a supermarket. I truly enjoyed the freshness and the richness of the berries. We finished off the meal with a nice chocolate souffle and a mascarpone emulsion. Tasty and a good ending to a nice meal. The wine lists is good, the food is great, my only complaint was the speed of service. Our waitress was a little bit reluctant in the beginning to serve me the degustation menu while my wife only had three vegan courses. After some pleading she changed her mind. I like that kind of flexibility. The service was okay until half-way through when the restaurant started to fill up. At the end of our meal, the restaurant was full and we could tell that the staff was getting overwhelmed. It took the staff 40 minutes to provide us with the bill. And when you want to start heading home, and you wait, and you wait and then you wait some more - it eventually affects the whole dining experience. Did it affect our overall experience - yes, it did. Will we come back again - thanks to the foie gras and truffle filled pastas the answer is a resounding yes.
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