This is a bit of a throwback post.
Before coming back to Uni, I spent the last two weeks with my mum in Paris. I usually like to spend that time gorging on every type of french food I love before going back to England for months of Baguette-free living. It just so happened that Hélène Darroze was opening her brand new restaurant during that same time, so I was desperate to go.
The restaurant itself is in a great location, sort of the trendy but high market spot of paris, right in the centre, surrounded by people with a lunch spot. As a result, the lunch menu is going to be an important part of the restaurant's success.
The lunch menu is on rotation throughout the week, so for example, Mondays it'll be a stuffed tomato, and Saturdays a roast chicken. Whatever it is though, it's very traditional, Southern (West) French food with the occasional twist.
The rest of the menu is quite interesting, it consists of sharing plates, starters, mains, sharing mains and deserts. The whole concept feels like it's going for convivial eating with friends or family around a table of high quality ingredients cooked "simply". Everything sounded delicious.
My mum went for the lunch menu, we share the starter: beetroot goat's curd and caramelised walnuts... simple, effective. It's very much something you could easily make at home.
For mains, I had the slow roasted ras-el-hanout lamb's neck with fried garlic and the creamy polenta as a side. This was probably the last time I ate meat actually thinking about it.
It was delicious, perfectly cooked: not dry, not overly salty, just as it should be. It was nice to see an underused cut on a restaurant menu as well. And the polenta just went perfectly with it.
But now for the real reason I needed to review this restaurant. The reason I'd go back... The Chocolate Tart.
The slice of chocolate tart is served with toasted buckwheat and buckwheat ice cream. It's a perfectly buttery thin shortcrust chocolate case supporting the creamiest dark chocolate ganache, not overly sweet, not overly bitter, heaven. I could go on and on about it, it reminded me of the chocolate tart Christian Constant made at Les Cocottes that I used to recreate all the time-up on my old blog
Basically, really enjoyed the chocolate tart, I now everyone is going on about her Matcha Crèpe Cake, but that chocolate tart was 100% worth it.
Overall: I really enjoyed the food, and I liked the concept. As a vegan, I wouldn't go because it's quite the traditional minded type of establishments and I don't think there was anything to eat (note the old advert for foie gras up on the wall haha). If you're flexi, this is a great place to go with family for a high quality once in a while piece of meat.
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