Pierre Gagnaire is a French chef renowned for his pioneering and inventive approach to cuisine, often described as 'jazz-like,' which masterfully blends scientific precision with artistic expression.
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absolutely incredible from start to finish. had the lunch menu with some individual drinks and it was absolutely outstanding. the presentations, the textures and the tastes of all the dishes were crafted with absolute perfection. each course was basically several dishes in one, so you could go back and forth between the amazing plates.
In addition, the service was super fast, attentive and fun. Definitely worth the money.
I will come again… still dreaming about the whole experience!!
merci beaucoup
Good food friendly a bit on the arrogant side best dish was the squid and langoustine.
3 course desert is not necessary to many flavours
5
Great dinner, brought our family many new culinary experiences. The price is very reasonable compared to the quality of the food you get. The first note is that the dessert here is very large. If the dessert portion is a little smaller, I think it will be more balanced. A small note is that if you choose enough starter, main course and dessert, it will be a lot. You should only choose starter or main course and dessert.
5
The best price over quality and quantity. Why to taste a 150-euro menu with 7 courses in a 1-star restaurant while you can taste a 185-euro lunch menu with 7 courses in a 3-star restaurant with a highlight that the amuse-bouche has 8 bites and the dessert has 9 bites and every other dish has at least 2-3 elements. The representative of french creative cuisine. Will bring my children and my family here.
5
The bread was very good, and was replenished throughout the meal. The absolute highlight, though, was the salted butter they brought out. This was astonishingly good - the perfect salt level, melts in your mouth, and addicting. I had to stop myself from eating straight butter from the butter knife. It paired with the bread so well.
We decided to get one appetizer and one entree among the two of us, and split it. This isn't as outrageous as it initially sounds, because the appetizer we picked (Scallops from the truffle menu) comes with 5 different dishes, and the Langoustine entree that we got comes with 7 dishes.
Interestingly enough, we had to kind of argue with the waiter to allow us to choose this. She really wanted us to get two entrees, because she thought what we got wasn't going to be enough food (it ended up being more than enough).
A really cool thing that they did here was bring a card displaying what dishes they brought out, along the ingredients in those dishes. It really helps track what's in the dishes as you're eating them.
Eventually, about an hour and half after we sat down, the main courses were brought out. As mentioned, these were 5 scallop dishes and 7 langoustine dishes. We each shared half of every dish - so I got to try half of all twelve.
The scallop dishes were very much a mixed bag for me. The damier was not something that I liked - particularly because the plain truffle squares just tasting very bland and with a hard texture. The dishes that I really liked was the broth flavored with truffles, and most particularly - the cannelloni marine - which was a bunch of seafood stuffed inside a cannelloni shell. This last one was incredibly good, and easily my favorite scallop dish of the night.
I liked the langoustine dishes better. Of these, my clear favorites were the large langoustine seared in brown butter, the fried langoustines, and especially the raw langoustine. In each of these, they were cooked perfectly. It did suffer from the same problem that I'll discuss later - that the dishes began to taste similar to one another.
We did not expect that they would bring out an entire section of cheeses, a total of 12 pieces, or 6 per person. I did not like any of these cheeses, except the brie.
The dessert was probably the best part of the meal - which is not a surprise as it's what they're known for. Unlike the previous set of meals, each dish was very different from one another, and tasted worlds apart - but all retained an extremely high level of quality. The licorice cake was my favorite, with the milk mousse on the side of the bowl being the highlight. The chocolate dish, containing all different types of the flavor, was another strong contender. Not to be slept on was the blood orange dish, which combined with the cold coconut parfait to create a textural & temperature combination that was delectable.
The total cost ended up being 350 euros per person, or roughly 380 dollars.
This is the second Michelin-starred restaurant I've been to, the first being Santa Elisabetta in Florence (**). Given that, I was expecting this to be a step up from that place (since this is a three-star), but I have to say I don't think it was - on the contrary, I think I prefer the Italian one.
There are a few reasons for that. For one, for about half the price, I got a good amount more food at Santa Elisabetta. Also, the experience there was just better. The plating was superb, the environment was amazing, and most importantly, the food was take-your-breath-away good.
This place excels on the margins. It beats the other restaurant easily in terms of service - the service here is spectacular. The variety of the dessert is also excellent.
None of this is to say the food isn't good. It's obviously some of the best food I've ever had. I enjoyed my experience very much overall, and this is in the top five to ten of restaurants i've ever been to, but it didn't live up to the hype for me, which is the part I'm disappointed by.
