|
Chef Alain Passard made headlines when he declared that he was not going to cook meat any more. If this was ever entirely true it is no longer so, with a short mixed menu involving fish and meat, but there is a wide selection of ten pure vegetarian starters in addition to the other choices, and you can order a pure vegetarian meal. The dining room is modern, fairly small with Lalique dancing figures as insets to match the Lalique display plates. An amuse-bouche was the least interesting element of the meal, a poached egg served in its shell with balsamic vinegar: nice but nothing remarkable. There is just one kind of bread, but it is superb: a country bread with great crust, perfect seasoning and fine texture, using a sourdough (10/10).
My starter was four langoustines cooked and served in their shell, each split in half and cooked to perfection, served with a spicy sauce which had remarkably clean taste of ginger: the langoustines were simple but stunning (10/10). Stella had two kinds of smoked potatoes, utterly superb and served with a subtle horseradish cream – I have never eaten potatoes that tasted like this (10/10). Next was a rather superfluous gelee of beetroot and tomato, and then the main course arrived.
Passard likes to cook things slowly (“artisan style”) and my pheasant had been cooked for an hour and a half in a basket with hay, covered with pastry so the flavour and aroma was entirely contained. The meat was superbly tender, having great depth of flavour, served with a simple cooking jus flavoured with 25 year old balsamic vinegar; this worked well but the star was the pheasant itself, which tasted divine (10/10). Stella’s turbot was also cooked very slowly for two hours, also tasting great, served with a simple butter sauce (9/10).
Cheese was in very fine condition: here they go for a smaller board than many places, but everything is perfect. The cheese is sourced from Antony in Alsace, and there is fine aged Comte, along with excellent Beaufort and Corsican ewes milk cheese with ash, along with some more obscure varieties (10/10). I had a very rich chocolate soufflé (9/10) while Stella’s millefeuille with vanilla cream was even better, the puff pastry as light as air (10/10). Coffee was excellent, with a custard tart, a mint wafer and a chocolate wafer all excellent petit fours.
The wine list is very extensive, and goes well beyond France, but the prices are outrageous. There is virtually nothing under EUR 100, the wine we had at EUR 45 was I think literally the cheapest on the wine list (a drinkable Bergerac). The bill is the big problem – at EUR 563 for two, with no pre-dinner drinks, though two extra glasses of wine. Still, this is stratospheric stuff. At least the food is great, while the service was faultless. |
|
05/12/2009 - Tzahy Lerner (Israel)
|
| I visited L'Arpege in 2003 and only ate two dishes, a soup and a salad both were vegetables-based and took a drink of Dom Perignon 1988 and was amazed what Alan Passard could do with vegetables. The service was excellent: not cheap to say the least, but a unforgettable experience. |
|
|
01/01/2009 - alan fowle (uk)
|
| My wife and I came here at the beginning of December 2008.
Curiously the street number for this restaurant was the actual adress of the dry cleaners next door so in a comic sense this was a portent of what followed.
A small room fairly plainly decorated with large pumkins inexplicably used as decorations on the tables a slightly frightening head waitress but
the other staff were welcoming.
We had plain vegetables as a starter
followed by scallops.
The vegetables were absolutely nothing special -cost 120 euros then scallops which were overcooked on thir bases making them just a little hard again a diappointment.
By this time we were feeling somewhat let down and did not have dessert or coffee .I had 2 glasses of ordinary white wine and we had 2 glasses of pink
champagne- bill was around £350 .
My advice on this outing is- dont go there.
In passing can I say we did have plain vegetables cooked by Michel Sarran at the Pinede Hotel in St Tropez 18 years ago if only the ones here had been a quarter as good.This year we went to Toulouse expecially to eat at Sarrans restaurant it was superb.(9/10)
|
|
|
27/12/2008 - Shahin Chandrasoma (USA)
|
| My wife and I ate here in late 2007. The food was indeed phenomenal. There is a lovely little converted wine cave down a stairwell off of the reception that hosts 5 or so small tables and is quite romantic if that sort of thing is required. The service was flawless. We had gone in expecting to try the tasting menu, but were more intrigued by the a la carte side of things. Our server suggested that we order a selection of stuff off of the a la carte menu and do split plates. That they suggested that was astounding in and of itself, and we were clearly getting more than half portions on each plate. To do it in this manner is highly recommended, and provides a nice, more customizable, and more wallet-friendly alternative to the tasting. They were bending over backwards to accommodate us. Among the finest restaurants we have or likely will ever go to. |
|
|
31/08/2008 - Javed Rahman (Hong Kong)
|
| I flew my wife to Paris for Valetine's Day this year and went to Arpege for a memorable dinner. I must say it was a disappointing experience. The prices are ridiculous, decor inadequate for a three star restaurant and food just okay. We had better meals at many two star restaurants in New York, Luxembourg, London and Paris.
They really need to revisit those prices when there is no correlation with the quality of food! |
|
|
17/06/2008 - Tommy Boland (Scotland)
|
| Hi i an 2 of my friends ate here in april this year and i must say it was the best thing i have ever experianced. Allthough the prices are out of this world!!!! for 3 of us we paid 1500 euros. this included champagne on arrival 3 degustation, 1 bottle of wine and 3 glasses of sauterns. but the food was unbeliveable. so good in fact that i then and there decided to hand in my resignation when i got back to london and apply there....unfortunetly they didnt get back to me!! the lobster with hazelnut vinegrette was perfect, the bread like you mentioned was beautiful, nice crust and soft but textured flesh! the butter was also superb. the only thing i didnt like was the abaloni (or however you spell it) this was the first time i have ever eaten this shell fish but was completly dissapointed whether this be the restaurant or the texture of the shell fish i dont know as i have never had the chance to eat it again since! over all 10/10 and more
|
|
|
18/05/2008 - Carl Wescott (USA)
|
| * Food was very good. I thought Alain relied a little heavily on sweet
flavors with the vegetable dishes, which did feature some unusual
combinations of flavors and ingredients and very good presentation. Some of the best vegetable dishes I have had! There was an egg dish (first real course after the amuse bouches) that was transcendent (especially with the 1990 Mersault I ordered) - for me, that was the culinary highlight of the meal. There was also an amazing delicate white fish, which was also transcendent. Three non-vegetable dishes in our tasting menu (fois gras, lamb, fish).
* Very nice space.
* A wine list that has lots of great wines, but not too diverse.
* Alain was nice - we chatted with him twice.
* Service was fantastic though degraded slighty after the 4th hour had
passed - or maybe we ourselves degraded.
* Yes, it was very expensive - tasting menu is now 360 Euros a person (May 2008). |
|
|
12/03/2008 - Tariq Khan (Switzerland)
|
| I note your last visit was 2003. We had dinner at this place in December 2006. I can only say we were extremely disappointed with the whole experience. Starting with the silly prices (even by Paris standards!!) to the fact that the whole place really rather overdid the vegetables & no oven theme. The selection of meat dishes was very small. The decor of the place seems high energy 1970"s.
This is another example of Michelin going for glitz/"innovation" at the expense of sitting down and actually tasting the stuff on the plate!! Definitely not a 3 star place at all in our opinion & best avoided.
During this trip we dined at Helene Darroze & Taillevent which were both much much better in all departments. At the time the former was a 2 star & the latter a 3 star (which I note at time of writing is down to 2 stars). |
|
|
