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Le Violin de'Ingres |
La Belle France, February 2007 |
The Violin d’Ingres has a sleek new look (cool ivory walls and banquettes) and a slimmed-down prix fixe menu. Three-course dinners are now 45€, while two course dinners start at 32€. If possible, the restaurant is even more popular than before. It still gathers a designer-dressed seventh arrondissement crowd and the simplydressed tables are packed at both the 7:30 and 9:30 seatings.
This is the venue that our charcutier friend liked best. The meal got off to a great start with a good bowl of salmon rillettes. The domed millefeuille of extra-thin slices of foie gras layered with tongue passed all the professional tests. However, it was the andouillette de pied de porc that really won our charcutier’s heart. It wasn’t, of course, a “real” sausage. The golden-brown, breaded casing was stuffed with tiny chunks of de-boned pigs’ feet and served with a wine-based sauce that gave a surprisingly delicious aura of game to the dish. Chef Stéphane Schmidt has a real winner with this dish.
Other dishes proved slightly less satisfying. The rattepotato blinis served with (excellent) smoked salmon topped with caviar were slightly soggy, and there was nothing truly memorable about the herbed roast chicken served with cottage fries. The vanilla souffle with milk caramel sauce was sensational; the tarte tatin merely ordinary. There is a large “prestige” wine list available for consultation, but the bistro listing confines its selections to one page with very similar prices. The 2005 vieilles vignes Chablis is 41€/bottle and 7€/glass and so is Lucien Crochet’s artisanal, ruby-red 2003 Le Clos du Roy Sancerre. Another very pleasant feature of the new decor is a table d’hôte.
Le Violin d’Ingres
135 rue Saint Dominique, 75007 Paris
Tel: 01.45.55.15.05.
Fax: 01.45.55.48.42.
Closed Sunday and Monday. All major credit cards.
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Cuisine |
Decor |
Service |
Wine List |
Value |
TOTAL |
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16 |
18 |
17 |
15 |
18 |
84 |
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Les Gourmets |
La Belle France, February 2007 |
All the great wine villages in Burgundy seem to have a “perfect” one-star restaurant, and thanks to Nicole and Joël Perreaut at Les Gourmets, Marsannay-la-Côte is no exception. Wonderful little restaurants like this one – which manage to serve astonishing 29€ menus – are the best reasons to plan to spend part of any French vacation outside Paris.
Consider beginning your dinner with classic Burgundian oeufs en meurette (poached eggs in red wine with mushrooms and bacon). Almost classic… Joël Perreaut poaches the eggs in local Chardonnay instead of red wine and the result is not just lighter to look at, it’s unexpectedly light on the palate as well.
Scallops, cooked in Champagne and served atop mixed vegetable stewed in butter, are even better for the deliciously earthy addition of shaved truffle. Minced duck served in hot pastry is simply sensational, while veal ribs cooked for seven hours with orange zest (and garnished with parmesan) are worth walking the ten kilometers from Dijon to savour. The cheese board is excellent and the dessert tray features fruit mascarpone, pineapple carpaccio with mint leaves, and a chocolate mousse garnished with an amusing bit of dark chocolate that has been molded on a strip of bubble wrap. Everything works.
As might be predicted, the Burgundy wines are marvelous yet less predictably, most of them are highly affordable. Nicole Perreaut’s inventory of 600 vintages starts off with a 2003 Petit Chablis for 26€. A 2004 premier cru Rully is 50€ and you’ll only need to spend 144€ to enjoy a 2000 premier cru Nuits Saint Georges “Les Boudots”. However, the real joy is the Marsannay and having begun your meal with Bruno Clair’s splendid 2004 white Marsannay, 7€/glass, we continued with this famous vintner’s fruity 1999 red “Les Vaudenelles”, for 36€. Additional prix fixe menus are available at 38€, 59€ and 78€.
The restaurant is located in a stone house near the church where there’s ample parking. The interior is nonsmoking; in the summer, meals are served in the garden. Nicole Perreaut is a charming hostess, and service is exemplary. If you’re driving through the Côte d’Or from Dijon, make this your first stop.
Les Gourmets
8 rue Puits de Têt, 21160 Marsannayla-Côte
Tel: 03.80.52.16.32.
Fax: 03.80.52.03.01.
www.les-gourmets.com
Closed Tuesday lunch, Sunday night and Monday; Two weeks in February; two weeks in August. All major credit cards. Restaurant Cuisine Decor Service Wine List Value Total Les Gourmets 17 16 18 18 20 89
GETTING THERE: The nearest train station for both venues is Dijon. TGV trains from Paris’s Gare de Lyon take one hour and forty minutes. A roundtrip ticket costs 140€ in first class and between 80€ and 100€ in second class. Marsannay-la-Côte is just 10 kilometers south of Dijon on the N74 highway; the Abbaye de La Bussière is a 30-minute drive from the station, and the hotel can arrange pick-up or car rentals. |
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Cuisine |
Decor |
Service |
Wine List |
Value |
TOTAL |
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17 |
16 |
18 |
18 |
20 |
89 |
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