6.0 L’Assiette, 181, rue du Château in the 14th, 01 43 22 64 86, closed Mondays and Tuesdays, lunch menu 25 € (even on weekends), evening menu 50 €, a la carte: 25-40 € is the old Lulu monument, taken over this fall by the Ducassian protégé, David Rathegber. I thought it was nickel.
At the start, the clientele were all foreign speaking but by meal’s end they had tilted towards France. The tic-like keening of the four classically beautiful Japanese women on the left, who were surely models, at the recitation of the menu (in English) was counterpunctuated by the yelling from the kitchen from the right that sounded like someone who kept burning himself.
The meal started off wonderfully well, with delicious bread, butter and sliced ham off the bone as an amuse bouche. The carte could push you up easily into the 50-60 € range and so when I heard the 25 € lunch menu’s offerings, I was pleased.
I started with a “salad” of tiny warm leeks with diced spiced beef and teeny croutons that was more than good.
Then I had two ecrevisses and a big quenelle of fish with a Nantua sauce that was pretty much like the gold standard that I had at the source in Nantua and certainly better than my last one at Les Ombes/Bellecoeur.
The chef had the nice habit of poking his head around the corner of the open kitchen, much like Dominique Bouchet or William Ledeuil, to check the pace of service, delight of customers (me thumb up), etc,.
One glass of wine came with the 25 € menu so with coffee it was 28 € (they did have a fair number of glasses of wine from 7-9, half-carafes at 18-27 and bottles on up to 150 €.)
Go? You betcha; Ducasse’s aura rubs off on the acolytes.
Recent Comments