3.8 Le Carré de Marguerite, 87, rue d'Assas in the 6th, 01.43.26.33.61, closed Saturday lunch, Sundays and Mondays, is a place that took over the space that Gilles Choukroun ran as the late, great Cafe des Delices, with sous-chefs such as the (now) famous Inaki Aizpitarte - "so John, why are you giving us drivel when we want to know about the meal?" Ok Ok Ok
I have an excuse for going there Professor, boss, Inspector. Like Humphrey Bogart/Rick Blaine who came to Casablanca for the non-existant "waters", I came because a chef-friend said to me "Have you tried this place with an American chef - Darin Bieck - I haven't, but....." Well that's a red cape in front of my horns. Now I did due diligence, checked the web, yup, it opened in Nov 2007, changed owners in Nov 2010 and Darin is listed as having worked at Spring in Chicago, humm, sounds promising, even though there's no connection with Paris' Spring that I know of.
They have a 31 and 38 E menu for 2 and three courses, so who am I to argue? I started with the most interesting-sounding entree, a carpaccio of swordfish with EVOO and slices of ripe sweet mango - nice.
Then I had the veal liver a la francaise, whatever that means (my A-Z says it's "served with a garnish of asparagus tips, braised lettuce and cauliflower coated in hollandaise sauce, accompanied by pastry cases [whatever they are] filled with mixed vegetables." Uh, unh, something got lost in translation - red wine sauce and plain old minimum-buttered potatoes.
They were out of two desserts I could have been interested in, on account of the Chinese physicians who muscled in before me, but I ordered the "Quatrehomme" cheeses as a saving gesture and they were ok, but as someone who lives on a street with a "Quatrehomme" shop, they were no big deal.
The bill, if I'd been a couple, which I wasn't, with a bottle of wine, coffee and no bottled water would have come to 113 E, which is not great prix-qualite. And the bread was pathetic for a place this pricy.
So as I'm preparing to go, disappointed by a chef who doesn't measure up to Daniel Rose, Mark Singer, etc., I say to the lady in charge "The chef is American, non?" "Non, French." So, like the "waters" I was misled, but hey....
Oh, in case you thought the name of the resto - the Carre de Marguerite referred to a garden/square of flowers/daisies, it's not, Marguerite Carré was a soprano who lived 1880-1947 according to a small shrine next to me and whose husband Albert Carré an actor, was better known - who knew?
Go? I love Americans in Paris, but this is not to love.
John, your keyboard tripped you up; before some wise-acre tells you there is no rue d'Assis you can edit out the typo. Do you remember the old Chat Grippé, pre-Café des Délices? Pleasant service with decent but increasingly
"tired"food.
Posted by: Jim Hutchinson | May 28, 2011 at 01:11 PM
Tx. no I don,t recall it
Posted by: john talbott | May 29, 2011 at 12:01 PM