So, after yesterday’s blowout elegant food at my best restaurant experience of 2018, I needed a respite. My “date” today got a tour gig, his business after all, and I was left scratching my head where to go. Then I read Emmanuel Rubin's Hache Menu about a new independant (meaning not Flo) brasserie not far from me. Good for kids, on Sundays, honest stuff. Allllllright!
6.5 Angelus (the bell on the awning gives it away), 4 Place de la Porte de Champerret in the 17th, (Metro: Porte de Champerret) 01.43.80.85.14, open 7/7, voiturier my Lord, looks like a thousand, million, places in France but you sense a difference. One, they have track lighting as in a Broadway show. Two, they treat you as a restaurant client not a brasserie bum. And three, one day after Rubin’s review, there are food critics and someone holding his review who is either Russian with an American accent or an American with a Russian one.
Anyway, I entered, was asked by the mature manager, maybe owner, if I wanted something to drink and when I said a carafe d’eau, a younger waitguy, overhearing us, immediately appeared with the water. Whoa. They are paying attention.
I then regarded the carte and really had a hard time deciding, alternating between wanting to test the kitchen and satisfying my lusts. I ordered the oeufs mayo, a test of freshness, tradition and creativity, no? Yup. They were perfectly salted and seasoned, classic but new. And the salad dressing on not tired lettuces was terrific. Suddenly in my head I heard the Beatles “nothing to complain [get hung] about” from Strawberry Fields.
Next I had fried calamari with a perfectly spicy sauce a part, this could have been Metro food, but was not.
Finally, not sure of what dessert to have, I did the easy thing, and chose the very rewarding cafe gourmand, with one of the most chocolaty macarons ever.
My bill? Ok. They were out of their wine of the month, which seems to be a tradition now in Paris, so it was 6€ more a bottle but with a half of such, no bottled water, but a coffee, the count would come to 50€.
Go back? Rubin was spot on, with a family, on a Sunday, if you live here, it’s a natural.
PS, they get extra credit for a well-trained staff as opposed to that at L’Ours, two mature manager types who clearly know their way around restaurants and a handicapped toilet on the ground floor.
Recent Comments