The Grand Coeur in the 4th is a place where I’ve had at least 2 fine meals and whose executive chef Mauro Colagreco's cooking in Menton included the best grilled bass of my life. But something has happened. Colette and I went with my very oldest Paris friend, circa 1953, who lives and works nearby and who also used to love it.
Despite the fact there were few customers at the outdoor tables, it took forever to get menus and put in our orders, as the background classes in dance, grunting, thumping and beginning drum-banging increased in number and volume. Ok, we were among the herbs, pollinators and calm breezes in the price-crazy Marais. Get Zen.
For firsts, the ladies had a mediocre salad of strange looking artichoke heartlets, fennel, greens and Parmesan while I calmly sat and waited for the treasure of the week - a pintade.
For mains we had lamb, Vitello tonnato and my anticipatedly great pintade with tiny mushrooms which turned out to be not much of a much.
They took our dessert order and Madame, a local mind you, said we wanted our coffees promptly after dessert because she had an appointment.
We waited, and waited and waited, until finally our friend had to leave at which time Colette made not one but two trips to the 'welcome desk' to ask for/beg for the check!
For dessert we had a strawberry “soup” and lemon meringue tart, delivered after much requesting of speed since Madame had an appointment to see a patient as time went by. Well, as you can see we polished them off quickly. The explanation of the delays was that “there’s a problem in the kitchen” reminding me of the “Cauchemar en cuisine” TV show.
Our bill, with a bottle of wine and three coffees, not even offered, was 166.60 for 3 persons or 111.07€ for two persons. The price quality ratio was not good!
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