8.1 Girafe (Palais de Chaillot), 1 place du Trocadero in the 16th, 01.40.62.70.61, open 7/7, (Metro: Trocadero) Has been open for 1 year and a month and I’ve been saving it for my cherished former cohost at the food website that wouldn’t fire me from my unpaid position, but harassed me, insisting I resign - PS I refused. In any case, what used to be a cafe in the back of the ground floor has been turned into an elegant restaurant by the team that did Loulou, Monsieur Bleu, & Perruche and has a big terrace looking out over the gardens and pool of the Trocadero facing the Eiffel Tower.
I was greeted by three lovely couture-clad young ladies who frankly seemed rather more decorative than useful and for 10 minutes I was treated to a modern ballet of staff members scurrying back and forth between the kitchen and terrace in such numbers that I figured out why the prices were so inflated.
There are no menus and dishes run from 18-59€, white wines starting in the 50’s, so I went for the Talmar Bordeaux (inside joke), but of course they ran out of it two weeks ago.
To eat, my cohost pal started with spicy (espelette) infused calamari with chorizo and I had spicy slices of a ceviche of daurade with coco and lime - both first-rate. Then she had tuna tataki with grilled avocado and I, the octopus with spicy aioli with spiced up and pickled vegetables. We ended up splitting a cafe gourmand which was quite adequate.
Our bill, with the above, was 169€. Db’s were quite acceptable and there is a small elevator for wheelchairs.
Go? Well, it depends. It’s certainly great food, and we had superb service from our waiter Romain, and the clientele was straight out of Vogue and Rothschild and France Televisions, but of course, they’re all on expense accounts. So for my readership, I expect, except for special celebrations, the price-quality is off the charts.
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