Paris tips?

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
The brain I ordered was the best thing at our table (of 7) that night, actually. I believe I made two new converts to that part of the beast.

However, I don't like that restaurant, and I'm not afraid to say it. One's treated like dirt, and the food is competent at best.

And almost all of the cellar is a secret only the owner holds (I refuse to refer to him by his nickname, which some people delight in doing).

You shouldn't have to be "someone" to get a good bottle of wine in a restaurant.
Click to expand...

I love Baratin and only had to ask for the right wine and everything magically changed.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Well, I'm back (finally). Best meals were Le Baratin and Le Severo. Both will become mandatory meals for me on all subsequent visits. Severo and its sister restaurant Le Bis du Severo around the corner especially deserve to be world-famous because the steaks were Peter Luger quality
Click to expand...

That's hilarious, because people always say that beef steaks in France are nowhere near high-end US quality. I never really think to eat steak, so I have no idea. I've never been to the Severo.

Best meal at Le Baratin?!? Where else did you eat?

I'll let Scott Reiner chime in on our meal there two weeks ago.
Click to expand...

crap. sharon's brain was the best thing we ordered. i had a tete de veau that was passable. they only had 2 cheeses and one could only be ordered if we wanted the entire thing. i actually thought the owner was reasonably nice, blindly bringing us bottle after bottle and only charging us for some, its just that we didn't like many that he brought... there were some nice wines available, but they were the wines that we can and do drink every day. nothing special, or old... i did like seeing josefa attack jean foillard after a dodgy statement was made concerning our own joe dressner. she is officially a bad ass.

go to repaire de cartouche. excellent food and a killer list. or, chapeau melon. order anything with raw langoustines!
 
An un-named winemaker told us that he had to go to Baratin after 'dinner' at Pierre Gagnaire. Me, I'd do it the other way round - more bang for the buck.
 
That's absurd. The tasting menu at Gagnaire is huge, including a 7-course dessert. I have rarely been so full as after I ate there.

It's also really good, but people can fight over that one till the cows go south.
 
Sorry to have missed that. Difficult to follow everything from airport lounges. I sort of suspect that Vivant might be delayed until March, but I'm not sure.

We have just run a piece on the man and the place
here.
 
Just to be contentious and unpleasant, re-reading this thread: to me, "Peter Luger quality" is no compliment, but rather means "large, good-looking, tender steak with little flavor". I've had much better steaks in Spain than in the US lately; three decades ago I would have checked myself into the nearest insane asylum after uttering such a statement.
 
originally posted by VS:
Just to be contentious and unpleasant, re-reading this thread: to me, "Peter Luger quality" is no compliment, but rather means "large, good-looking, tender steak with little flavor". I've had much better steaks in Spain than in the US lately; three decades ago I would have checked myself into the nearest insane asylum after uttering such a similar statement.
Click to expand...

I've heard that about Spanish steak and can't wait to try it.
 
originally posted by VS:
Just to be contentious and unpleasant, re-reading this thread: to me, "Peter Luger quality" is no compliment, but rather means "large, good-looking, tender steak with little flavor".
Click to expand...
Oh, not contentious and unpleasant, just wrong.
 
I have been corrected. It was l'Arpege, not Gagnaire. I could still eat after recent meals at both (although the procession of desserts at the latter made it less conceivable), but I concede that might say more about my stomach capacity than the restaurant in question.
 
originally posted by VS:
Just to be contentious and unpleasant, re-reading this thread: to me, "Peter Luger quality" is no compliment, but rather means "large, good-looking, tender steak with little flavor". I've had much better steaks in Spain than in the US lately; three decades ago I would have checked myself into the nearest insane asylum after uttering such a similar statement.
Click to expand...

The show at Peter Luger's has moved from the wait staff to the patrons. The last time I was there, about six months ago, I was entertained by one party that looked like the cast of an Elmore Leonard novel, another that was a cross between a Viagra commercial and Animal House with several parties of Eastern Block looking families filling in the rest.

The food on the other hand was disgusting. I have much more fond memories of the previous time some 12 or so years prior.

I recalled this most recent experience with a long time Luger devote (she still loves the place) and we both came to the same conclusion that Peter Luger's has not changed in the intervening years, the world - more specifically, the Brooklyn food world - has changed.
 
...and get the burger, which is excellent. Get the Canadian Bacon on the side, choke down Beck's Dark on draft and be done with it. The steaks are a shadow of what they were twenty, twenty-five years ago, as people who were going there back then will vouch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top