The staff at Animal Kitchen, the café of the perennially popular canal-side bar and gig venue Point Ephémère, could easily pass for a rock group, such is their collective magnetism. Perhaps it’s part of their game plan: the four friends behind the concept also run the electronic label Animal Records, set up a couple of years before they turned to hospitality, so there’s no saying a record deal couldn’t be next. In the kitchen is Antonin Girard, who worked previously at Muxu in Paris and Tetsuya’s in Sydney. In keeping with the host venue’s vibe the menu is all small plates and snacks that are easy to share or eat standing up during a concert – but unlike former culinary residents, who tended to go for basic crowd-pleasers, this is something rather special.
The weekday menu (€11-€12) to eat in or take away plays with international flavours and street food recipes with brio: butternut squash velouté with coconut cream, Thai dashi and nori seaweed, perhaps, or a sesame bun with lacquered barbecue pork, crunchy vegetables and coriander. Available to eat in only is a fantastic range of tapas, like the home made tacos with trout eggs, red shisho and Tabasco, the beef empanadas with kalamata olives and sweet chilli sauce, or the goat’s cheese croquettes with piuquillo peppers, confit lemons, honey and yuzu. For dessert, the Guyaquil choholate mousse, berry coulis and dacquoise biscuit is very worth splashing out on. Overall, a triumph.
TRANSLATION: EH