La Table d'Eugène

Named for Parisian novelist Eugène Sue, the gourmet cuisine at La Table d’Eugène is actually affordable. Too bad for Eugène himself, who departed this life in 1857. The décor is, admittedly, charmless, but the men behind the scenes – Geoffroy Maillard and François Vaudeschamps – are both talented and driven.

They cook up some magnificent food using simple flavours, all skilfully assembled and beautifully presented. There’s blue shrimp from Mozambique in a walnut crust, or ravioli of Bresse chicken with foie gras and morel mushrooms in a wine, cream and foie gras sauce. There’s a perfectly cooked pork chop with a truffle emulsion, accompanied by the marvellous house speciality, a risotto with macaroni and boletus mushrooms. It’s all faultless.

It’s just tough to leave things on the menu untasted: sea bream tartare, cod with chorizo, duckling crumble. And the desserts keep up the high standard: rice pudding, lemon tart with meringue, sorbets and the peerless perle surprise au chocolat: a ball of milk chocolate which sheds its skin under the caresses of a stream of hot chocolate with tonka beans, revealing its frozen, crunchy interior.

So the cooking can’t fail to impress, even more so thanks to the attention the establishment has given to making it affordable: there are two set menus of €30 and €38, and two tasting menus of five courses (€58) and seven courses (€78). For the standard, it’s a steal.