degusto

I agree with bushey that Bookinistes can be slightly lively and noisy. But I do agree with Bux that the food is good for the price. It is one of few places where you eat well in Paris for well below 100 euros including drinks. It is incredible that so few can come up with a recommendation apart for the top restaurants where it feels like you have to pay a hundred dollars a spoonful. Astrance is certainly one of few, maybe the only. I have not tried Chamarré, some people I know like it, and others don't. If you want a gastronomic memory, I think you should consider going to one of the three stars for lunch. I would recommend Pierre Gagnaire or Le Cinq. Taillevent has started (restarted) a lunch menu that seems like a bargain and should also be considered. I went to l'Atelier Joel Robuchon last week. It should be avoided like the plague. That is unless you like strange "fusion design"-restaurant, prefer uncomfortable seating and don't mind paying rip off prices (plus 100 euros including simple wine by the glass) for poorly executed food made with inferior ingredients served in portions so small that you will leave the place hungry with a feeling you just had something to nibble on while someone took money from your wallet.

He has one star. That is according to Michelin's printed edition and the web site. Maybe vserna knows something we don't know about next year's guide.

I partly agree with you Robert in terms of the decline of the lunch menu at Le Louis XV over the years. It seemed that they scaled down slightly on lunches. However, I think that when they lost a star a little more than two and a half years ago everybody tried to improve what they where doing. Quite frankly, regardless of that I do not know of a restaurant on the Riviera that matches, regardless of menu, what they serve for lunch. I have my doubts that it was a scale down by purpose, since I am pretty sure that Rainer foots most of the bill anyway, so there has probably been no reason to scale down. But at times I had the same feeling. I sometimes suspected that during the summer months some of the guys working there where more interested in heading to the beach as quickly as possible. But I honestly think it is different now. They seem to have one of the best teams ever in place. They have over the last year and a half or so introduced a butter from a big tray that in my opinion is almost alone worth the visit. Butter is one of the things I am really crazy about and this butter is as close to a perfect butter that I have ever tasted. It is from Loire-Atlantique and has an extremely long taste but does not taste oxidized as some famous and extremely expensive butter do in my opinion. I agree with you that the pigeon at Ducasse is quite something. Last time I had it a month ago, it was if possible better than ever in terms of execution. There is one thing with Le Louis XV that I have forgotten to mention. One should avoid the place when Ducasse is around. Yes I am serious. If he is there and there are fairly many new people in the kitchen, the service can be painfully slow. The kitchen staff can be shit-scared of him. He usually sits in his small aquarium opposite the kitchen. Normally, he is there during the weekends. So avoid that if you don't like your desserts around midnight. One of the best dishes I have ever had was a woodcock I had at Le Louis XV. It was a blockbuster dish. I almost rated it eleven out of ten points in the shock state I was in.

Robert, I don't doubt that you have had great meals at Jouni. I was there on a Thursday and there is no excuse for the courses served. It is just that, the kind of main course we had is totally unaccpetable from someone with the background of this guy. I know as well as you that one meal does not make a restaurant. I will certainly go there again and I think as you that, not only the Nice restaurant scene, but the whole Riviera restaurant scene is in need of new restaurants. But after what I had there, he has a long and steep uphill road to walk to make me recommend him, since he in the short term at best will be just inconsistent. We didn't have the panisse. As I wrote, I wanted the Viking to bring down the expectations somewhat. They may have a nice surpise, but with the hausse of the place in this thread, the surprise seems likely to be less than nice. As for Carletto, I have eaten there more than ten times over the last two years or so and about eighty percent of the meals have been very good. I have also had less than good fish there. It has been Loup or Sea Bass from the Mediterranean that had a somewhat muddy and earthy taste. This is a problem with wild Loup from the Mediterranean. It is not allways perfect. That is life unfortunately. Yeah, I heard that Jouni is from Finland, that is why I remarked that he is a Nordic guy. Finland is one of the five Nordic countries. And by the way, there are three fish suppliers on the market in Ventimiglia if you take away the guy irregulary standing in front of the main entrance.

Ok Viking, So you like some further feedback? Well here we go. I went to Jouni a few days ago. I have heard about it previously but Robert made me curious to try it. It is a very small restaurant. About the same size as Merenda, maybe larger because everytime I see Merenda I get slightly confused about the size. The interior is sort of low budget but it is a fairly ok dining room, clean as you expect from a Nordic guy and with elegant interior although low budget. One could of course argue back and forth whether these remarks have any merit or not. Over to the food. I went there because of the food. So the guy has worked at Louis XV and El Bulli? Well it is far from the first time I leave a restaurant wondering what the chef actually did at the restaurant he is said to have worked for. To summarize, I find the food just above average Riviera food. And that is not a very good score. I will first explain in detail what we ate and then give a summary of what I think. First we had a brochet of small gamberoni from San Remo. If someone does not know this, the Gamberoni from San Remo is legendary to gourmets on the Riviera. They are only fished outside the water of San Remo as there is a huge deep drop-off ouside San Remo where they stay. They are not found on the French side of the Mediterranean and consequently you can only buy them on the Italian markets. Beware however, they must be fresh, as after only a day or two they take on a sharper less interesting taste that some people comment as “a great iode taste” not knowing it is the mark of a not so fresh Gamberoni. A true fresh Gamberoni has a very perfumed almost sweet taste. Unless you are a professional with good contacts, you will have to get friendly with a fishmonger in Italy in order to get the ones that where fished during the night. They look like no other gamba or crevette/shrimp that I have seen and certainly do not taste like anything else. When fresh it looks like there is a small lamp lightning in their eyes and their antennas are intact. I think they are best eaten raw. The gamberonis we had at Jouni were the smaller less expensive ones than the larger and almost mythic one that are red to purple in color when bought totally fresh. They were cooked all right and the brochet was a rosmary stick and it worked well. It was sitting on top of a puré of cepes and everything was drizzeld with an olive oil that I think was an Italian taggiasche olive oil (I did not ask). This was quite good and I got some expectations after this. The next courses where much less inspiring. We had a cep risotto and a preparation of cod. The risotto tasted like a rice pudding, which in my opinion is about the worst compliment to give a risotto. The cepes where nicely cooked but tasted flat as I suspect that only oil was used to cook them. They also lacked seasoning. The cod dish was average and left no real memory (Not at all like a real Norwegian Kjempe-Torsk ). After that we had a veal chop with a “mish-mash timbale”. The veal was what you expect from any restaurant on the Riviera, as high quality veal is extremely easy to find, both on the French and Italian side. It was not the very best veal but it was good and cut from the best part, which is the fat side opposite to the side above the filet. The timbale on the plate was something I regret I ever ate. It was a round thing mixed of courgettes, onions and god knows what. I find this kind of preparation appalling. Why? Because it distroys the dish, it does not respect its ingredients and tasted blindly, you have no clue what you are eating. Furthermore, it wants to come up from your stomach once you have left the restaurant. These kinds of dishes make me wonder what people that have worked in great restaurants actually picked up while being there. The desserts where in the same league. A chocolate tart was uninspiring with a brisée pate that was soaked. A tarte of figs just lacked interest because the taste of the figs were just masked with a lot of suger. I don’t understand my so many so stubbornly keep on adding so much suger to a fig, which is sweet enough to start with, that they end tasting figs. There is nothing tasting more of a fig than a fresh fig served with some wipped creme fraiche with maybe a little bit of suger in it, together with some lemon coulis or even better elder flower. If you want to be really inventive you make a jelly of the elder flower and do transparent lasagna with the figs. Finally, the bread was mediocre. Vitually tasteless. The price for three courses was 45 euros a head plus wine. By the way, the wine list is short but with some good selections. Robert complained that the wine list at Parcours was a joke and I agree that it is short but the wine list at Jouni is not longer or better. The wine prices at Jouni are as steep as everywhere else on the French side of the Riviera. To compare it with something, I do not think it is close to as good as Lou Cigalon in Valbonne was before and just after it got one star in the Michelin Guide and served food at the same or lower prices. This was before the chef at Lou Cigalon started to do pretty poor mousses and foams on everthing and started to charge as if it was a jet-set restaurant with a terrace and view of the sea, which it doesn’t have. I have more that once been there wondering why I didn’t bring my shaving gear. Quite frankly, I would not recommend Jouni to you. I think the food was better at Parcours even though I would like to stress that I do not think Parcours is that exceptional. I just think that they may do something exceptional if you call them, but on the other hand so may Jouni. Taking into consideration that you have to pay for a poor location and a low budget interior I find prices at Jouni too steep. This guy needs to try much harder. There is a reason why the place is virtually empty at lunch. Everyone reading this should bear in mind that I am harsh when it comes to eating out as it hurts me to see people mess up the best of ingredients. Anyone who has been on the markets here knows how easy it is to get virtually anything you want. But as I suppose that you may find it amusing to try a place run by a Nordic guy, I will be interested to read your notes after your trip. I write the above partly to lower your expectations a bit. Do not go there and think even for a second that you are going to eat things that even have the slightest resemblence to what Le Louis XV or El Bulli serve. I cannot see how anyone could prefer a lunch at Maximin to one at Le Louis XV. The lunch menu at Le Louis XV is 90 euros with drinks included. The wines are simple but well selected by one of the most experienced sommeliers in France. You get an amuse that is usually very good, a choice of three starters, a choice of three main courses, the cheese trolley, and a dessert from the main dessert list. On top of this you get bread that is rivalled by few three-stars. I almost forgot about the cheese. At Louis XV they serve one of the greatest cheeses I have ever tasted. It is a very old Comté Cheese brought up Bernard Anthony. It is usually four years old or more and it is strong, has a perfume that is unbelivably concentrated but at the same time fragrant and elegant and not too strong (Yes it is strong but at the same time it is not). Despite being so old it is never dry like an old Parmesan or Pecorino cheese. It differs significantly from one vintage to another. Others that have had great Comtés may know this one as it is also served on some other three-star restaurants most notably in Paris. If you go to Le Louis XV for lunch please remember that the evening dress code does not apply. I have never been there in shorts which Mr. Peeters may be against but other than that one can have casual clothing. Well I suspect that my selling of Le Louis XV will not change your mind. I would certainly be changing lunch at Maximin for Le Louis XV. It is not likely to end up being more expensive. I have pretty low ratings on most of the Riviera restaurants. I would go as far to say that you would eat better at Bagatelle in Olso than at any other restaurant on the Riviera except for Le Louis XV. You asked about restaurants with good wine selections in terms of value. It depends what you are looking for. If you want to go somewhere to drink wines for less than 80-100 euros that have a less than 3 times mark-up on purchase price, I have yet to find such a restaurant on the French side of the Riviera. In Italy there are a few, where they have great wine selections (even French), but food is really average. There is one restaurant that I can recommend in Italy as far as food is concerned. It is located just across the border in Bordighera and it is called Carletto. It has one star and I know of no restaurant that serves as fresh seafood as the two brother owners of this restaurant do. I have eaten raw langoustines here that where still alive on the plate. This restaurants is oddly located, has a boring interior and you have to love the freshness of seafood to appreciate the simple cuisine of this restaurant. There is always fresh Gamberoni on the menu and the olive oil from a neighbour of one of the brothers is probably the best I have ever had. They have some very nice wines at mark-ups that leave me wondering if they have stolen the wines. The wines are virtually only Italian. You used to be able to find treasures (Mostly Rhone and some Burgundy) at Le Louis XV at reasonable prices. For instance, just a few years ago they still had the Rayas 90 for 990 francs. The auction price at that time was about three times higher. Parker has given it 100 with remarks that he would trade his bottles only for 45 or 47 Petrus or Lafleur. They still have a few interesting wines at good value but it is not at all like before. As for Plumail, the last time I was there was more than a year ago. It may be two years. His cooking leaves me indifferent. It is not very expensive. The wine list as I remember it is packed with what I would call boring wines. I would just like to comment a bit on my remarks about Chibois as there was some diagreement. I stand by what I have written, which in essence says that he serves what I call industrial food, but I know at the same time that it is not the majority opinion. Last time I looked Chibois made 6 million euros in sales, or turnover as the British say, and slightly less than 10 % in net profit. That is pretty good. So I suppose his clients love what he is doing. At Chibois you may take the opportunity to try Domain Sorin from Bandol. It is a small producer of Bandol wines and they are made in new oak, which is quite unorthodox in Bandol. Some think this wine has seen to much oak but the oak does melt away after a few years and the result is quite interesting. It is usually sold at reasonable prices at Chibois. The 98 for example is a great vintage for Sorin. This has become a pretty long post. Please forgive me. I just feel I have to comment on the Violets before I am finisihed. They do exist outside the medditerranen but there are species of them that are poisonous. I have tried to find an English word for it but it seems it does not exist. You can regularly find them on most markets on the Riviera and in Provence. Locals sometimes call them Figues de Mer. I think it is because they resemble a ripe semi squashed fig that has fallen down from a tree. Anyway, I have tried them a number of times but I find the taste, as others in this thread, to be quite difficult to appreciate. I am sorry about this long post. I hope someone was able to read all of it. Just for the record, I think the oil store next to Merenda is run by Dominique Le Stanc or his wife. So Viking, if they where not able to help you, you will have problems getting a table there.

Thank you for such fast responses to my first post on these forums. I will try to elaborate a little. It was a typing error. I meant of course prize collection. Franck Thomas has won just about everything there is to win for a sommelier, excluding Meilleur Sommelier du Monde, which he may do next year when he represents France. Despite being quite young he was acting as a consultant to Carrefour already four years ago. This was quite disliked by other sommeliers on the Riviera who would have preferred to be in his place. He used to be sommelier at La Terasse in Juan-les-Pins. I do not understand what Mr. Brown refers to when he says the place is not suited for the Vikings. Why would Chibois, Maximin, Bastide de Moustiers, Chantecler or Merenda be better? The reson for recommending the place was just because they are a big group of people. I think that if they call Delacourt, he will be able to prepare something special. No serious restaurant with less than fifty seats will let a group of people of eleven make selections a la carte when they arrive. I will some other time elaborate further on the subject on why there should or should not be many choices on a restaurant. As for the other restaurants mentioned above I have been to them more than once as well as to all the starred restaurants on the Riviera. I think Maximin's food and restaurant is an embarrasment for someone with the status Maximin had eighteen years ago. Where is the joy, the glow and the inspiration? It is all gone. This is the only restuarnt of the above that I dout I will ever go to again. I find Chibois as consistent as it is bad. Yes it is an extremely nice "cadre" but I cannot see why anyone would go there to eat great food. I have had courses at Chibois such as ravioli that tasted and looked like ready-made ravioli from Metro (The "Carrefour" for professionals). I always tend to get the uninteresting tail end on the fish when I order fish there. His food just lacks the true flavours of the ingredients he is using. Others say they go there in the summer for the good value at lunchtime. I have had no lunch menu there so I do not know. I try it a few times every year but I have been consistently disappointed with what I have eaten there. It does not merit its current rating in Michelin. La Reserve is (too) expensive but better than Chibois and I find its two stars justified. In fact, when Cussac took charge of the restaurant, it was the first restaurant that I have been to that clearly merited two stars without having any. It can get windy with heavy rainfall in October and November and despite you sit inside it can be too much as the dining room at La Reserve basically sits on the ocean. Bastide de Moustiers is a good restaurant serving authentic food. I have only good experiences from this restaurant, although nothing spectacular. I suspect that it can be irregular as people working for Ducasse move around quite often. I recommended Parcours not only for its excellent value but mostly because I suspect they may be more service minded than elsewhere (due to the fact that they recently opened) and could do that little extra that a large group travelling together are looking for. I had that type of experience with Hostellerie Jerome in La Turbie when it had been opened for just six months or so. We where a group of 12-15 people and they really did a great meal. The menu was arranged in advanced and based on the best product available at the time. Since the Viking does not enjoy Le Louis XV, I will not recommend it. I find it by far the best place for food in Southern France. So maybe it was unfortunate that I, in my first post, wrote about a restaurant that you did not know about. But I wrote about it since it was not menioned in the thread. I hope Bux is not hinting that one has to recommend known and established restaurants for a certain number of occasion on these forums before so to speak get credibility.

VIKING, One place you could try out is the new restaurant of Delacourt, the guy who made Chevre d'Or into a two star restaurant. He has opened a restaurant in Falicon. It is a designer style restaurant (must have cost a fortune to create) with a view that almost matches that of Chevre d'Or. The food is very good at reasonable prices. Last time I was there there were two menus, one at 35 euros and one at 45 euros. For that you are served four to five courses of well executed cooking made with fresh products. It is not spectacular but I do not know any place in this region where you eat that well for that kind of money. The sommelier is Frank Thomas who is one of the most talented young sommeliers in France (His price collection is impressive). The wine selection has a slight touch of "new restaurant", that is to say rather small. I am sure that if you call them in advance they will be able to do a special event for you, considering it is a newly opened restaurant that should be keen on getting customers. The restaurant is called Parcours and is in Falicon. 04 93 84 94 57.