La Grande Cascade

[robert brown]

I will be passing through Paris for a night on 9/1. I see that only one member has admitted to have dined at La Grande Cascade. It looks intriguing if you read Gault-Millau. Yet it is clear it isn't on the gourmand Paris hit list. Who knows what about this restaurant? And while I am at it, has anyone been blown away recently by other restaurants not so obvious. Paris seems to be losing chef-owned restaurants and gaining in ethnic ones.

[John Whiting]

Haven't been there, but the current Pudlo gives it Restaurateurs de l'année status and a long rave notice.

[dallardice]

We had dinner at La Grande Cascade in June last year.

The setting is very magical. The room is beautiful, but because the weather was very good we ate outside in a very attractive garden setting.

We thought the food somewhat 'old-style' French haute cuisine. The execution was excellent and the food very impressive, but compared to our other 'big' meal that weekend (at Carré des Feuillants - fantastic) it seemed decades old.

What put us off particularly was we found the service terribly patronising. We are British, with reasonable French and have visited a decent number of great restaurants. But I found the service somewhat unfriendly, as if the restaurant was disappointed that we were sullying its Frenchness (we were the only non-French table within our earshot). Wine recommendations were at twice the budget we asked for (a non-trivial €75 per bottle); the food explanations were of the Janet-and-John school.

Put it this way: it's what I expected a Michelin restaurant in Paris to be like, before I went to any. If this had been the first one I'd been to, I might not have gone to another. Perhaps we caught it on an off-day, or we just hit a particularly supercilious maitre-d that day. And certainly the setting is very beautiful. But although the food was good, I wouldn't give it a whole-hearted recommendation.

[Bux]

We thought the food somewhat 'old-style' French haute cuisine.  The execution was excellent and the food very impressive, but compared to our other 'big' meal that weekend (at Carré des Feuillants - fantastic) it seemed decades old.

That's not the sort of lead we have learned to expect from GaultMillau, but of course there is no Gault and no Millau in GaultMillau, who knows what's up their sleeve and I have come to suspect they are grasping at straws to be noticed. I also have to admit that we had friends returning from France, bring us the 2003 edition and I find it so hard to peruse, that I just don't look at it.

[robert brown]

Bux, I believe that explains the Marc Veyrat b.s. Why they arranged the guide by "Departments" instead of straight alphabetizing beats me. It's a pain the neck to find anything. I guess they hired a cheap designer or designed the guide in-house.

[Bux]

The Marc Veyrat score, as well as the rationale behind it--well, the meal was absolutely perfect the night we were there (one meal!)--was what triggered my realization they are not able to do a professional job and may not have been doing one for a while. A pity, as I liked the guide as an alternate voice and enjoyed the magazine in spite of my poor French.

It's not that a good case couldn't have been made for the organization by region and maybe even by department within each region, but the maps don't read as well--maybe it's the lack of colors--and one needs to have more confidence in the test and ratings to make it worth learning the new system. Will there be a GM for 2004?

[cigalechanta]

I have eaten at the Grande Cascade and everything was lovely but the food though very good could not beat Veyrat, plus the unusual setting. You are escoted down in a tiny elevator where only a couple and the escot fit. Then you are led to the deck that faces Lake Annecy and feels like you are on a yacht. You have your apertifs and amuse bouche and later, table by table you are taken into the many leval dining areas, country decor.

[Bux]

I am not at all sure an elevator can match the graceful descent or ascent of a grand, or even small, well designed set of stairs.