Mon Vieil Ami-New Bistro

[fresh_a]

No article would make them change their pricing policy, especially an American newspaper. Reservations have been difficult since their opening due to the quality/price ratio, although that article won't help things (in terms of ease of getting a table!)

[John Talbott]

No article would make them change their pricing policy, especially an American newspaper. Reservations have been difficult since their opening due to the quality/price ratio, although that article won't help things (in terms of ease of getting a table!)

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I've never had a problem making reservations for lunch.

And there's always/usually/normally a vegetarian dish on the carte.

[VivreManger]

Thanks.

How much advance notice for a dinner and/or a lunch reservation?

[fresh_a]

I'd say a week to be safe. And don't be afraid to tell them you are vegetarian.

[Carlsbad]

When we were there in July, we had reservations for a Sunday night well in advance. We liked it so much, we decided to return the next Sunday and made reservations several days ahead, although only 9:00 pm was available. If you tell them you are a vegetarian when you reserve, as fresh_a suggests, I'm sure they will accomodate you very nicely.

There was talk that Antoine Westermann was taking over the more up-scale Drouant and that chef Antony Clemot was moving there. Does anyone know if that happened?

[John Talbott]

When we were there in July, we had reservations for a Sunday night well in advance.  We liked it so much, we decided to return the next Sunday and made reservations several days ahead, although only 9:00 pm was available.  If you tell them you are a vegetarian when you reserve, as fresh_a suggests, I'm sure they will accomodate you very nicely.

There was talk that Antoine Westermann was taking over the more up-scale Drouant and that chef Antony Clemot was moving there.  Does anyone know if that happened?

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Yes see the Digest for many reports of the critics. I'm going next week.

[VivreManger]

Actually neither my wife nor I are vegetarians. However, she often prefers lighter vegetarian options, avoiding heavy buttery-creamy dishes, as well as pork, shell-fish and offal. That still leaves a lot of food to eat. So her preference may not require a special request since it is not a strict requirement. On the other hand I am an omnivore.

Thanks for your advice.

[John Whiting]

My own experience indicates that they are very attentive to their vegetable courses:

As for the carte, the fact that the vegetable content of every dish was itemized before the meat or fish gave a strong indication that the former were receiving a lot more attention than in traditional French cuisine. It promised an approach to dish building rather like that of California’s distinctive restaurants such as Chez Panisse. I had already noted the same approach at Westermann’s home base in Strasbourg half-a-dozen years before, although back then the meats were as usual listed first.

If further proof were needed, it came in Mary’s first dish, Légumes printaniers en salade tiède, máche et petites girolles poêlées. This contained so many lightly poached, perfectly blended vegetables that she set out to list them. They included yellow carrots, courgettes, yellow squash, green beans, green onions, peas, cauliflower, mange toute, asparagus, celery, fennel, bibb lettuce, alfalfa and two kinds of mushrooms, served in their own vegetable jus. Like a well-made ratatouille, each was cooked to the proper degree, suggesting that they had been added successively, each at the crucial moment.

[naf]

From Régal magazine (in french) feb-mar 2006: Chef Frédéric Crochet has became the chef of Mon Vieil Ami. This must be pretty recent, when we were there last November, we saw Antony Clémot running in and out of the kitchen the whole night.

Last time when we were there, we thought we had made a reservation a week before, but upon arrival, we understood that there wasn't our name in the list. We later understood that my French husband has reserved another restuarant by wrongly dialing a wrong number telephone number. Clémot was very nice, he told us to come back half an hour later, around 9.15 pm and promised us a table. And on a Saturday night!! But I observed if you come later than 9.30 or around 10.00 it seemed you could get a table even without reservation.

Of course we had a splendid meal, and very fulfilling, btw, their portions are BIG. After the meal, I requested to have a look in their kitchen. I was amazed that it was really tiny, especially the pastry place. One of their secret of very tender meat is to cook them by sealing the meat in vaccum plastic bag, and cook in controlled temperature (65˚C if i didn't forget) in a slow cooker for several hours.

[fresh_a]

Clémot is at Drouant now.

[lesanglierrouge]

I ate at Mon Viel Ami last weekend. I believe their was a veggie option on the menu, but I can't be sure. We were able to get a 4-top reservation with only a few days notice (Sunday night).

It is indeed a great value. I believe their 3-course tasting menu was around 38 euros. Their wine list is also very reasonably priced. They have a nice selection of Alsatian wines (there is a '97 Cremant d'Alsace that was delicious).

[Matthew Grant]

Any recent reports on this place?

[Le Zouave]

Still really OK, 39€ menu, nices wines.

[corgikelly]

We've been to Mon Vieil Ami twice in the past few months, and it is hands down my favourite restaurant in Paris at the moment.

The first time we went, we agonised over the menu choices while casting envious glances at our neighbours’ bread basket. (When ours arrived, it fully lived up to its promise – massive slabs of darkly-crusted peasant loaf with a springy, slightly tangy crumb.)

G. finally settled on a starter of pâté en croute with céléri remoulade and compote d’oignons rouges, and I went for the soupe de topinambours à la noix de muscade avec gambas roties. The pâté was deeply porky, and the compote was really what every good little onion would like to be when it grows up – sweet, tangy, peppered with dried raisins that I think must have been from Champagne grapes. The soup was spectacular – earthy and nutty, with grilled shrimp whose mix of salinity and sweetness was perfectly and oddly echoed by the garnish of (radish?) sprouts. The nutmeg was a subtle, perfectly calibrated presence.

The mains – I opted for scallops with endive, while G. went for the navets et fenouils en tagine, semoule aux fruits secs et Osso Buco. I told him he was insane (my dislike of Northern African cooking coming to the fore). The scallops were outstanding – as far from the previous night’s rendition (at L'Os à Moelle) as Britney Spears is from Billie Holiday. Six meaty, beautifully cooked scallops, strewn with sautéed but still crisp chiffonade of endive, bathed in an elegant mustard sauce and crowned with a slice of sautéed jambon de Bayonne. And to send me into chicon ecstasy, the scallops were accompanied by two perfectly braised-then-grilled endive halves. Salty, sweet, bitter, tangy – I despise the phrase “a symphony of tastes,” but that’s pretty much what it was, in a straightforward and utterly unpretentious way.

I lived to regret my mockery of G’s choice, too – the veal shank, nestled in a mountain of couscous in a cast iron Staub cocotte, was tender enough to eat with a spoon, and the couscous and turnips were simultaneously sweet, earthy and meaty.

The wine. Oh, the wine. Blessings upon our waiter, who – prompted by my request for an Alsatian pinot gris with a bit of meat on its bones – steered us toward Maurice Schoech’s 2004 Cuvée Justin from Ammerschwihr (39 €). He opened, I tasted, and he laughed out loud at the look of uncontrollable bliss on my face. Round, silky, with notes of honeysuckle and pineapple and just enough steely backbone, it went spectacularly with everything, from soup to cheese. And midway through the meal, the waiter arrived with the label affixed to a postcard, so that I could “have a souvenir.”

The cheese, accompanied by a pear chutney whose only note was sweet, struck the only false note of the meal – an Alsatian chèvre was insipid, and the Comté prompted me to offer G. a taste and say, “Do you see the difference between this and the Platonic ideal of 36-month aged Comté we tasted at Bathelemy yesterday? Do you? Harrumph.” Only the St-Nectaire was worth finishing. G’s dessert was good, he said – salade de fruits frais with mango sorbet and a crisp, not-sweet waffle.

We were splurging and ordering off the more expensive menu (41 € and worth every penny), but one can only assume that the lunch plats du jour are prepared with the same care and passion – which would make any of them, at 15 €, one of the city’s great gastronomic bargains.

Our second visit, in June, was as good as we'd hoped. Started with cold pea soup with roasted gambas, flavored with nutmeg and enlivened with a few grains of popped corn (for an inspired echo of the sweet nuttiness of the shrimp) for me and a gorgeous mijotée of all kinds of vegetables in a succulent broth, topped with a bruschetta of piperade and anchovies, for G. Then filet de sandre with lovely potatoes and artichokes, flavoured with rosemary and a bit of young sage, for me and YUMMY lamb with turnips and chickpeas for G. I kept dunking bits of bread (from Eric Kayser -- the best I've ever had in a restaurant) into the jus in G's terrine. Finished with cheese for me (okay but not transcendent) and a gorgeous strawberry-rhubarb crumble for G. Fruit desserts are definitely the way to go here (though the baba au rhum at the table next to us looked awfully good). Drank the same Pinot Gris we did last time. Still love it.

[tupac17616]

I agree, the soupe de topinambours à la noix de muscade avec gambas roties is wonderful.

[Ptipois]

Another eGulleter and I dined at Mon Vieil Ami a couple of weeks ago, and couldn't report with quite as much enthusiasm. I suppose my dining companion will be kinder than I am but I found the food to be very average, on the verge of sloppy at times. I had the pea soup with gambas and it didn't even taste of peas (gambas were OK though). Desserts are unspeakably bad but they have been so since the place opened. Given the quick turnover of cooks and chefs in a Paris restaurant or bistrot like this one, I suppose one could call that consistency.

Edited July 8, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[John Talbott]

Sorry to hear this, but because I've had such inconsistent experiences, it's long since dropped off my radar screen.

[fortedei]

Sorry to hear this, but because I've had such inconsistent experiences, it's long since dropped off my radar screen.

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But then again, to show the inconsistency, from Sunday March 16th of this year, written to friends of ours:

"Sunday lunch went to Mon Vieil Ami on the Ile St. Louis. Fabulous. A

modern bistro, very casual and lively. The cooking was exquisite, but

in a non fussy way. The emphasis is on vegetables before meat and

fish, but that is just to say that they take the vegetable part of a

dish very, very seriously, while not ignoring the meat or fish. The

preparation for two of the dishes was on a two or three star level

(really), but again, full plate, not precious and not fussy. What

they do to vegetables to get the flavor is not to be believed. Throw

in a great wine list, priced very reasonably (we had a 2005 Boillot

Volnay for 72 Euros), very good service and a really pleasant place

and this was our best meal of some very good meals. Had mijotee

teide de legumes de saison aux raisins et aux amandes avec tartine de

tapenade (unbelievable);legumes marines en tartine filets de maquereaux

et vinaigrette aux epices (the mackeral was incredible);vol-au-vent aux

asperges et ris de veau (also unbelievable);celeri, pruneaux et noix, magret de canard roti au citron confit; tarte chocolat et sorbet; profiterole vanille-chocolat."

[PhilD]

Sorry to hear this, but because I've had such inconsistent experiences, it's long since dropped off my radar screen.

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We ate there once a couple of years ago, but it failed to impress, and also dropped off our radar screen as well.