Brasserie Lipp

[molto e]

Brasserie Lipp

151 bd. St-Germain, Paris, France

Phone: 01-45-48-53-91

Under EUR 12

St-Germain/Montparnasse (6 Arr.)

Cafes

This brasserie, with its early 20th-century decor, was a favorite spot of Hemingway's; today, television celebrities, journalists, and politicians come here for coffee on the small glassed-in terrace off the main restaurant. Métro: St-Germain-des-Prés.

The atmosphere is great and the food was very solid. We are preparing for Pierre Gagnaire this evening so we did not consume as much as we normally would.

Second story of restaurant-cool that the windows open like that

After I took pictures of the outside and came in, I was told by an angry waiter in French-NO PICTURES. When I explained just pictures of the food, it was allowed

This has been the only English on the menus that I have encountered in two meals here. What would we attribute that being printed on the menu to?

Starters: Foie Gras de Canard entier-Toasts/Very, very good-terrine was well done, connsume gelee was traditional and good, toast cut thin

Salade de Mache et Betterave- Mache was still connected at the root which was cool, great vinagrette

Entrees: Blanquette de Veau a l'ancienne-ok, veal was in large chunks, the vegetables were better than the veal and the sauce was a little disappointing-loved the presentation

Sole Meuniere/ Good boned in front of us at the service station

Confit de Cuisse de Canard-Good-potatoes tasted like they were done in duck fat

Had to get a side of Pommes Puree-Divine

Dessert-Raspberries-good, served room temperature may like them best that way

Tarte TATIN-I expected more though the Creme Fraiche was excellent

Sorbet Tois Parfums-Strawberry may be the best I have ever had, lemon and raspberry average

Coffee-That little chocolate square made by Valrhona-cool

Overall- highly recommend, I would like to go back but so much to eat and so little time

Good Eating,

Molto E

[docsconz]

Nice report. I was expecting a negative report given the title, but I figured it out. I am looking forward to additional reports from your travels.

[little ms foodie]

Your pictures brought back my memories of eating lunch at Lipp with my good friend who lives in Paris. We sat in the same area (back of the house right?) and I loved watching the waiters make tartare on that island station!! Thank you for posting!

[Music]

Great pictures! I remember seeing a couple of times in Paris "No soup and salad" posted outside restaurants. No doubt they've seen too many American ladies who say "Just soup and salad" (a favorite order of my mother's).

[n8ellingson]

Great to see. Lipp has been one of the places that I've been meaning to check out. I don't know that the posting swayed me further one way or the other, but it's great to see.

Great effort with the photos as well!

[Bux]

Perhaps a dissenting voice is in order, even if it speaks of a negative prejudice that may be undeserved. Lipp has never really been on our the list of potential choices. I'm sure it's a perfectly adequate place and a bastion of history, but the voices that have our ear, deservedly or not, lead us to regard it as a bastion of tourism and clelebrities. My prejudice is also that neither of those groups is very discriminating when it comes to food and that a restaurant that caters to either group is not likely to maintain excellence over the years. "NO SALAD AS A MEAL," in English in a restaurant in France, would be a disheartening sign for me to discover. Posted on the outside of the restaurant, I might even find it a deterrent.

That said, the food looked like very good traditional bistro/brasserie food. Michelin recommends it for its choucroute and I imagine it might very well make a good introduction to Paris for many. It's certainly a photogenic restaurant. That the chocolate they present with coffee is Valrhona, is one sign that they care about details.

[Ptipois]

Lipp is not bad (it can be at times), it's not great either. It's only very hyped and, as Bux says, more sought-after for social reasons than for food reasons. However, I have never tried the choucroute but I have had some rather poor meals there. As for the "no salad as a meal" principle, I do understand why it's there, but I don't even think it's legal, though it may be the accepted rule of the house.

[foodiehall]

I've enjoyed these posts and seeing the pix brings back many memories of our trips to Paris. We always stay in the vicinity of St. Germain and have eaten at Lipp several times. I have a particular interest in Hemingway's life in Paris and like to stop by places that he frequented during his time there. As to the No Salad thing....guess the Lipp was getting tired of those American ladies who consider "just a salad" a proper lunch?

[Bux]

. . .  As for the "no salad as a meal" principle, I do understand why it's there,  . . .

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. . .  As to the No Salad thing....guess the Lipp was getting tired of those American ladies who consider "just a salad" a proper lunch?

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Agreed on both accounts and because the restaurant feels a need to make such a formal request I worry I won't be among diners who drive a restaurant to cook the way I want them to cook.

[molto e]

Bux,

What are the bistro and brasseries on your list that you like, I would love to give them a try while I am here. I will say the Foie terrine that I had was excellent and the Mache salad was very good. The rest was solid bistro food and that works for me.

Molto E

[Bux]

Bux,

        What are the bistro and brasseries on your list that you like, I would love to give them a try while I am here. I will say the Foie terrine that I had was excellent and the Mache salad was very good. The rest was solid bistro food and that works for me.

Molto E

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I don't get to spend nearly enough time in Paris for one thing. For another, my interest in "auteur food" not dissimilar to auteur cinema, means I don't get to bistros all that often. When I'm in Paris with access to all those great chefs, I don't want roast chicken or a simple fish dish which I can cook at home (although a vrai sole de la Manche is a real treat). Brasseries are kind of a fall back place for us. They're handy on Sundays when other places are closed and, contrary to the message on the menu at Lipp, they are the traditional place in Paris and other French cities where one often doesn't have to have a full meal. I suppose however, there are brasseries and brasseries. In some a sandwich is an appropriate order, in others a full and often heavy old fashioned meal of oysters followed by choucroute and then some rich pasty or custard.

The more I reflect on it, the more peculiar "NO SALAD AS A MEAL" on the menu becomes. French food has changed and what the French choose to eat has changed. Salade, is often a main course in cafes and brasseries all over France and tons of little saladières exist in Paris and allover France. At first they seemed very ladies tea parlorish to me, but we've come rely on them when faced with what we expect to be a large tasting menu in the evening. I've had many a salad and dessert not just in these places, but in cafes and brasseries. Granted cafe/brasseries tend to be less formal than brasseries without cafes, but knowing how many French men and women order a salad for a main course at lunch, there's something just a little offensive not about the message, but the language chosen for the message. I'd have more expected that 30 years ago.

In the past, I've really enjoyed Vaudeville which sports an art deco marble interior. I'd go for oysters (in the winter) and Andouillette or Steak frites. Andouillette is a dish I can't get in the U.S. I've found a couple of butchers or commerical charcuteries that have tried making it, but it was always a pale imitation. (The Louisiana sausage of the same name is unrelated beyond the use of casings.) Vaudeville is perhaps one of the least touristy of the Flo brasseries. We were in les Grandes Marches early after it opened, although they were already renovating it. It is the Flo Groups attempt to create a contemporary brasserie. Christian Constant was consulting chef and Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Christian de Portzamparc and his wife, Elizabeth, were the designers. I don't know if it's destination food, but it was a satisfying Sunday lunch with family members who ranged from haute cuisine chef to Parisians more interested in fashion than food. Of course Christian Constant's little cafe should be worth seeing. We've met him, but haven't been to eat there. Benoit was deeply unsatisfying not too long ago. Two visits to Aux Lyonnais have been exceptionally satisfying. Their blood sausage comes from the Pays Basque and is exceptional. Their calves' liver was of a quality I don't find in NY. La Réglade brought memories of my first trip to France, but I don't have a recent visit to guess at how it is today. When I think of bistros, I think of offal meat, not fish and chicken.

I didn't mean to come down heavy on Lipp, I just thought the thread deserved some balance.

[therese]

The more I reflect on it, the more peculiar "NO SALAD AS A MEAL" on the menu becomes. . . .there's something just a little offensive not about the message, but the language chosen for the message.

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I agree. Were the message in both French and English, the French version surely the flowery "chers clients" sort, the English version suitably correct, I wouldn't mind it.

But English only, and badly done at that (because, well, why bother?) does not give a nice impression.

[molto e]

Bux,

Thank your bistro choices, Aux Lyonnais is on my list. If you are looking for offal Chez Denise has it all. I will give you my opinion of top chef and this will be for another thread when I have more bandwidth-ERIC FRECHON-LE BRISTOL-ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WOWWOWOWOW.

Molto E

[Bux]

Curiously, I have only eaten Frechon's food at his old bistro, the one the Bristol hired him away from.

[Carlsbad]

I've never been to Lipp, probably because of all the negative things I've read about it. I doubt I'll ever go, primarily because there are so many other places and my time is always too short. This last trip, I did have lunch for the first time across the blvd. at Les Deux Magots. It's always been a favorite for drinks, even if there are a lot of tourists and the drinks are expensive for a cafe. I had a salad for lunch by the way (it was not bad at all), and I was able to answer the bell for a grand dinner that night. As I said on another post, the waiter was the friendliest I've ever had there or at any cafe. The setting is grand.

As for bistros, I would suggest Le Troquet, and if they reopen in time, Mon Vieil Ami. I think you will also like Aux Lyonnais for the old-time bistro experience, updated very subtly. My brasseries of choice have been Bofinger and Chez Jenny, and I always have the choucroute. There are many others just as good though, if you stick to what they do best.

[jackal10]

I had the andoulette at Lipp, and the croque Monsieur atDeux Maggotts. Very nice, but I was throwing up for the next three days. Maybe coincidence

[Ptipois]

I had the andoulette at Lipp, and the croque Monsieur atDeux Maggotts. Very nice, but I was throwing up for the next three days. Maybe coincidence

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I don't think so, but now you have to try again the two separately in order to find out the cause.

[Ptipois]

The more I reflect on it, the more peculiar "NO SALAD AS A MEAL" on the menu becomes. French food has changed and what the French choose to eat has changed. Salade, is often a main course in cafes and brasseries all over France and tons of little saladières exist in Paris and allover France.

That's why I wrote I did not think it was legal, if Lipp makes "salades composées", that is. If they only serve lettuce as a salad, then it makes sense. It is very common now for the French to eat a more or less substantial salad as a meal with maybe a small dessert and a cup of coffee after that, and there is no way a café or even a brasserie waiter, be it at Lipp's, would be in a position to refuse a client's order of that sort, unless of course the "house culture" implies a lot of personal intimidation.

If I go to Lipp with someone, that this someone orders a choucroute and I want nothing more than a Salade Auvergnate or Alsacienne or whatever they have, I do not think the waiter can refuse to take my order or force me to order something else.

Edited August 25, 2005 by Ptipois (log)

[John Talbott]

The more I reflect on it, the more peculiar "NO SALAD AS A MEAL" on the menu becomes.

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It's happened twice to me and only in the last 3 years. Once at La Maison du Charly where I ordered a full meal and Colette a salad and wine, they said no, we walked; the second where 3 of us ordered a full meal and my buddy's wife wanted a salad, they said no, she said OK, nothing and sat there for two hours watching us eat (they are/were Francophonic and not tourists either).

[Ptipois]

It's happened twice to me and only in the last 3 years.  Once at La Maison du Charly where I ordered a full meal and Colette a salad and wine, they said no, we walked; the second where 3 of us ordered a full meal and my buddy's wife wanted a salad, they said no, she said OK, nothing and sat there for two hours watching us eat (they are/were Francophonic and not tourists either).

←

The fact that they did that to you doesn't mean it's legal. You do realize what French café and bistrot owners can get away with as long as no one complains. In the Eastern suburb of Saint-Maur, I even know a café that refuses to serve a glass of cold water on demand. Now they do get away with it and they never serve a glass of water, but they're not supposed to do it. You also see ads "waitresses wanted" when actually it is illegal to require a female waiter for a job that could equally be made by a man.

Now in practice it is quite possible to select waitresses instead of waiters, and it is usually done that way, but there is always a gap between what is supposed to be done and what is actually done. Nobody thinks about it or brings up the subject until there is a complaint. And when complaints happen, surprises arise.

Now I do not know precisely about the legal situation regarding salads as a meal, but it would be worth checking. If a restaurant or café or whatever serves "salades composées" of some size, it is perfectly understood that they are ordered as a main course and not as an entrée. A restaurant owner may choose or not choose to consider a big salad as a main course, but he cannot force his clients to overorder.

[therese]

It makes me want to go to Brasserie Lipp and make a big deal about ordering a salade composee for lunch (assuming they're on offer, of course).

Ptipois, have you seen the Jack Nicholson movie "Five Easy Pieces"? I'm reminded of the scene where he is trying to order plain toast, and ends up ordering a chicken sandwich on toast instead, but asking that all of the sandwich contents be "held".

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Getting one's way in this kind of situation, i.e., a salad as a meal when the establishment has an albeit illegal policy against it, begs the question, "Do I really want to eat the salad should they finally allow me to order it?

[John Talbott]

Getting one's way in this kind of situation, i.e., a salad as a meal when the establishment has an albeit illegal policy against it, begs the question, "Do I really want to eat the salad should they finally allow me to order it? 

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Ah the old Groucho Marx problem: "I don't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member."

[molto e]

Maybe there should be an organized day that those of us in Paris go and order salads only

the only problem is I would need the Foie terrine also

[Bux]

. . . .

Now I do not know precisely about the legal situation regarding salads as a meal, but it would be worth checking.  . . .

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Perhaps, but to whom? With all due respect to diner and public accommodation access that was a feature of the civil rights movement here in the US not that long ago in history, how many of us are eager to patronize a restaurant that doesn't want us when there are other options? The thought of going to a restaurant looking for a fight doesn't sit well with my needs when I choose to eat out.

I'm glad to have a Parisian confirm my sense of the evolution in salads in France. I've often felt betrayed. For a long time, I was a stauch francophile who believed the French could do no wrong at the table. I stood with my back literally and figuratively to California and sought to style my tastes to those of the French who in turn double crossed me by adapting the chef's salad of greens, meats and cheese to their own lunch. Perhaps I forgot to mention that in the thread about French insular attitudes towards food.