Kei - Paris
A small, but elegant dining room
Rating: 17/20
Where: Paris, France
When: Lunch for 2 on 6 July 2022
Cost: Tasting menu 190-350 Euro
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: French cuisine with Japanese touches, seafood and meat cooked perfectly, great desserts
Kei is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris - pretty close to the city center. The restaurant is located on a side-street with a pretty unshowy facade, so that most pedestrians will probably just walk past without a second thought. But its recently-earned third Michelin star, a first for a Japanese-born chef in France, is more than enough reason to seek out this semi-hidden gem.
Our lunch started with a bizarre service lull: it took close to an hour for us to receive a menu, while other tables - that had arrived after us - were already enjoying their food. Not sure what happened here, but once we put in our order, food started coming out at a brisk pace, taking only about two hours for the full tasting menu.
Speaking of the tasting menu, there were essentially two options for lunch. A short menu of three courses was chosen by about half the tables (85 Euro). A longer, seven course menu could be upgraded with caviar, truffles and two different kinds of steak (from 190 to 350 Euro). The upgrades didn’t change the length of the menu, just the level of the ingredients being used. We went for the full experience: the longer menu with all the upgrades. Wine pairings were not offered as such, but the sommelier would have been happy to pour wines by the glass. However, given the seafood-heaviness of the menu, he recommended going for a bottle of white wine instead. We ended up with an excellent white Burgundy followed by a very nice glass of red Bordeaux for the meat course.
The food commenced with a refreshing sorbet of red shiso. A nice palate cleanser, but otherwise not too remarkable 17. A gougere with Parmesan and the (hardly detectable) Japanese ichimi spice came next. Served warm, it was cheesy goodness - not too light, but very good 17. A cucumber topped with a dollop of black miso sauce had boatloads of umami, and reminded us of Chinese zhajiangmian 17. A cracker filled with yogurt mousse and topped with a piece of sardine was wonderfully crunchy, airy and subtly fishy at the same time. Excellent 18.
A slice of bread was served cold, and was pretty unspectacular, not even seeming terribly fresh. The accompanying olive oil was amazing, however 16.
The first "real" course of the menu was a ceviche of Spanish shrimp. If the dish had stopped there, this would have been a 19 - the shrimp was cooked perfectly and wonderfully sweet, and there was just a hint of spice. Not really a ceviche for the lack of any acidity, but this was very, very good indeed. However, the shrimp was topped with a green apple mousse, caviar and two sorbets, one of green apple and the other of the previously encountered red shiso. These layers would have felt more at home in a dessert, in particular the mousse was very sweet. For us, these ingredients didn't work together - they belonged into two different dishes. And finally and sadly, the caviar was barely noticeable in this epic struggle between savory and sweet 17.
A salad was next on the menu, but not just any salad. Crispy vegetables, salad leaves and herbs were served with a lemon emulsion and a mayonnaise-based sauce containing mustard. Hidden underneath was some smoked salmon, and the whole dish was topped with crumbles of almonds and black olives. Our instructions were to mix the entire dish before eating - which made the presentation sadly closer to a salad one might make at home. I liked this dish, but didn't love it. The sauce, with its hint of mustard, was nice, and there was a lot of it (for better or worse). Some of the larger vegetable pieces (e.g. the tomato) seemed like they needed a bit of salt compared to the sauce-soaked herbs. Overall, this was good, but a bit of a jumble, and wouldn't be entirely out of place in a regular bistro (tastewise, not presentation-wise, that is) 17.
A risotto with quail, the quail’s jus, and shaved truffles was our third course. A very earthy dish with lots of umami, this would have paired well with a red wine. The quail was almost unrecognizable, having been cut into small pieces; it actually felt like a heavier protein. The rice was cooked perfectly al dente, and the dish had lots of cheese flavor, but little taste of truffle. A somewhat muddled flavor experience overall: a fine risotto, but not something I'd order again 16.
Langoustines smoked over hay proved again (see the shrimp ceviche above) that the kitchen knows how to prepare seafood. Perfectly cooked, sweet, they would have made an outstanding dish without anything else on the plate. That "something else" in this case were mini asparagus with almonds, sesame seeds and a sauce reminding us of Chinese five spice. The asparagus and the sauce were distinctly Asian in flavor profile, very different from the langoustine taken separately. Again, this felt a bit like having two separate good dishes on a plate that had no compelling reason to be served together 18.
The final savory course was a Japanese wagyu steak, served with a watercress horseradish sauce, fried gnocchi and a small bowl of wagyu tartare. The steak was cooked perfectly and was of a great quality, equally great eaten with only salt, with the jus sauce or with the delicious horseradish condiment (18 for the steak). The gnocchi were even better, potatoy goodness served hot, without being oily at all, like a tater tot from heaven (an easy 19). The weakest part of the presentation was the wagyu tartare: the oddly sweet Asian sauce it was served with overpowered any inherent taste that the wagyu might have contributed (maybe a 16). Overall a weak 18.
The pescatarian replacement for the Wagyu steak was a lobster covered with panko and served with a gribiche sauce and caviar. Again, the seafood was nicely cooked, but the caviar got a bit lost, making this seem like a simple "breaded fried seafood" dish with tartar sauce. Not bad, but not quite as elaborate as expected from a restaurant of this caliber 17.
Transitioning to the sweet part of lunch, we were served another sorbet, this time made from rhubarb. Fresh, maybe a bit icier than previous sorbets 16.
The cheese course was a foam of goat cheese served over a blueberry sorbet. Finished with olive oil and black pepper, it was a wonderful dessert, with a delicious cheese 18+.
Dessert number two were strawberries served with a strawberry mousse, cottage cheese ice cream, a strawberry vinaigrette and sugar discs of strawberries and raspberries. Tastewise, this was "strawberries and cream" on steroids - fresh, creamy, and crunchy all at the same time. A truly excellent dessert 19.
Coffee and tea came with two more small bites. A pina colada marshmallow was mostly frozen and very lovely 18. Truly heavenly was the last bite, a small cracker filled with caramel. A great crunch and a perfect liquid caramel - amazing 19+.
Overall: A great lunch of French cuisine with Japanese influences. The high points were very, very high indeed - the seafood and meat cooked perfectly, the desserts phenomenal. But overall, I left somewhat disappointed. Most of the savory courses dishes ended up being just ok, not great. The ability of the kitchen is clearly in evidence, but it didn't translate into an amazing meal today 17.
