Arpège - Paris
Rating: 18/20
Where: Paris, France
When: Lunch for 2 on 11 July 2022
Cost: Tasting menu 490 Euro
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars, #31 on Top 50 Restaurants list (2022)
Why: Amazing mostly vegetarian French cuisine, creatively re-imagining traditional dishes; superb seafood
Arpège is a restaurant in Paris that has held three Michelin stars since 1996. Back then, the chef was known for his meat preparations, but he had a change of heart in the early 2000s, deciding that cooking vegetables was a more interesting challenge. Our menu included a little bit of protein, but was still mostly vegetarian, using ingredients from the restaurant's gardens. The restaurant is located on a nondescript street-corner south of the river Seine in the 7th arrondissement. Most passers-by won’t realize that they are walking past one of the world’s best restaurants.
The dining room is decorated in colors that would be appropriate in the countryside: beige, green, with paintings of flora on the walls. This is probably meant to evoke a sense of being near the restaurant's gardens without actually needing to leave Paris. During our lunch, the room was filled with light from the windows facing the street.
There were three options for ordering during lunchtime: a carte blanche lunch menu (195 Euro), an a la carte menu (250-300 Euro depending on what was ordered), and a tasting menu (490 Euro). We went for the latter. There was no “official” wine pairing , but the staff was happy to pour wines by the glass that matched the food being served. The lack of the wine pairing makes sense when one considers that there were twelve courses in the tasting menu, and receiving one glass per course would have been a challenge to finish. We requested that a new wine be poured whenever we were done with the previous one, and that led to a relaxed experience. The wines were uniformly good; ironically our favorite was a red wine, even though the menu is generally more geared towards white wines.
A glass of zucchini, cucumber and apple juice was the beginning of our lunch. I couldn't really taste the zucchini, and the apple juice was maybe a tad too sweet, but this was a nice, refreshing and (presumably and unusually) healthy way to ease into the meal 18.
Next came a collection of raw vegetables: two varieties of summer squash, some fennel, cucumber and a cherry tomato. These were seasoned only with coarse salt and nothing else. Not the best produce I've ever eaten, but still pretty good 17.
A signature dish of the restaurant, the "hot and cold egg", came next. A runny egg yolk was served in an egg shell and topped by a cream seasoned with four spice. Completing the dish were chives, sherry vinegar and maple syrup. A nice version of this kind of dish (possibly invented here, but now seen at many other restaurants): contrasts of warm and cold, savory and sweet, solid and airy. The yolk and the foam were both excellent, but the maple syrup was a tad too sweet for my taste 17.
Two kinds of bread were served, both cold. A baguette roll was very crunchy, but otherwise unremarkable, as was the sliced bread served later 16. No butter was in evidence throughout our meal (BYOB?), so we mainly used the bread to sop up the sauces.
Two gazpachos, one made with cucumber, the other with tomatoes, were served with a mustard ice cream and drizzled with olive oil and little zucchini cubes. The mustard ice cream was very, very good - not sweet at all, very creamy and with a welcome spice kick. It worked great with the gazpachos - although the soups could have used a tiny bit more flavor, more acidity or more salt. The cucumber gazpacho in particular was on the lighter side. The presentation was very pretty with the two soups arranged in concentric circles 18.
Zucchini sushi came next: zucchini slices were served over warm rice that was topped with mustard (instead of wasabi) and next to an olive tapenade (instead of soy sauce). A very unusual and clever dish - the substitution of wasabi by mustard was particularly inspired. There was nothing Japanese about this preparation, but it was something definitely worth experiencing. Maybe a tad too much rice overall, but otherwise lovely 17.
Ravioli filled with tomatoes, beetroot, cabbage and sage were resting in a clear ginger broth. The broth was served warm, and was slightly sweet. The ravioli had a pretty subtle flavor: even though there were some spices present, they weren't too noticeable. Not bad, but more of a flavor pop would have been nice. Maybe this needed a bit more salt? 17
Continuing the re-interpretation of classic dishes using only vegetables was a tomato carpaccio. Thin slices of tomato were topped with olive oil, fennel, zucchini, strawberry, onion, parsley and shaved Parmesan. The tomatoes were of wonderful quality, but I thought that the salt distribution across the dish was a bit uneven: some bites would be heavily salted and utterly delicious while other bites lacked flavor. The strawberries worked surprisingly well with the more savory ingredients 19.
Another familiar looking, but wholly unusual dish came next. A sweet onion gratin was served with a bit of lemon peel, Parmesan and chives. Looking like a potato gratin, this dish had not a trace of everyone's favorite tuber. Creative, and very well executed: the onion was sweet, the dish piping hot, and there was a nice crunch to the Parmesan and cooked onion parts. At this point I finally broke down and asked for some salt, which did help this dish a lot. Interestingly, the salt seemed to make the lemon flavor a bit more pronounced, so maybe the original salt level was chosen on purpose to keep the flavors more balanced? Bonus points for creativity and pulling off something crazy 19.
Next up was a beetroot tartare, served with a carrot and onion mousseline, and topped by a spiced cream and a zucchini slice. Visually, this mirrored a traditional beef tartare, with an egg white and egg yolk topping the tartare, and a mustard sauce on this side. Needless to say, there were no ingredients in common with that classic dish. The taste was amazing: the beetroot creamy and a tad sweet, it went well with the other components. The whole dish needed only a tiny bit of additional salt in my opinion 19.
The only weak dish of our lunch arrived next: a slice of zucchini filled with onions and tomatoes, surrounded by a tomato sauce and a parsley and dill emulsion. The zucchini was done very al dente, probably too much so, and its filling was oddly bland, as were the sauces. Again, salt helped a bit, but then there was still the uncooked zucchini… 15
A "vegetables of the season" dish came next. Presumably, no high-end vegetable-focused restaurant can be without one. What made this one special was that it wasn't a salad, but instead a warm dish served with a sauce. Beets, onions, fennel and celery were served in a "sweet and sour" sauce made from grapes, salted butter and lemon. The sauce was wonderful, and sweet enough to be used as a tart marmalade (and perfect on the bread served earlier) - it’s too bad that it is not on sale by itself. The vegetables were generally lovely as well 18.
The final savory course was the only one that was not entirely vegetarian. A Dover sole was served with Swiss chard, a smoked potato and a white wine sauce. This dish was utterly amazing. The portion size was huge, especially for a tasting menu - essentially half a fish per person. But who are we to complain if the fish is so delicate and cooked to perfection all the way through (even though it is much thicker in the middle than at the sides). The smoked potato was also delicious - we were sad that there was only one of it, and were tempted to ask the kitchen for more. The potato by itself would have made an amazing, satisfying course. The Swiss chard was also cooked nicely, but was not quite as mind-blowing as the rest of the dish, simply a nice complement to the other, heavier ingredients. And last, but not least, the white wine sauce was delicious perfection, and thankfully there was a lot of it, but also thankfully there was a finite amount of it, since we would have continued eating it for the rest of the day. An ideal combination of creaminess, acidity, fat, fish-flavor, you name it. It's a bit ironic that I'm rating the only non-vegetarian dish the highest, but it was just that good 20.
Onward to desserts. A profiterole was filled with a hay ice cream, served with almonds and topped with caramel. A lovely sweet ice cream and a very nice dish overall. This was echoed even by my wife who "usually doesn't like desserts" 18.
A mille-feuille was filled with rhubarb, surrounded by rhubarb jus and served with a verbena ice cream on the side. This was also a really nice dessert: a beautifully crunchy, airy pastry that was maybe a bit overwhelmed by the tangy rhubarb flavor, and a great ice cream. The only nitpick was that we had an even better rhubarb and vanilla dessert two days prior at the restaurant Plénitude 18.
Mignardises ended our lunch. A tuile of crunchy caramel was so lovely, we didn't even care that it stuck to our teeth 19. A pastry reminding us of a madeleine (in texture if not shape) had fruit at the bottom 18. A chocolate praline with hazelnuts was great if you like those ingredients 18. And finally a caramel made with honey (instead of sugar) and sorrel was both unique and magnificent 19.
Overall: A delightful lunch of (mostly) vegetarian dishes. It's rare to see this level of cooking and creativity applied solely to vegetables and fruit. Some dishes riffed on typical meat dishes (carpaccio, tartare, sushi), and used clever substitutions of ingredients to achieve an analogous effect. With no truffles or caviar in evidence, the result solely rested on the quality of the ingredients and the ability of the kitchen. Yes, other restaurants make (sometimes even better) vegetarian dishes, but there are few (if any) that can deliver a whole menu of this depth in vegetarian French cuisine. Definitely worth a visit for the unique experience, and I'm curious to return in a different season to see what the kitchen comes up with then 18.
