L'Ambroisie - Paris
Traditional dining room decor to match the traditional French cuisine
Rating: 17/20
Where: Paris, France
When: Lunch for 2 on 12 July 2022
Cost: A la carte 200-400 Euro
Accolades: 3 Michelin Stars
Why: Unhurried service without a tasting menu, some dishes superb, desserts uniformly excellent
L'Ambroisie has held three Michelin stars for over three decades. Located on the Place des Vosges in Paris, it's one of the most traditional three-stars in the world. No tasting menu, a la carte only. Menu only in French. Old-style decor with chandeliers. No windows. Prices astronomical.
Based on other reviews, I was afraid to encounter a staff that refused to speak anything but French. But if that was ever the case, it certainly was not on our visit. One staff member happily translated the entire menu for us on the fly, and all staff spoke excellent English. Weirdly though, all English speakers seemed to be sitting in the front room of the restaurant, even though there were more rooms in the back. Maybe a coincidence, but it was odd to be at a quintessentially French restaurant with only American and Asian tourists in sight. Another oddity: my wife noticed that the couple sitting next to us was not allowed to order a dessert sampler to share. Not sure what to make of that - maybe sharing an entire meal between two people could be considered bad manners, but I don't see what's so unusual about sharing a single dessert.
As I mentioned, the menu is a la carte only, so one is expected to order an appetizer, a main course and potentially cheese and/or dessert. The prices for appetizers and main courses were in the range of 95-170 Euro, while desserts came in at a (relatively) more tame 38 Euro. Wines by the glass for the most part were in the 50-150 Euro range. Price-wise, this works out to about the same as a meal at any of the other Parisian three-star restaurants, but with a bit less variety in the food. Not a big problem if one shares with at least one other diner - that already allows for trying six different dishes. We shared an excellent bottle of white Burgundy and a couple glasses of wine thereafter.
A bread made with tomatoes, olives and Comte cheese started our lunch off. Crumbly, in texture similar to a cake, it had a nice cheese flavor, but felt a tad stale 15.
Three amuse bouches followed. A small tartlet filled with carrot mousse and topped with fennel was excellent - a bit of sweetness from the carrot, a contrasting texture from the fennel, this was very well balanced overall 19. Caviar and leeks on a bread cracker were nice as well, but a bit more simple than the preceding bite 18. Finally, a mousse of Comte cheese and pepper (the vegetable, not the spice) was fine as well 17.
Bread was delivered soon thereafter, but not described by the staff. It was served warm, with a hint of sourness. Otherwise, including the butter, this was an unremarkable offering 16.
Our first courses came next. One of the restaurant's classics was a langoustine served with curry, spinach and sesame crackers. A perfectly cooked langoustine, a very delicate and delicious curry sauce, some nice spinach and a good texture from the crackers and sesame. No wonder that this dish is one the restaurant is known for - excellent 19.
Our other first course was billed as a "hot-cold egg", which we ordered since we tried such a dish just the day before at Arpège. It turns out that the egg in question (and in fact the entire dish) is cold only, and served with a cucumber gazpacho, an astronomical amount of caviar and a shot of vodka. The server explained the latter by saying that as a “Moscow-inspired” dish it needed the traditional chaser. Let's start with the positive: the caviar was excellent, and there was a lot of it. The cucumber soup was pleasant, but very light - thankfully we had salt and pepper on the table to add more flavor. The egg was hard boiled, with a still liquid yolk. I'm not a big fan of boiled eggs, and would generally prefer egg yolk to be warm - this part of the dish was pretty much lost on me. Trying to round up to account for my bias, this is maybe a 17. My wife didn't like this dish at all, in particular the soup, and suggested a 14 instead. The vodka was pretty good, though. All in all, not the best way to spend 140 Euro.
After a relaxing wait, the main courses arrived. The timing here was close to perfect, by the way, lunch overall took about three hours - a nice respite after a few recent lunches that tried to set speed records in serving food (Core and Plénitude).
Seabass was served with artichokes and caviar. Interestingly, for this and the other dishes, the descriptions given by our servers were essentially the same as the corresponding line in the printed menu, so I didn't really need to take any notes in this restaurant. The sea bass was artfully arranged in pieces over slices of artichoke heart, with large amounts of caviar in a cream sauce surrounding this centerpiece. The fish was cooked very nicely, the caviar and sauce lovely, and the artichoke surprisingly almost raw - different, but it worked. This was a good dish, but tasted pretty much only of fish and cream. As a tasting-menu-size single bite that would have been amazing, but as a full entree it was too much of a good thing 17.
Our other main course was a red snapper served with beans and a seafood sauce. Rouille (a potato garlic puree) was served atop bread crackers on the side. The crackers were very nice - the result was reminiscent of garlic bread. The fish was unfortunately overcooked, but I liked that the beans added a little bit of (light) green, and the sauce was also very good, basically the sauce version of a bouillabaisse 16. (My wife was quite put off by the overcooked fish and would have rated this lower.)
We opted to share a single order of the cheese course. There was a decent selection of cheeses, and we loved the Epoisse and blue cheeses in particular. Bread with apricots, blueberries and figs was served alongside 17.
For dessert we ordered a sampler that included small versions of three of the four desserts on the menu. Unfortunately, I was so excited by the desserts and anxious about the melting ice cream that I forgot to take pictures, but imagine a presentation that is fine but not necessarily designed for the Instagram crowd. A single scoop of Greek yogurt sorbet with honey was magnificent 19. An almond cake with poached peaches was lovely as well, while being surprisingly light for a cake 18. Meringue and cherries over a flan were wonderful: very good cherries, the flan adding creaminess, the meringue a spike of sugar and a crunchy texture 19. Finally, the restaurant's most famous dessert was a chocolate cake served with ice cream. The cake was ethereally light, with a beautiful chocolate flavor. I tend to avoid chocolate desserts since they often turn out to be too heavy, but this was the opposite. A must order 19+.
Some petit fours rounded out the meal. A choux cream pastry with a caramel disc on top was very good 18, a cookie topped with fresh strawberries a bit more plain 17, and an almond cake with blueberries even simpler 16. Not that these bites didn't taste good, they just didn't seem that different from what any decent bakery in Paris might sell. Finally, a bowl of chocolate covered hazelnuts was excellent - the nuts caramelized and lightly dusted with cocoa powder, resulting in a treat that wasn't that sweet 18.
Overall: This was a lovely lunch, with a nicely unhurried service compared to many tasting menus. The desserts were uniformly excellent, but I can't say the same about the savory dishes. In fact, the variation among those was so large that depending on what one orders, the result might be a three-star or a one-star meal. At this price level, it's a bit crazy that you'd need a good deal of luck to get a great meal. But it unfortunately also means that our single visit to the restaurant can't claim to "review" it objectively, so as always, take the final rating with a pinch of salt 17.
