Le Braisenville – Paris (75009) en

A discovery: prefect lunch table d’hôte, nice setting and service just like it needs to be.

The inside is completely different than the outside.

It’s pretty cozy, and the seats are pretty comfortable.
The only worry is that it gets dark quickly the farther you get into the restaurant.
Lastly, the sexiest places are not so plentiful.

The little story

I’d been walking by it for a while now, and nothing was pushing me to go check it out:

– the name Braisenville
– the half sex shop, half modern decor.
And then I saw that Marc Neeloff had included it in the list of  restaurants he recommends, and it surprised me. Then I saw that it was also adopted by Télérama, Figaro, Yelp and Trip Advisor, and that made me want to go.

I got scared: the young man who hung up on me without saying bye.
In the end, the experience was good, the server that day was more of an introvert than distant.
When we started talking more in depth about food, he was there and conciliatory.
For example, the coffee was disgusting, they had had a problem with the coffee machine that morning, and they had thought it was fixed, he explained all this, took the bill back and comped our coffees.
Service was really friendly.
He was also very available for wine service, he had brought me a glass of wine that wasn’t really my thing, he went to get another bottle without as much as an arched eyebrow.

This was the big revelation.

YES to these cheap table d’hôtes for some good French food, well thought out, with good ingredients, without any unnecessary frills.
19 euros for an appetizer-main-dessert menu that we ate that day, that’s a good deal.

Appetizer 

Hake, beets, apple
Fresh fish, crunchy and not too cold vegetables, I really appreciated the pomegranate in the dish, because I had just come back from Istanbul, and they use it a lot there, like for example, in the  pomegranate salad.
I pointed it out to the server and he was pleasantly surprised to be talking about pomegranates and confirmed that the chef liked using it in his dishes. Bonus point!
It’s not everyone who would bother taking apart pomegranates to give acidity and freshness to an appetizer.

Iberian Bellota ham sticks
The person with me tried this sticks and was really happy about them.

Mains
Pollack, spinach, chanterelles
Excellent fish, very well done, the spinach also, tender but not gorged with water, the plate is beautiful.

Alpine cheese
I didn’t hesitate to take this cheese plate, because the meal was good but light ( not because it was small), so I still had room for cheese.
I asked the waiter what the cheeses were, and he told me that there were only cheese from the Savoie region, such as the reblochon.

This lunch was very appetizing, and made me want to come back either at lunch again, or at dinner to try the table d’hôte that was in the style of raciones.
For sure, this a place that has what it takes, behind it’s kitsch look, you can get some solid food here.
This area really needs more of this.