The French know rue Broca as the title of a selection of stories for children written by Pierre Gripari* and published in the 1970s. You may remember it for other reasons…

A street far from the hullabaloo of Paris’ centre, there’s a red awning and two clear messages on the window: “Cuisine for chefs, winegrower’s wines”.

Luckily, word of mouth helped us discover this (extremely) deserving restaurant. Firstly, the service is attentive yet discreet. The staff quickly noticed if anything was missing from our table, such as bread or salt. Everything was sorted before we even had time to ask.

Despite our natural greediness, and with a slight pang of regret, we didn’t take the full “formule” of starter, main course and dessert, as we were afraid of happily nodding off during the following afternoon. A bit of a shame that!

Straight after taking our order, the waitress came back with a little taster, a succulent tomato mousse.

We went for a grilled filet of Pollack, served with roasted green and white asparagus, and a small leg of guinea fowl with pan-fried foie gras and rosemary juice. The food cooked at the Ourcine is fresh, simple, but full of fragrance. We ate our main course still regretting not having tried a starter.

We still decided to let ourselves be tempted by the desserts: one of us tried the almond blancmange served turned over with strawberries, fresh mint and a Breton biscuit, the other had slightly sweetened sour cream with vanilla-poached pineapple. Our advice is to not miss out on the desserts at the Ourcine!

The owners have an eye for detail.

As you may have guessed, we’ll be going back to the Ourcine restaurant very soon…

A meal with wine will cost around 45 euros if you stick to the ‘formule’.

L’Ourcine
92, rue Broca
75013 Paris
Tel. 01 47 07 13 65
M° Les Gobelins

* Who is Pierre Gripari ?