What happened the night we went to Le Timbre? Was it just one of those ‘off’ days? We’d read lots of nice things about it, and yet our meal was extremely underwhelming, the first time we’ve left a restaurant in a long time without leaving a tip.

We try to analyse what went wrong, and what should have been better…

photos (except this one taken from the restaurant site): JasonW

It’s never much fun having a poor meal, then having to tell you all about it. We’d much prefer to have a great meal and rave about a restaurant, believe me, but sometimes so many things go wrong that there’s no way we can put a positive spin on it.

Le Timbre has had rave reviews around the web, sounded great (tiny restaurant with only 20-odd seats, English chef giving French cuisine a new twist) and we were very much looking forward to it, despite having been asked to come at the rather late time of 9.30pm. Second service, I can deal with that. Plus, I thought it would be great to prove to the French that English cuisine (or at least an English chef) could give them a run for their money. I was soon to change my mind.

Looking at the menu outside, we could immediately tell that the restaurant didn’t really cater for vegetarians; only one first course without meat, only one main course without meat. Not a single dish completely vegetarian (i.e. without fish either). We’re used to French carnivores, but that’s draconian even for Paris! From an English chef, I admit that I was expecting a little more choice…

Once inside, a very palpable air of stress was hanging in the air. The waitress was running around, and we wondered if we had just missed some disastrous event, an irate customer, a series of dropped plates or missed orders… The restaurant is very, very small, meaning that the tables along one wall have to be slid out before one person can be seated (in this case, me).

The waitress pushed the table so far back in that I could hardly breathe, and blurted out « Vous voulez une coupe de champagne pour commencer ? ». Usually a restaurant will ask you if you’d like an aperitif, but this is the first time that somewhere has tried to force a glass of champagne on me. She seemed really rushed, and it was so unusual that we both paused for a minute, wondering even if it was a free glass of wine, and the waitress took this as a sign that we were perhaps foreign and hadn’t understood. « Would you like to start with a glass of champagne? » she quickly asked again, in English. We said no thank you. I found the hard sell of the request and the instant translation (because we weren’t answering fast enough for her) rather galling. My partner was less surprised. In any case, I interpreted it as not being a good omen. We later found out that champagne was 8 euros the glass.

The waitress continued her stressed-out sprint around the restaurant (only as big as a postage stamp, hence the name) clearing tables, dressing tables. The menu was sat on ours and we had a chance to check it out ans look around the place.

We wanted to order a half bottle of wine. Le Timbre doesn't have any.

The décor is… neutral, shall we say? Classic? Plain cream walls with just three or four black and white photos (including one of the chef in front of the restaurant!). A touch of dark brown. Perhaps the idea is for people to concentrate on the food (fair enough) but we were not inspired to take many photos. The tables are incredibly close, to the point that I had a hard time blocking out my neighbour’s conversation (and dull it certainly was).

The kitchen is in one corner of the room (you’ll have to go through it if you want to go to the toilet), and you can watch the chef and his sous-chef prepare everything. The chef Chris Wright (not pictured below) did not look happy, in marked comparison to Frenchie, for example, where he was very cheery. It was increasingly clear that this was not a good night for him.

We waited for our order to be taken. It took a while, but eventually the waitress came and we explained that we’d like to skip the first course (8€) and go straight to the main course (17 €). It was 9.30pm after all. My companion chose the cod fillet with roasted cauliflower, despite this costing an extra three euros (making 20€).

As you can see, the serving is not huge. Despite the fish being fresh, the cauliflower tasted of nothing really except cheese. It was also very greasy. Twenty euros for cauliflower cheese and a bit of fish is a little steep, especially when they don’t have much taste to them.

With nothing vegeterian to order, I decided to ask if it would be possible to have a vegetarian option, such as a selection of the vegetables used to accompany the other dishes. The waitress looked pained and said she would ask. I saw her go to the chef, who looked like someone has pushed a spike into his stomach, and shook his head. She came back and suggested I have the pan-fried wild mushrooms listed as a starter, but as a larger serving. I agreed (and frankly, there wasn’t really any other choice). Even most French chefs will begrudginly cobble you together a vegetarian platter. Apparently Le Timbre isn’t that flexible.

The purée accompanying the mushrooms seemed to be made of celeriac, which has a farily subtle taste. The chanterelle mushrooms were both tastelees and really, really greasy. Dripping with it, drowning in it. Very disappointing indeed.

In between the main course and dessert, we decided that the stilton and sherry sounded lovely, and indeed it was. This also has an extra charge to it (2 euros supplement), making 10 euros for two slices of cheese on a plate, with a 2cl glass of sherry. We had a glass each, so it must have cost us even more! Very nice cheese though…

It was time for dessert. My companion went for the mille-feuille which was made to order, and to our mind was the most successful dish of the entire evening. Fresh and fun, with a cute ‘T’ on the top for Timbre. That’s more like it!

My dessert however was disastrous. Listed as chocolate quenelles (a reference to the formed oval shape of savoury quennelles) with jasmine cream, it arrived looking like this…

So. Chocolate slop with a ring of creamy something round it. Pretty shameful. Chocolately, for sure, but just slop.

We declined our waitress’ suggestions of coffee to finish, paid up and left without leaving a tip. We never do that.

So what went wrong that night at Le Timbre? I don’t think we’ll ever know. Perhaps packing them in and doing two services each night has exhausted the chef and staff? Perhaps all the meat dishes are delicious (sorry we don’t eat those). We were really looking forward to our meal and we left bitterly disappointed. During our time there we felt unwelcome and cramped, eating near-tasteless or formless food that was way overpriced compared to many other restaurants we have tried recently and loved (we were especially reminded of the wonderful meal we had at La Bouche).

We can only assume that the stars were not aligned that night, and that the rest of the time the food as absolutely wonderful. Perhaps you could book a table and prove us wrong.

Le Timbre is at 3 rue Sainte Beuve 75006 Paris (here). Open every day except Sundays and Mondays for lunch (midday – 2pm) and dinner (7.30 – 10.30pm). Tel. +33 (0)1 45 49 10 40

Official site: www.restaurantletimbre.com

You can find more positive reviews of Le Timbre here, here, here and here but not here. Phew! I was beginning to think we were the only ones who had had a bad experience…