It was only when we arrived in front of the Restaurant Moustache – recommended by David Germain, manager of the Hôtel Design Sorbonne – that we realised it is (literally) next door to Le Timbre, a restaurant that we didn’t like at all a couple of years ago (in fact we had a horrible time there, something that rarely happens to us).

So is the Moustache a better experience? Definitely, yes, but with a couple of tiny caveats…

photos: JasonW

It was a quiet Tuesday night when we went to Moustache. Open since summer 2010, they are generally very busy in the evening, and have a special lunchtime menu that draws crowds too. The emphasis – whether in the décor or the cuisine – seems to be on simple yet stylish.

The room is mostly bare brick with classic furniture, but attention to detail, as shown by the carefully chosen art deco lighting and the beautiful, solid wood comptoir (from back in the days when things were made of solid wood).The menu is short but sufficient (although a quick search on the web shows that it hasn’t really varied much over the year since they’ve been open), the prices acceptable and the wine list short but sweet. The dishes on offer are asian-influenced, but given a contemporary French twist, an interesting concept that we were eager to try out.We decided to not spoil our appetites, and share just one starter, a squid and tiger prawn salad. The one-line description (deliberately understated, we imagine) revealed an elaborately-prepared, visually stunning dish. The squid was tender, but we felt there was more room for a little more flavour, as if the presentation was given a little too much importance. Nevertheless, a strong start.The main dishes looked as plain as their descriptions, but contained tasty little details that gave them something special.

The farm-bred chicken (Suprême de volaille fermier), with satay sauce was a great mix of tastes and textures, very obviously different from supermarket-bough chicken.

The Pekin duck-style mackerel fillets had a strong but not overpowering taste that was unlike anything we’d ever eaten before (in a good way) and melted in the mouth. It had tiny triangles of seaweed on the plate were tinged with wasabi, a surprisingly good mix, and the home-made chips (or french fries, take your pick) were delicately salted and perfect.

Only the steamed cod with lime disappointed; it was, frankly, a little too subtle-tasting, and we were lucky to have chosen the wok-fried seasonal vegetable (well caramelised) to accompany them, as otherwise it would have been pretty much forgettable.As always, we had a little space left for dessert (!), and chose the dark chocolate soup with perfumed espuma, and marshmallows. The marshmallows were presented on a slate (there’s quite a fashion for this in Paris at the moment) and was very pink and heavily flavoured. Interesting, but perhaps a little too-simply presented?

The chocolate soup doesn’t look like much in these photos, but it was absolutely heavenly. Don’t ask me what the top part was ‘perfumed’ with – I couldn’t say – but we did our best to down it as slowly as possible in order to savour every mouthful.Moustache has a lot going for it, notably a lack of swagger and some original ideas. We thought that some of the dishes could have been given a little more taste, but there were enough surprises in there to entertain and please.

By the way, if you see the chef, feel free to chat with him and ask him the story behind the name of the place.

Restaurant Moustache is at 3 rue Sainte-Beuve (here)

Open Tuesday – Saturday (closed Saturday lunchtime)

Tel.: +33 (0)1 42 22 56 65

Official site: www.moustache-restaurant.com

To see all our photos, click the play button on the slideshow below, then click the four little arrows bittom right to go into fullscreen mode.