Brasserie Vagenende on boulevard Saint-Germain was founded over a hundred years ago and still belongs to a family rather than a chain. The Belle Epoque interior is truly breathtaking, but what about the food?

Read on for our review…

Not a lot of restaurants have their ceiling, walls and floors listed as protected monuments – Vagenende got the honour in 1983, and it is truly a beautiful of perfectly-preserved art nouveau.

If you love that style of decor you’ll love the setting madly – it’s colourful from floor to ceiling, with beautiful lamps, mirrors everywhere that give a sens of space and thirty-three bucolic scened hand-painted at the turn of the century onto glass. We’ve never seen anything like it!
The restaurant stretches back quite far, and to the side (a room that can be privatised if necessary), but with the added effect of the mirrors, the place looks absolutely huge…
We arrived on a particularly busy Saturday night, and although it was fairly early, the place was already full, with people queuing outside. Despite this, we were greeted with a genuine smile and quickly shown to our table to peruse the menu and choose some wine.
Although our waiter was obviously in a rush, he took the time necessary to take our order and the first course arrived promptly afterwards.

For the first course, the pumpkin soup with pieces of chestnut and roquefort arrived with everything… except the soup! To our relief it turned up separately just seconds later and was liberally poured into the bowl to great effect. Although the soup tasted a little weak, once thoroughly mixed with the cheese it perked up a little. We can’t help but feel it could have been a little better though.
The organic eggs poached in creamed mushroom (and served with mushroom) looked delicious even before starting and got even better as we tucked in…
The herring fillets marinated in thyme were obviously very fresh and came served with warmed potato. Elegantly done.
And the leek whites with truffle oil vinaigrette melted in the mouth (although as usual, the hint of truffle was a little elusive).
For the main course, the (whole) duck breast had been roasted with figs and came served with tiny baked potatoes. No complaints!
The fresh tagliatelle with marinated artichoke and parmesan shavings was giant-sized but competently prepared…
And the wok of seasonal vegetables and soy bean sprouts was as crunchy as we had expected.
However the main event turned out to be the house speciality – pike quenelle soufflés with the traditional Nantua sauce. They were absolutely delicious, and impressively served in a copper pot. Very, very good indeed!
Up until now, everything had gone pretty well, but things suddenly went seriously awry.

Although the ile flottante with nougatine was fine, the ‘festival’ of mini desserts turned out to be just four items, and the mini rum baba was so horrible we had it sent back – it was dry and bitter and we’ve never had anything like it in our mouths before – frankly, it tasted ‘off’. Although the waiter apologised, and confirmed it wasn’t past its ‘best before’ date, we were pretty sure something was very wrong with it.
Worse still, one of us had ordered our favourite dessert – a big rum baba – before knowing that the little one wasn’t so great, and when he delved into it… there was no rum!

It was the driest, most tasteless thing we’ve eaten for a while, like chewing a sponge! We had to ask for extra rum (and to be fair they brought us the whole bottle and left it with us), but even liberally doused in alcohol it still left a lot to be desired. Very disappointing, and really odd for something prepared on site.
So Vagenende initially enchanted us, then served us good (but not astonishing), well-presented food, and then pretty much shocked us at dessert. Prices are high-ish (although this is the heart of Saint-Germain, so that’s to be expected), although there is a fixed price menu available for lunch.

We think it’s worth a visit for the decor and atmosphere, and you’ll eat pretty well (there’s plenty of choice, and a different special for each day of the week), but it’s the setting that will remain in our minds more than the food.

The Brasserie Vagenende is at 142 Boulevard Saint-Germain (here)

Tel. +33 (0)1 43 26 68 18

Open every day of the week non-stop from midday to midnight

Official site: www.vagenende.com

Facebook: here (last update was October 2012) 🙁

To check out all our photos of the Brasserie Vagenende, click the play button below, then click the four little arrows bottom right to go into fullscreen mode.