It wasn’t easy finding a restaurant open in August in Paris, but not only did we manage it, but the one we picked turned out to be… delicious!


We must be the last people on earth to know about L’Ebauchoir (well actually, we’d been before but forgotten about it since. Olivier from one of our hotels kindly reminded us!). The restaurant’s website is translated into five languages, including Japanese and Chinese(!), and they have an impressive number of stickers in the window testifying to their presence in various international guide books year upon year.

So, if it’s in all the guides, it’s probably a tourist trap right? Well we decided to find out whether all the press was just hype or the mark of genuine quality.

The restaurant is in the east of town, down a small backstreet that you could easily miss. Yet it would seem that people from all over the world make their pilgrimage here, spurred on by glowing reviews in their guidebooks. And frankly, it’s worth it. Look beyond the slightly rustic (i.e. slightly exaggerated) ‘frenchiness’ of the place and you’ll find an inventive menu and – frankly – some rather good cooking.

Let’s imagine that this review is sponsored by the word ‘delicious’. We started off with a glass of delicious sparkling white wine. Usually, any sparkling wine that is not champagne gets bad press, but ours was lovely (and went straight to our heads!).

So, time to look at the menu!

Deciding to share a starter, we went for the tomato and aubergine charlotte with basil. The aubergine was a little difficult to find, and the olive oil had such a strong taste that it more or less drowned out all the other ingredients, but the crunchy pieces of olive and – surprise! – small pieces of Chinese noodle made it an interesting way to get our taste buds up and running.

After a short break, the main courses arrived. The seabass with aniseed butter was absolutely delicious, a very surprising and original mix of tastes.

The roasted pollack with aubergine caviar and basil-infused olive oil was also a great success, despite the fact that – once again – the taste of the aubergine was so subtle as to be almost completely absent. However, the pesto was delicious and small roasted potatoes served on the side made up for things. Really delicious!

We also ordered a side dish of mashed potatoes with truffles. Very creamy, but the taste of the truffles must be too subtle for me to pick it out… 😉

Of course, a real restaurant should be judged on its desserts, often a weak spot (perhaps the chefs prefer to concentrate on the meat?). We were very impressed: the apple and raspberry crumble was not too sugary and very obviously fresh, served with a small scoop of creamy ice cream.

However the real showstopper was the grandma-style rice pudding, served in a giant dish with a spoon so you can serve yourself as much as you like. We thought it looked enormous, but a few minute later quite a lot of it had disappeared…

The service during our meal was professional and friendly, although they seem to ask for everyone to arrive at the same time (around 8pm), meaning that the first hour of the evening is a little frantic (for everyone). The décor has enough authenticity to charm foreigners and it’s a great place for anyone looking for a great Parisian meal without going to a stuffy gastronomic joint. It’s almost certainly too late to call it a ‘find’, but at least here’s one restaurant where you can believe the hype.

Check out their lovely blog, which has lots of great recipes to try out.

For your meal, you’ll probably pay around 50 euros per person including win and coffee. Not a bad deal at all.

Here’s our little slideshow with a few more photos, but you’ll see a lot more if you go to the Flickr page here.

L’Ebauchoir, 43 rue Cîteaux, 75012 Paris. Métro Faidherbe-Chaligny (line 8). Tel. +33 (0)1 43 42 49 31. Oopen ever day except Sunday. Also closed at lunchtime on Monday.

Here’s their website address: click!

Bigger map here