We’re more than happy to try out Paris’ restaurants every month (for you of course) but twice a year we go somewhere just a little special, somewhere you might like to go for a special occasion when visiting the city.

On the Île-Saint-Louis, a part of town known more for its tourist traps and gnarly, lock-infested bridges than its fine restaurants, Le Sergent Recruteur opened less than a year ago, and within a couple of months had already been awarded a Michelin star. After seeing pictures of the designer interior, completely opposed to the olde-worlde charm of the area, we saved up some money (it’s really not cheap) and booked a table…

And here’s how the evening went…

On a street that could be called anything but ‘trendy’, Le Sergent Recruteur  has chosen an odd spot for its designer interior and tiny restaurant – only 26 seats, and a kitchen that looks far too small to fit all the chefs into. Entering the place is like stepping out of one world and into another, a mixture of modern and traditional, designer Venetian ball meets medieval cottage.A great deal of money has obviously been poured into the place, and the details are impeccable – serviettes folded in a special way, knives by high-end brand Perceval, specially inscribed with 4.41, the name given to the bar section of the restaurant that serves a slightly cheaper ‘street food’ menu . This is posh dining and no mistake.The Sergent Recruteur follows the trend of restaurants such as Roseval and Agapé Substance , in that you don’t get to choose what you eat – it’s a fixed menu , because they know what’s best. 😉

And so, we sat back (very comfortably, as it happened) and waited to be treated, not really knowing what to expect.

The staff were extremely smiley and laid back, with each dish being explained to you, albeit rather quickly (we didn’t manage to catch the name of every single ingredient, so be prepared to listen hard). They also explained that the restaurant doesn’t just purchase fresh vegetables, they’ve actually bought themselves an entire farm, in Normandy! Also, their fish comes from Saint-Jean-de-Luz in the Basque country, and is done by small-scale fishermen rather than industrial boats.

We were also told that they not only bake their own bread, they make the butter too, supposedly infused with herbs, although we honestly couldn’t tell. Nice story though.

After this, the first dish arrived – three styles of carrots: raw carrot, carrot juice with grapefruit and creamed carrots with mustard. It was an interesting, fun way to start, although we found the grapefruit rather overpowered the carrot juice more than a little. Presentation was chic and minimal.By the way, the wine we had chosen was delicious. The two sommeliers absolutely know their stuff, down to the type of earth the grapes are grown in to the direction of the slope on the hill. Very impressive.Time for our second dish – charred young garlic to peel with a dollop of tomato sauce and cold radish soup to finish. Once again, three things in one dish, and visually interesting, but the garlic turned out to be hellish to peel, and one of ours wasn’t cooked – instead it remained stringy and impossible to chew. A great idea but not a total success.Time for the third dish. “A simple garden salad”. Er, OK. Unfortunately, this one was so simple that it really needed a bit of salt. We get it, you’ve bought a farm. Perhaps you should buy some condiments too? Seriously though, we couldn’t help thinking that this was a little lazy.Fourth dish – now this is more like it. Tempura squid with grapefruit (a recurring theme, as you might have noticed), and – we think, because the explanation was extremely quick – yuzu leaf. This was a total success – crunchy, salt, citrus, chewy… textures and tastes galore. Excellent stuff!Fifth dish – hand-fished skipjack tuna, spinach, primrose flower and anchovy purée. Just look a it – beautiful! So well presented, and extremely tasty, with the tender fish, crunchy vegetable and salty anchovies. Respect.But let us pause for a second, and explain that we we first arrived it was fairly early (for France) – about 8pm. As the restaurant was empty at that time, the first few dishes came thick and fast. However, after our fifth dish a certain amount of time had passed,  the room was now bustling, and the kitchen extremely busy, giving us a little more time in between dishes.

It’s a wonder the many chefs don’t knock each other out in that tiny kitchen, running around continuously as they do. The head chef, Antonin Bonnet spent twelve years in London before coming back to Paris to start his own restaurant, opening the Sergent Recruteur in Octobre 2012. Within a few months, his Michelin star was awarded – evidently, he is doing something very right.Our sixth dish (not photo) was fried red mullet with ‘coquine’ potato, but let’s move straight on to dish number seven – a mix of garden vegetables, with creamed nettle and absinth oil. An astonishing mix of elements (absinth, really?) and exceptional presentation. Great stuff.Time for dish number eight – a ‘simple risotto’ but well executed. Melty without being slushy… but perhaps not the most difficult of dishes to get right.Although we didn’t yet know it, the onslaught of dinky, beautifully-presented savoury dishes was over, and dessert was about to start. Time for a quick bathroom break. Walk to the back of the restaurant, up some wooden steps, and you’ll enter a world somewhere between Kubrick and David Lynch, with a draped vestibule and expanses of marble in the toilets. Pretty cool.Time for dessert then! Ever had lovage sorbet? Well we have, served with rhubarb. Fresh and different. And once that had gone, another dessert of locally-grown cherries, elderberry sorbet sureau and a crunch hazelnut stick. Undeniably impressive.We would advise you order coffee too. It comes accompanied by the Sergeant’s moustache, made in chocolate (by god-of-chocolate Jean-Paul Hévin? We’re not sure we caught his name right), a little choux with cream of acacia, a hazelnut ‘financier‘ and squidgy salted caramels that were delicious. Not to be missed.And the final touch – really clever too – is the gift they give you when you leave, a little sachet with two home-made madeleines to eat the following morning (made with chestnut honey). Not only are they delicious, they also ensure you the memory of your meal will stay cemented in your mind for a while.But what is our memory of the meal? Well, despite all the talk of their farm and their special fishermen, we found some of the dishes lacking in taste a little. Having a list of astonishing ingredients is one thing – and perhaps many diners are wowed by it – but they have to add up to a tasty dish, and we found that wasn’t always the case. It looked and sounded lovely, and it tasted pretty good, but for 115€ per tasting menu, we wanted to be blown away with every single dish. Perhaps that’s unreasonable, even at that price.

In their defence, it has to be said that we asked for a no-meat option for our meal (in advance, when booking). As this meant differing from the selection of dishes they had planned for everyone, perhaps we should be impressed/grateful that they managed to make a special effort for us?

Either way, if money is no object and you are looking to treat yourself to an unforgettable, intimate evening with inventive cuisine, where the staff are lovely and the interior design impressive, the Sergent Recruteur would be a great choice. For less intimacy, less cost and more taste, Septime still remains our favourite… if you can get a table that it: even with just 26 seats, the Sergent Recruteur often has room at the last minute.

Le Sergent Recruteur is at 41 rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Îsle, Paris (here)

Open for lunch and dinner (cheaper menu at lunchtime) every day except Sundays and Mondays

Official site: www.lesergentrecruteur.fr

Book online: here

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