We managed to get a table here at the last minute (thank you, Adrian). Still awarded its three stars, but now with a new chef, it was going to be interesting to compare this visit to my last in 2016, when Eric Frechon was still running the show. The dining room is classically French (parisien), and people come here purposely just for this; it caters to a lot of tourists. The room was grand. There was a mix of assorted styles of service, and far too many people in the dining room compared to the number of guests. It felt cramped and hectic. The whole dining room was celebrating special occasions, from birthdays to engagements—I felt like we had gatecrashed a huge party. This is not the restaurant’s fault; what can you do when so many people at once want to mark their special occasion at a three-star? Le Bristol is the venue of choice for so many.
I am a stickler for details, and for some reason, I found myself picking at a lot of things during the entire dinner—some you could say I didn’t need to focus on (but I couldn’t help it; we are in a three-star). What made this visit even more baffling is that my guest’s experience was completely opposite to mine. This made me question the consistency. We swapped plates many times to make sure that I wasn’t imagining things and going insane. To start, I ordered an aperitif of champagne, but the waiter brought the wrong one to the table and went to pour it, completely unaware it wasn’t what we asked for. We had to prompt, and she came back with the Krug. I wasn’t blown away by the snacks to go with it. Oyster should be a choice, not an obligation, as it is not the easiest ingredient to force onto everybody. It is adventurous for an aperitif.
The bread was served in record time—a whole loaf of it—but the waiter placed it right at the other end of the table. I was unable to reach it without a struggle, thinking I was going to rip the sleeve on my dress, but strangely, the butter was put down directly in front of me. Where was the logic in that? It didn’t fit in its bowl, almost melting too much. However, I did enjoy the flavour and the smoothness; it was excellent. As we had one guest who had a gluten intolerance, they should have brought out two butters (one per person), to separate.
My guest played around with the choices on the menu and took the sweetbread to start; I had also chosen this for my main. “Oh my god, this is so good, the best sweetbread I have had in a while,” he rejoiced. It indeed looked so perfect, he didn’t leave anything on his plate—it was ‘licked’ clean. I trust his judgement as he is the sweetbread king. “I can’t wait to try mine then,” I replied. But before this, I took crab to start, served cold as standard. I could not fault the high-level preparation of the crab itself. I should have paid more attention, though, and gone for a hot starter instead; this was my fault entirely. My sweetbread arrived with a sauce that had not been reduced enough, so I asked for another one—when it arrived, it was much better (just get the jus right the first time?). They obviously thought they could pass that off as okay and I wouldn’t notice—well, my friends, I did. I am afraid that the elements beneath the sweetbread had far too much acidity; my dish was miles away from my guest’s. I was robbed.
Cheese followed. It is nice to see a proper cheese trolley, because they are becoming extinct, but where is the raisin bread? Where are the extra crackers? Sorry, but are we on rations? Where are these extra touches? They are missing. We were only given one chutney too—wow, we really were being rationed! Then, nobody asked for a while if we wanted a dessert; it seemed like we had sat in our seats for days… I guess I will just keep drinking the wine then…
Can somebody explain to me why a chef feels the need to put ten whole vanilla pods on your dessert plate as presentation? If I can’t eat them, what’s the point? After a long story about the vanilla, I didn’t see the waiter’s excitement. I mean, that is all that was served—a quenelle of vanilla. Could have gone to une glace à Paris… I found it a bit minimalist.
I must be honest, I found my experience better before, and I am not sure if I will return at this time. With too many celebrations, the chef almost clouded by this, and from my perspective, having eaten at better three-stars in France, I might be inclined to leave Epicure alone for a while.
