I'm looking at the <i>Menu des Gourmands</i> lunch offering at CielDeParis.com, and it uses the term «Un(e) entr&eacute;e/plat/dessert du jour de bouche &agrave; oreille».

I'm supposed to both taste and hear the food? I smell an idiom.

It means that they have an appetizer &quot;du jour&quot; (it changes everyday so they don't advertise it)and the waiter will tell you.
&quot;De bouche &agrave; oreille&quot; means verbally, with no written info.

Or do they just cater for messy eaters?

Thanks for the translation (yes, we have <i>du jour</i> over here - it has come to mean &quot;the latest fad,&quot; as in &quot;the Iraq strategy <i>du jour</i>&quot. I was eating at a Holiday Inn in Lawrence, Kansas about forty years ago, and I asked the waitress what the <i>soupe du jour</i> was, to which she replied &quot;I don't know, I just started here yesterday.&quot;

Does <i>bouche &agrave; oreille</i> contain any connotative meaning, such as probably being made of the freshest in-season ingredients (at one end of the scale) or past-use-by-date (at the other)? Or is it a pretty neutral usage?

Robes...&quot;soup du jour&quot;...that was a good one.

&quot;Does bouche &agrave; oreille contain any connotative meaning, such as probably being made of the freshest in-season ingredients (at one end of the scale) or past-use-by-date (at the other)? Or is it a pretty neutral usage

No, it has nothing to do with food, ingredients or cooking. It just means unwritten info which circulates among a group of people sharing (more or less) the same interests.

You want to rent a flat in Rue de Rennes, you ask any concierge in the area and she tells you that she has a friend who has a friend who knows of a flat to rent. You make the deal, your friends ask how you happened to find such a nice flat and you answer : de bouche &agrave; oreille.

A shop is selling out and hasn't advertised. Still a lot of people show up. How did they know? par le bouche &agrave; oreille.

Personally I find bouche &agrave; oreille used on a menu a bit pretentious if not ridiculous.

No, it has nothing to do with food, ingredients or cooking.

Though you could say that a recipe was transmitted de bouche &agrave; oreille from great grandmother to your grand daughter!

It has essentially the same meaning as &quot;word of mouth&quot; in English.