L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon
 

Anyone tried this new Paris eatery and have comments? Any trouble getting in?
I hear that no reservations are taken.

Maybe if you're a guest at Hotel Pont Royal you'll have priority?

We went before it opened - about noon? last August and there wasn't even a line. Maybe it's more crowded at night. It didn't take too long for the place to fill up at lunch.

How big is the restaurant? I got the impression from the tiny reference to it in Food and Wine magazine that it was a very casual place, not a formal restaurant like the old one.

Related news: I just saw in Wine Spectator that Joel Robuchon is opening a new restaurant in Las Vegas -- I forget in which hotel.

There were about 25 seats at the 2 counters and a few very small tables with chairs along the walls where, I think, you could taste wine. I'd call it upscale casual at lunch. There were about 5 Japanese women near us, most of them in black. The walls are black as is the counter. Large colorful jars of fruit are lit to stand out.

Does anyone have the address? Do they serve lunch and dinner?

The restaurant is located in the Hotel Pont Royal at 7, rue de Montalembert, 75007.

They are open for lunch and dinner 7 days a week.

Thank you! Sounds like a good place to check out. Anyone know the prices?

Maybe you should contact the hotel. Here's the email: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>

thanks francophile03, I was looking for more Fodor's opinions on food and price vs. a hotel's opinion, but again thanks for the address.

Reservations for the 11:30am and 6:30pm seatings are available daily. I just booked mine for this weekend. Not as hard to reserve a table as I thought. Now let's see if they keep the reservation ;-)

ttt -- any further comments?

Thanks.

Had dinner there in July, here is what I wrote in my trip report:

<<This was my 6th trip to Paris and my husbands 3rd. The first night we all went to dinner at L'Atilier Joel Robouchon. We were very excited as the press has been so good. We showed up early, around 7pm but the counter was full with a 1 1/2 hour wait so we took the small counter facing the window/backs to the counter.

The restaurant is gorgeous but from the get go the service sucked! We all had champagne then wine and 2-3 small plates each. All of us thought the food was VERY good. Some of the things we had that really stood out were the gazpacho, sorel broth with asparagus, monkfish and the famous potatoes which came with the pork chops. Even though we raved about the ingrediants and presentation all thought the small plates were REALLY small. This was tapas size not tasting menu size. It was very overpriced for the servings and the bad service. Glad I got to go to see for myself but I won't be back.>>

Do you remember how much it was per head, stormy? Thanks.

I'm not remembering exactly but I think for the 4 of us it was around $280 before tip.

Also you should know that if you go during the early times when there's more likliness of getting a seat you will be surrounded by 90% tourists. Maybe that is also why our service was so bad.

Thanks -- that's ok, I'm a tourist. :-) I guess I'll see how I feel this weekend.

I went to that not shortly after it opened, a little over a year ago. I reported about it on here somewhere.

My experience was completely different than SG's. I thought the service was superb, they went out of their way for me, and I didn't pay nearly that amount of money. Of course, that depends how much you eat and what you order, obviously. I think they have small dishes (sort of tapas concept, I guess, but not exactly) and each was around 8-10 euro. I only spent around 45-50 euro myself, including wine. I think I had some appetizer, lamb chops and the pureed potatoes (which are very good), and then some chocolate foam thingie for dessert (which was the one thing I didn't care for), plus my share of a bottle of wine.

I guess the wait or crowds may have changed. When I was there, I was on the cutting edge of hip (ha ha and it was in 2003, not even last century) and didn't even know it. Actually, I did know that, which was part of my previous story, they let me in specially when the door was closed to everyone else and all the folks lined up didn't like that. Now, it has become more well known and written up in articles, etc., so there probably are more tourists. There weren't many when I was there.

Interesting. Didn't Robuchon make his name with potatoes or cauliflower? I just can't remember which -- but remember reading about it somewhere in a review.

It's cauliflower:

See http://www.salon.com/weekly/robuchon960708.html

My gelée de caviar a la crème de choux fleur (cauliflower). I first created this in 1985. I love caviar and I started with an idea to create a dish using egg and cauliflower cream. I wanted to create something that had multiple layers, each with a different texture. When you eat it, you experience three different, complementary tastes.