Dinner at Guy Savoy's Les Bouquinistes

Of all the restaurants I really had a desire to visit Guy Savoy's was the one. Unfortunately going to the flagship restaurant of Guy Savoy was to cost prohibitive for us to go. If you stop by the Guy Savoy website (which is very nice by the way http://www.guysavoy.com/en/) you will see two menus. The "prestige menu" and the "Colors, Textures and Savours" menu. The "prestige menu " cost 275 euros per person and the "colors, textures and savours menus" cost 375 euros a person which works out to be 275 euros = $375.00 and 375 euros = $511.00 per person. I am pretty sure you have already done the math but just to make my point either of those menus with drinks will end up costing you close to or over a thousand dollars per couple. Needless to say this place was out of the question for us.

So the next best thing was to choose one of the less expensive restaurants by Guy Savoy and we choose Les Bouquinistes. Guy Savoy actually has 4 restaurants in Paris and Les Bouquinistes was the closest to where we were staying and it seemed like the logical choice. The website is worth a visit it is very well done and has much nicer photos than what I have taken LES BOUQUINISTES - OFFICIAL WEB SITE - RESTAURANT AVEC GUY SAVOY

A funny note is that I booked our reservations via OpenTable.com they have a French version which I did not know. I have used Opentable.com many times in the United States and never missed a table or had a reservation misplaced. As we would find out I think they are still trying to catch up to what open table is in France.

We arrived at the restaurant around 7:30 for our reservation and were greeted by the maitre'd only to find out they did not have our reservation. I informed him that we had used OpenTable.com and he said a few quick words in French and then explained that he often forgets to check the emails. I thought we might be out of luck but they sat us right away and everything worked out fine.

The restaurant is a medium size with enough seats I am going to guess for around 50 people. It has a hip vibe to it brought on by the modern art, olive colored blinds, multi-colored ceiling fans, and the broken colored tiles used throughout the décor. The kitchen is downstairs and so are the bathrooms. If you hit the restrooms while you are there you actually get a great shot into the tiny kitchen that produces some great food.









Les Bouquinistes is one of the few restaurants that we actually ordered off the menu instead of going with the prix-fixe. Although the prix-fixe menu looked great we just were not in the mood for that much food.

Our meal started off with what I believe was a beef roulade served on a bed of what the chef called beet tar tar. I must confess I had a difficult time understanding all the components of the dish. It was served to us by a very kind woman who only spoke a little English and struggled to describe all of the elements of the dish to us.



For the appetizer course I chose the royal of foie gras, served with a light cream of celeriac soup. The foie gras was cooked perfectly and the royal complimented it nicely. Above the royal (or custard) was a bed of cooked julienne celeriac and on top of that the foie gras. Fat from the foie gras dripped down into the soup and added a really visual aspect to the dish as it pooled on top of the soup. The flavors were excellent and I really enjoyed this dish.



Colleen ordered the special of the day which was a morel mushroom and leek soup. This was a simple presentation which was fine because the real show piece of this dish was the flavors. Perfect time for morels and it showed as they were very fresh and had deep rich flavor which was complimented nicely with the slowly cooked leeks.



Both appetizers were actually decent size portions and we probably could of gone straight to dessert but Les Bouquinistes was one of our last fancy meals and there was no way were going to skip out on the main courses.

For my main course I chose the langoustines with morel mushrooms and vegetable raviolis. The flavors were great but there was nothing at all to the presentation which was nothing more than a big bowl of liquid with cooked langoustines on the top. The vegetable raviolis where at the bottom of the dish and although you could not see them they tasted great and with the addition of the perfectly cooked langoustines it was a great combination. Flavor wise the dish reminded me a little of a cioppion or bouliabasse only no tomato product.



Colleen chose the rib-style sirloin of Hereford beef served with pureed potatoes with fresh herbs, and roasted shallots. The steak had a nice demi-glace based sauce served over it and the meat was cooked perfectly. There was a large serving of potatoes so much so that she was not able to finish them but they tasted excellent, creamy with hints of herbs.



For dessert Les Bouquinistes has a number of excellent choices and probably the best one is the sampler platter for two. You get a small version of every single dessert including the ice creams and sorbets. Here is a list of all of the desserts you see in the picture below:

Around the citrus fruit : grapefruit jelly, white grapefruit sherbet and bergamot cream

Dacquoise with cararmelized apples, sherbet granny smith

Carpaccio of strawberries, pistachio creamed rice

Iced milk chocolate parfait, pear tartare

Cheese strainer and kiwi

In addition to those we also had three ice creams: pistachio, raspberry and peach. Lastly we had mignardises of macaroons and caramels with pistachios.



I really enjoyed this meal, the restaurant, the service and everything about about Les Bouquinistes. Not over the top and you could go there in jeans if you like and have a fantastic meal. It is a nice way to get a glimpse of Guy Savoy's creativity. It would be a mistake not to point out that the actual chef of the operation is Williams Caussimon who plans the menus with Guy Savoy hence the reason the menu states "Avec Guy Savoy" (with Guy Savoy). Maybe for our next visit I will buckle down and save up for the full monty meal at Guy Savoy's flagship restaurant but for now this was a great meal. Consider Les Bouquinistes highly recommended.

As we left the restaurant we walked along the river and we crossed only to find the Notre Dame lit up. We snapped a few photos but night time photography takes too much patience for my tastes. Here is one shot just to show how beautiful it was.