ChantillyExpat.com

Ah,,, and now to the restaurant itself, a small 24 seater cosy little place with a bohemian student feel in terms of both ambience and décor. Given our excessive numbers (what credit crunch ?), and hence need to take two thirds of the restaurant’s Saturday evening capacity, we were required to have a fixed menu (a selection of 2 options for each course) and were seated in two tables of eight (for some unfathomable reason a single table of 16 was beyond feasibility). This deviation therefore required some last minute adjustment to the undocumented seating plan and hence several of the wives whispering requests not to sit next to so and so…which of course I completely ignored.

The food was generally very good, nothing flash but basic food with a slight twist in terms of presentation and cooking style. I must admit I would never imagine a carpaccio of courgettes would be as delicious as it turned out to be. Also, the duck came in some kind of coconut sauce and was equally surprisingly stupendous. Our €40 fixed price meal included wine (1/2 a bottle per person) - a very drinkable white Bourgogne and an unremarkable, but quite acceptable, Bordeaux for the red gluggers. The dessert creation was a fusion of chocolate and ice cream with a bizarre (and unmemorable) name. I recall the service being pretty good, everything arrived on time and at the same time….what more can you want?

For some unknown reason most of the other guests left during our main course, not to return, at least not that same evening. The restaurant is run by a husband and wife team who have been there for 3 years and provide the restaurant with its lovely cosy and intimate feeling…and for good measure they threw in several shots of heart warming Calvados for those of us paying the bill (an added late night, and completely unnecessary, boost that I noticed somewhat the following day).

Overall, and adopting a consistent scoring methodology with the club’s inaugural review, I would rate the evening as follows: food – 8/10; ambience and service: 9/10; overall quality of evening 9/10.

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