Guy Savoy - Paris - France - Review

Name: Guy Savoy
 
Address: Rue Troyon, 
75017 Paris, 
France‎

01 43 80 40 61‎
Food: French, Modern French
Average price: - $100Euro -  $345Euro

Complimentary: Lots of bread and butter. We were given a different bread for each course - loved it.

We ordered:


Foie gras and sourdough toast

Despite my disapproval of him eating foie gras, R decided he wanted to try it 'once' - and although he enjoyed it he didn't think it was worth the cost.

Vegetable tart

Nice, but not as flavoursome as the ones from L'arpege.

Soup and a surprise.

R enjoyed this but I found the soup grainy and didn't enjoy it.

The surprise was small but nice. 

Tout Petit pois en demi  
egg  & peas

The egg slightly underdone with the whites a little too slippery for my liking. Half of the peas were cooked and half weren't, this 'textural difference' didn't really make much of a difference to me. The bread it was served with was over-toasted and therefore akin to cardboard.

Tomato tart tatin

Simple but tasty.

Tomato medley

Ok, but nothing exciting.

Tomato soup & tartare

Now this was probably my favourite dish of the night. The seaweed ice shaved on top really brought the flavours to life. Very yummy.

Fish with vanilla foam 

One of best dishes of the night for R.

Veggies with coriander sauce.

Ok, but fairly standard.

Carrots & mushrooms

Now this was much better. The sauce on the plate along with the mushrooms themselves were delicious.

Lobster 

R's second favourite dish of the night.

Artichoke soup with black truffles with a mushroom and truffle brioche

The soup was actually heavy on the artichoke and light on the truffle. The consistency was too watery for me had a greasiness; I just didn't particularly like it. The brioche on the other hand was delightful, great balance between crispiness and flakiness, but too heavy for the soup, best eaten on its own.

Mushrooms

Ok but a touch one dimensional.

Pidgeon with foie gras

According to R the liver overpowered everything.


Cheeses

Too many to count but the comte was my favourite.

Frozen lollypops

Cherry watermelon
This was ok, but not super cherry or watermelon.

Pistachio chocolate
Not much pistachio flavour and quite icy in texture. 

Textures de fraises 

The strawberry chips were a little overcooked and hard to eat otherwise the flavours were fresh and very strawberry. R found it a little boring though. The marshmallow and filled raspberry were ok, but once again, nothing more than expected.

Chocolate with lime, cardamom, pepper

The chocolate was a base note only with the other flavours heavier on the tongue, they made the dish rather un-sweet and didn't really add any intrigue. I wanted more of a chocolate hit.

earl grey sorbet 

Quite nice and surprisingly lemony.

Apple tart tatin

Slightly overcooked and chewy but nice.


A few dessert tray items (there was quite a smorgasbord)

Chocolate macaron was good, not Pierre Herme great, but good. The chocolate tart was too bitter for me with a slight chalkiness. The mousse was also quite bitter but it did have a wonderfully creamy texture.

Cherry clafoutis

Very cold and quite rubbery. Only had one teaspoonful. I also tried some sort of nut slice but it wasn't great.

Cost: $580Euro for 2 prestige degustations (one vegetarian), and one bottle of Evian Pure.


Service: Very professional and eager. When you walk in you will be greeted repeatedly, we were greeted by no less than eight or so waiters just on the way to our table, which in all honesty, was a touch creepy. The staff was also quite vigilant and quick to respond to any sort of movement. Whilst this ensured my water was never less than 3/4 full and my bread of butter replaced before I had even swallowed, it was just a bit too attentive for me, I always felt watched and felt like I had to self-monitor. That aside they were all very friendly, although the head waiter was circulating the same joke to each table, and after the fifth time we heard his spiel it became slightly annoying - like a repeating record.


I should mention that all of the restaurants in France, especially the Michelin starred ones, were very camera friendly and encouraging of photos. Unfortunately, I was so used to the un-snap-happy vibe in Aussie restaurants that I still felt guilty taking pictures and would shoot super fast despite the chefs at times telling me to take many shots and waiters offering to do different poses and freeze mid pour.


Atmosphere: Refined but a little like an institution. The restaurant is very large and we were seated way down in a side room with only three other tables that seated around 10 other customers. One table of six came individually and each time another person arrived, Guy Savoy came out again to greet them, personally he could have just waited until the entire party was there and said hello once rather than 5 times. For some reason the room felt like a small cafeteria to me as we were all able to clearly hear each others conversations and between lulls in food would try not to stare at each other which was hard to do as we were quite walled in. The decor in our room was wood with coloured glasses and butter dishes as well as a rather intriguing black and white African-abstract painting on the wall which was nice. I should note that men are required to wear jackets AT ALL TIMES. So make sure its comfortable. And ladies, they do crank up the air conditioning, I assume so that the men are comfortable in their coats, so do bring a wrap to keep the chill off.

Parking: Forget about it. Parking in France is a nightmare (and sometimes laughable at how ridiculous it is, we saw an instance where are car was so pinned in, both cars next to it were touching its bumpers). Do yourself a favour and take the Metro (trains every 3mins) or a bus.

Website: http://www.guysavoy.com/ 

Hours: Tue–Fri - 12pm–2pm, 7pm–10:30pm, Sat - 7pm–10:30pm
Would I return: No.  Food was nice, but nothing really stood out and at those prices, you want at least one really memorable dish.