Three cheers to L’Entente founder Oliver Woodhead for having arrived at such an apt title for his curiously dainty, all-day- service “British brasserie” close to Opéra. An entente is a diplomatic understanding between nations; any understanding, after all, is what British and French cultures have notably failed to amass of each other over the past thousand years.
Enter Woodhead, whose efficient, if barely pandering type of restaurant diplomacy was honed by lengthy expertise at quality-conscious Left Financial institution vacationer locations Fish and Semilla. A brasserie on a bistrot scale, L’Entente boasts a well-appointed bar space, a slim terrace, and two brow-knittingly unequal eating rooms, the one by the door being far much less densely filled with tables. L’Entente’s visible design is a perplexing colonialist fantasy, awash in robin’s-egg blue and enlivened with safari-themed wallpaper trim, photographs of tigers, and servers sporting blue Nehru jackets. As if to neutralize this, nicely, attention-grabbing selection of historic iconography, “Sing A Track of Sixpence” is inscribed on one wall in gold lettering.
L’Entente’s founding proposition is to supply English recipes with tremendous French substances. Good sourcing, alas, couldn’t save the under-seasoned ox tongue salad, nor some virtually flavorless Scotch quail eggs. Extra profitable are the restaurant’s gargantuan fries, every the dimensions of a roofing beam, and the shepherd’s pie, a harmonious execution that transcends the style of hachis parmentier. Chef Matt Ong (from the now closed Brit-themed restaurant Albion) prepares workmanlike British consolation meals that any pub-goer would pounce upon. However in L’Entente’s over-lit subcontinental tearoom inside, these staples have an uncomfortably ironic aftertaste; one feels vaguely like the topic in Pulp’s “Frequent Individuals.” The wine record offers no indication of Woodhead’s expertise at extra wine-savvy eating places; for now it’s a standard hodgepodge of mass-market alternatives one may discover at a household restaurant within the UK. Beer, perversely, comes not from the UK however from Brasserie de la Pigeonelle, a country Loire-based brewery whose chief supporters are the pure winemakers whose wines are completely absent from L’Entente’s record.
Fries
Points like this make one suspect L’Entente isn’t but profiting from its cultural change. The restaurant’s central location and all-day, seven-day service ought to make it a tremendous standby for French theatergoers and workplace staff. However in recreating a London eating expertise, L’Entente has foregone the extra recherché wine and delicacies which can be the hallmarks of nice eating places in Paris. To attract Anglophones – or any discerning French diners, for that matter – the restaurant should do greater than suggest British dishes; it should reinvent them.
Sensible Info
Deal with: 13 rue Monsigny, 75002
Hours: Open on daily basis from 11:00-midnight (steady service)
Phone: +33 (0)1 47 42 92 35
Web site Fb Instagram
L’Entente in footage
Photographs by Aaron Ayscough © Paris by Mouth
What persons are saying
- Le Monde (2018) François Simon swoons for the savory pies, crammed with lamb and greens and a gradual simmered sauce. He additionally raves a few dessert of lemon posset and is snared by a basil and cucumber martini.
- L’Categorical Types (2018) calls this a diplomatic rapprochement: English recipes, however French substances.
- Le Figaro (2018) says British delicacies tries a brand new breakthrough within the coronary heart of the capital, with heavy reinforcements of toast, pies, and minced meat.
- The Telegraph (2018) notes that “Aside from the cheese, all his substances derive from small producers in France: the sausages and bacon, for instance, come from Las Laous black pigs raised within the Ariège mountains.”
The submit L’Entente first appeared on PARIS BY MOUTH.
