Pierre Gagnaire (*), Paris, June 2025

Recently took my girlfriend here for lunch for a celebration and was not left disappointed. We went a la carte instead of doing the usual lunch set menu (which I would still really recommend for being a great deal for a 3-star, especially in Paris) since we wanted to get a fuller experience of Gagnaire’s signature “multiple dishes around a theme” concept. The whole experience was extremely pleasant, save for one major problem which, although it didn’t really tarnish our experience or our enjoyment of the meal, was in our opinion something that was a cardinal sin at a restaurant of this level (which I will discuss at the end of this write-up).

Service:

The service was pretty much flawless. We never had to wait for more than 2 seconds for anything, and I mean literally anything. It was almost magical how, despite how you couldn’t really see many staff members in the dining room itself, whenever something needed to happen someone magically appeared to do it at precisely the right time. This was most evident on two occasions: (1) since there were two of us, there needed to be 2 people lifting the cloches at certain moments throughout the meal, and someone always appeared to help our waiter out at that moment; and (2) when my girlfriend went back to her seat from the bathroom, there was a staff member what we have not seen at all up to that point who popped out of nowhere to tuck her chair in with literally zero time wasted, and he was also never seen again. All of this was done with such grace and elegance as though the staff were floating across the dining hall throughout the entire service, and we were so impressed – it was a lot better than the service we had at Alain Ducasse in London. The demeanour of the staff themselves were very professional but not especially warm, though this style of service is perhaps somewhat expected at a French restaurant. We got a special treat from the kitchen by way of a celebration cake which was a very nice touch.

Food:

The food was very good overall, just really well executed classic French cuisine with truly top-quality ingredients. We really liked the idea of multiple dishes around a particular theme and thought that they complimented each other beautifully – it was clear that a lot of thought and consideration has gone into crafting the menu. We went for two entrees (the Adel and Jardin Marin options) and shared the langoustine main as well as one grand dessert, which was more than enough food for the both of us (the waitress who took our order initially suggested an entree and a main for each, which would have been way too much food and something I would caution against).

The first dish that was served was of course bread and the famous Pierre Gagnaire butter “from Brittany”, and this butter was the best (and definitely most beautiful) butter we have ever had. The waiter scooped it from a gigantic butter jar like an ice-cream, and it was presented to us in this most amazing, luscious, bright yellow ball of heavenly perfection. The waiter explained to us that the bright yellow of the butter came from the particular colours of the flowers that the cows producing this butter eat, which was definitely a very interesting fact. The amuse-bouches were OK, but not particularly memorable. Of the entrees, the standouts were the carrot vegetal pie with squid and the ratte potatoes (from the Adel option) and the black rice with the sea anemones (from the Jardin Marin option). The squid had an extremely satisfying texture which worked beautifully with the sauce and the ratte potatoes were extremely rich and delicious (probably due to the no doubt unholy amounts of butter used in its creation), while the black rice was cooked to perfection and created a wonderful balance with the hearty, bisque-like soup base. As for the mains, all of the langoustine dishes were uniformly great, which is very difficult to do since they were all cooked in different ways. The best of the bunch, was definitely the flattened langoustine with the Cristalline potatoes which were just the most delicate and crunchy potato crisp you’d ever eat in your life. There were however some pretty questionable choices made when it came to the pre-dessert palate cleansers, like lettuce in chocolate (???). The dessert itself was also a mixed bag, which was a little bit of a let down considering how famous the desserts here are, but some of this was definitely down to personal preference and perhaps some disharmony is expected when you’re trying to be a bit experimental with so many little plates. For us, the chocolate sorbet (simply called “Chocolates” on the menu) and the “raspberries and preserved red bell peppers” were really good, while the pistachio + licorice and rhubarb tart were quite jarring to our palates and were not enjoyable.

Price:

All in all we paid around 870 euros (about 800 euros sans drinks), which was obviously very expensive for a lunch, especially compared to the prix-fixe menu which was only 185 per head. However, considering that the same dishes would also be served at dinner and that you get a LOT of food, we didn’t feel completely ripped off. In particular, we thought that the wine was also quite reasonable (considering how the markup was only about 20% compared to its retail price).

As foreshadowed, the major hiccup in this whole experience was when I took a bite in my vol-au-vent and felt like I was chewing on a very hard, small piece of something. For a split second I was not quite sure if it was meant to be part of the dish, but it was definitely not. To my surprise, it turned out to be a (rather large) lobster shell (picture included at the very end)! The maître-d (who was a delightful gentleman throughout our lunch) looked positively horrified when I alerted him of this and immediately reported back to the chef. As previously stated, it really didn’t affect our experience in any major way (rather it felt like a curious amusing little incident) but obviously something like this is objectively unacceptable at any fine dining restaurant, let alone a 3-star. Overall, had it not been for the shell incident (which I do think was an unfortunate fluke), this would objectively be one of the top-3 dining experiences in my life and I would highly recommend this experience for anyone looking for a luxuriating meal for a special occasion.