Maison CHOCHOIS — Restaurant in Arras

Very disappointed. Restaurants in main squares, where you have the most tourists always leaves me a bit reticent but since they are also a butcher with great looking meat I thought as long as I stuck with meat it should be good. We warned that my wife has a gluten allergy, and no, it's not a choice but due to a disease that put her in hospital for 3 weeks and is still recovering from it, so that she could be informed what she could eat from the menu. Starter I asked for Tartare, but was informed that they had run out of it, since we were one of the first tables was strange specifically since they also have a butcher shop, did they run out of meat at 19h30? Anyway we order 2 foie gras, no bread for my wife. Dishe was tasty nothing out of this world but happy with it. Main course we choose a dry aged cote de bouef. We had 3 choices, French, British Angus or Rubia Gallega. I love Rubia Gallega but price seemed a bit excessive so we went for the Angus. Whe they brought the meat the waiter saw they had put sauce that had gluten over the meat. At this point I was worried because how were they going to solve this mistake? Either trick us by trying to wipe sauce or we would had to wait longer for a new piece of meat. To my surprise they fixed it in 5 minutes, said they had another similar order for another table. What a coincidence. I'm not saying they swap or meat with a lower quality order (French) the truth was that the meat wasn't as soft and tender as a Angus should be. Maybe it was even the case of because of the mistake the chef didn't allow the meat to rest enough time therefore the meat was a bit chewy. Another problem was when you serve meat in a sizzling hot plate the meat continues to cook therefore your medium rare ends up medium. Finally dessert, we were showed the desserts plate that are made by a local patisserie. Again my wife asked if there was a dessert without gluten that she could eat and was told the chocolate cake. I went for a classic Paris Brest. Not only my wife was convinced the dessert had gluten they sprinkled the whole plate with speculous crumbs (or something similar). My Paris Breast was dry seemed it was in a fridge for a long time. Pastry is not my speciality, still I have made way better Paris Brest than that.

Conclusion, we spend 180€ on a below average meal. In case I get a response, yes we ate all the food because it wasn't terrible and we had not eaten all day since we have been travelling, and I'm a chef de cuisine with over 20 experience in high end restaurants all over Europe and know what I'm talking about. Worse 180€ I ever spent and will not come back, shame because with the meat they sell in butchers they should be serving top...

Visited Maison CHOCHOIS when staying in a hotel next door during the RWC 2023. The fact it is butchers made us feel the meat would be good.

Our waiter showed us to our table, its downstairs in the cellar which creates a nice ambiance.

We chose 3 beers (after all, we had been watching England in Lile) and were given the menu.

All 3 of use chose the Foie gras de Canard poêlé, followed by 2 Faux filet de Wagyu Kagoshima (Japanese) , and 1 Noix d' entre côte d'Angus from Argentina.

We choose a Chateauneuf du pape to accompany our food choices. Plus it happens to be one of my favourite wines.

A cucumber amuse bouche came out which was pleasant - it had a refreshing quality so perhaps better later in the meal, but it was a nice start.

The Foie gras came next and did not disappoint, that earthy liver favour cooked to perfection, nice and pink and not a hint of grey!

After a short break the steaks came the wagyu fillet again cooked to perfect, barely shown the heat, just enough to warm it through, my son said his rib eye was perfection as well.

I have had wagyu before but not the Japanese - and there is a difference.

The others did not want any more and despite the dessert trolly having some lovely looking patisserie I opted for the cheese selection along with some crusty bread.

The wine was perfect with the both courses - the tannins in the wine coped with the flavours of the meat.

Service: excellent, surroundings: lovely, food: delicious

Its not Michelin, but with a few tweaks and more finesse and imagination it could be in the future. The raw ingredients are there.

Well...

First time we tried to go, we arrived at 9pm and they told us they were not serving dinner anymore (they have 4/5 tables and the restaurant was far from full, and online it showed that they close at 11pm). The second morning we went for lunch and the same thing happened. So we tried the third time for dinner, we made sure to arrive early this time (7pm). I had a glass of wine (or half one…I dont know how they actually measured it). We ordered the angus and were quite disappointed. The meat seasoning tasted like fat (which overcomes the flavor of the meat), it said the potatoes were homemade and cooked in beef fat, they tasted like frozen fries. They ddnt have any side sauces for the meat, we were able to get some mustard though. The portion was quite small, I doubt it was really 1.2kg. We tried “cote de boeuf” in several places and usually it is hard to finish it, this time we left hungry. Overall we were disappointed with the place. The service was fine and the food okay, but it has so much more potential and has a lot of room for improvement. It’s overpriced for what you get. It seems like it wants to be a fancy(ish) place but has a lot of things to improve.

Reponse a votre commentaire: Merci pour votre réponse, bien que je doive avouer qu'elle m'a laissé perplexe. Permettez-moi de clarifier certains points :

Le commentaire sur le vin : S'il vous plaît, épargnez-moi votre sarcasme. Je ne vous demandais pas de remplir le verre jusqu'en haut. Le verre n'était même pas rempli à un quart, donc bien en deçà de la mesure habituelle de 12cl, sinon je ne l'aurais pas mentionné ! De plus, la table voisine a également commandé du vin, et nous avons pu constater que la quantité servie était plus importante. J'aurais pu en commander davantage si je l'avais souhaité, ce n'est pas le problème. Nous soulevons simplement ce point pour que vous puissiez être plus attentifs à l'avenir.

Merci d'assumer que je viens de l'étranger : Je vous assure que je suis française et que je travaille dans la restauration, donc je sais de quoi je parle. Mon avis était une série de remarques amicales sur ce qui pourrait être amélioré, mais vous semblez les avoir prises autrement et avez choisi de répondre avec beaucoup de sarcasme. Pas besoin de se montrer si défensif. Sachez simplement qu'en France, lorsqu'un restaurant veut bien servir du vin, il apporte la bouteille à la table et la montre au client en servant. Peut-être que vous voudriez adopter les méthodes habituelles françaises afin d'atteindre les standards auxquels vous aspirez.

Côte de boeuf : Je vais vous partager une photo de votre "1,2kg" de côte de boeuf et la comparer avec d'autres restaurants pour que vous puissiez évaluer la quantité vous-même. Et vous mentionnez avoir les sauces appropriées pour chaque plat ? Eh bien, nous avons demandé et on nous a dit que vous n'aviez aucune sauce. J'ai alors dû demander spécifiquement de la moutarde pour en obtenir. Nous ne sommes pas repartis "affamés", mais ce que vous avez servi n'était pas 1,2kg, une remarque objective donc inutile de changer nos intentions !

Horaires du restaurant : Nous sommes arrivés précisément à 21h03 (après avoir vérifié en ligne que votre restaurant fermait à 23h) donc je pense que cela ne peut pas être considéré comme manger tard, mais vous avez tout de même refusé le service. Malgré cela, nous sommes revenus le lendemain matin pour essayer de nouveau votre restaurant, ce qui montre bien que nous n'étions pas vexés mais que nous avions compris que le personnel était fatigué et ne souhaitait plus recevoir de clients, ce qui peut arriver :) Pour le déjeuner, nous avons vérifié encore une fois en ligne et il était indiqué que le restaurant était ouvert, tout comme le panneau sur la porte. Peut-être devriez-vous ajuster vos horaires en ligne et changer le panneau sur la porte lorsque votre restaurant est fermé, cela pourrait vraiment aider les gens :)

Je vous souhaite tout de même le meilleur...