L’ecailler du château — Restaurant in Fontainebleau

Great food. Family-friendly. Hearty services.

By chance, we came here to celebrate our wedding anniversary cos It's one of the few restaurants that opens on Mondays.

Judging but the location we thought the Chateau de Fontainebleau would be visible while dining. Not the case, but not a problem at all.

You know you won't be disappointed when the owners of the place are diligently running around serving guests, leading the whole team by examples.

Staff were very friendly, a few who are English conversant. Even those who weren't would make effort to make guests feel welcomed. We came with two young children, the waitress was quick to get a high-chair ready for the little one.

"Le petit Napoleon", which is a cold shell food platter on ice was very fresh with oyster, prawns, grey shrimps, snails and whelks. Some sauces were provided but they're so fresh that the best way to enjoy was on their own, perhaps with some drops of lemon or onion vinegar.

The "Picanha" was heavenly! I asked for medium-rare, and it's one of the few times chefs got meats done just that, medium-rare. The well-seared and caramelised exterior and the inner juicy pink were even a delightful visual art. In mouth, the layer of fat would just melt, and the meat tender. Not a hint of bad cut on the whole 300g piece!

Wine list was delightful too. Not too comprehensively long, rather small but good range for all kinds of food. We had a pichet of Chablis to go with the cold platter and a glass of Saumur red with the meat. The Chablis was of good value. Not too light and flat as some Chablis might be, with good body and fruitiness like typical good Chardonnay. I guess the Saumur red was Cabernet-Franc dominant, fruity and light tannic, but not too overpowering for the dish.

As the delighter, Alessandra the owner served us a dessert with fireworks after knowing it's our anniversary.

Simply...

I choose restaurants carefully as I prefer to spend on quality and good service, and am not deterred by prices in general. However, the restaurant cancelled our confirmed reservation a week before the day (by email they were “pleased to confirm” it when I reserved more than a month ago) without even a courteous explanation, which was appalling.

While it is a busy holiday period, and I understand there may be many potential guests, choosing to cancel on someone who had booked in advance, so close to the date, and without explanation, shows poor consideration for guests. The restaurants I had picked out (few Michelin and few not Michelin) are now all fully booked on the dates, leaving me with no where to bring my guests.

Whether my table was given to other guests who had clearly booked later than me, or the restaurant was overbooked, I do not know. But this inconsideration and poor service was greatly revealing of the practice and unappreciated and I will most definitely not be recommending this place to other restaurant goers who are looking for...

We went for my husband’s birthday, this was my second time there. We had excellent service, the pauses between courses is just right. We started with the platter of 12 huître Fines de Clair which were of great quality and the foie gras. My husband had the half lobster and I had the daurade royale grillé. Both were excellent, but I was surprised to get the whole fish and struggled a bit with the bones. The accompanying vegetables were not my favorite. For dessert I had the Moelleux tout chocolat sans gluten, very delicious. My husband had the Profiterole which looks very grand and came with an impressive birthday candle. We enjoyed the whole experience and we also met a very charming couple who we had a nice conversation with. Definitely recommend this restaurant for the seafood...