Bouillon Pigalle — Restaurant in Paris

Getting a table at this bistro is like playing Parisian Hunger Games. People will lie (“oh I made a reservation but it somehow didn’t go through” or “yes yes I have a reservation” even though they don’t and they don’t bother to check) and cheat (whoever pushes hardest gets a table).

If you survive the hunger games and find yourself seated, then prepare for a whole lot of nothing. The bistro is understaffed so be prepared to forego basics like water or even a menu to figure out what you want to eventually order in 30min when it is taken.

Now onto the food. For those envisioning a french bistro of old where quick dishes and good food are emphasized…prepare to be disappointed.

For our appetizers: Mushrooms soup: not bad, but also not hot French onion soup: this was sad. Many of the recent comments praising their soup likely couldn’t tell you what goes into making this soup if their lives depended on it. The lukewarm bowl was not topped with gruyere, but some tasteless nameless cheese. The watered down onion soup somehow lacked much onion taste and had an overall texture of soggy bread. Eggs mayonnaise: this was actually great. So credit where credit is due. I know it’s hard to screw up eggs and mayonnaise, but it had a good sharp taste. Recommended.

For our mains French fish and chips: the overly breaded fish was deep friend, and then deep fried again. And then likely left in the fryer and forgotten for a few hours. The accompanying fries were the same, except I suspect they were over fried yesterday and then reheated up this evening Steak with pepper sauce: I’m not expecting a choice cut of steak when the price comes at 12 EUR so I can’t fault it. It was done medium rare as requested. However, it doesn’t hold even a brief candle to somewhere like Relais de l’Entrecote. The same applies to the sauce - you need to be a pepper sommelier to pick up on the faint hint of pepper taste in the sauce because I couldn’t detect one.

We skipped dessert. I wasn’t interested in being disappointed further, plus I had a really nice Mont Blanc I was going to eat back at my hotel.

So overall, I’d give this place a pass. I don’t think I’d eat here if I lived in Paris, I also don’t think it’s worth eating here if you were a visitor. I know this review will be crowded over by the hundreds to thousands of others with perhaps lower expectations and rating it five stars which it really is not deserving of even remotely. Perhaps my expectations should have been lower as well given their mains cost the same as the appetizers of many places I’ve been recently. Perhaps I had the delusional belief that there was a place that could magically balance taste vs. price if they made it...

Ok honestly, I don’t get the hype around Bouillon Pigalle! We got recommended this place so many times and it was so mid.

We arrived at 9:30 (the time our reservation was) and stood in a line out the door which we were surprised to find even though we had reserved online beforehand which made no difference to them. We got steated by 10:30 and the heat from the sheer amount of people sitting inside and lack of oxygen to breathe made us genuinely consider turning around and leaving multiple times but the kids were too hungry! It was off putting how many people were coming out of the restaurant drenched in sweat and I am not exaggerating it smelled like hot air and sweat in the place… It was the single most unappetizing sight and smell combination I’ve ever experienced in a restaurant.

When we eventually got seated we were crammed as everybody else was between tiny tables with no room to even move my elbows between the people sat next to our table and where the next table was. All the tables were stuck together to make one long table with tiny cracks in between where people would try to squeeze through.

To be fair, the reason we stayed was the food because surely there was no way all these people were there for bad food and the prices were very reasonable for what it was. We ordered the Escargot in parsley butter, which was not cooked properly and you can tell by how tough the snails were to get out of the shell and how chewy they were. We also had the Chicken escalope with mashed potatoes kind of underwhelming to be honest, but good for a kids meal. The Beef Bourguignon pasta was honestly the highlight of the night, everyone was stealing bites out of my plate. We also had the Steak with fries and pepper sauce which even though was medium rare, was an extremely tough cut of meat, SUPER rubbery, but the pepper sauce was delicious though. Lastly, the salmon and spinach pie with beurre blanc, I can’t speak on this because I didn’t even try it but my sister said it was good but not remarkable.

Overall, I didn’t expect this to be a negative review because we did clear our plates in the end but the overall experience and discomfort wasn’t worth paying a...

This place often has a long line out the door, even when it's raining, and I can see why. It seems that with Bouillons, the food you get will be fairly cheap (often under $12), and with a pretty big portion.

We had the French Onion Soup, the Eggs Mayonnaise, the Duck Confit, and the Streak and Fries. The soup, which I know is mainly got tourists, seems like one of the better things we had in our night! The soup had a good hearty and cheesy flavor to it, and the bread soaked in it added a good amount of thickness to the soup. The Eggs Mayonnaise was fairly interesting, though really tasted like it sounds; eggs with Mayonnaise on it. I like Mayonnaise, so it tastes good to me, but I can imagine it's maybe too much got people not as into Mayonnaise. The Duck Confit used pretty good duck meat, being fairly juicy on the thick ends of the meat, with only some small edges feeling a bit dry. The steak I got tasted okay; I got mine medium rare, although I felt the steak was still rough to chew. It pairs nicely with the sauce they gave you, though, so I think it works fine enough. Both the Confit and the Steak came with fries, and the fries were also a pleasant surprise to me, being fairly thick and still a good combination of crispy enough and soft inside.

The service seemed pretty good here. While very busy, I found that the person greeting me and taking me to a table were very welcoming, willing to bear and respond to my attempt at French, and answering the questions I had. The place is busy, so I did expect the waiting staff to push you aside at times, if you wanted to grab attention for things like ordering extra food or so faster (which did happen). But given the busy situation, I found the staff fairly respectful and responsive.

Overall, I would recommend giving this place a visit, and doing so with a reservation is recommended, too avoid those long lines. The food, while one might not consider it the best in it's respective cuisine, is still pretty good, especially at its given price. I would happily visit here again and try their...