L'Entrecôte de Paris — Restaurant in Paris

OK, this is on Champs-élysées Avenue, the 4th most expensive real estate in the universe...so it will have a dent in your pocket if you are dining on this avenue. However, we found L'entrecote relatively reasonably priced.

Though there was a long que, but luckily we didn't have to wait for more that 10 mins for a table of 4, after all, the 3 floored restaurant was fully packed with Saturday night diners and tourist alike.

While the most popular (and pocket friendly) dish was their set menu that comes with a small salad (quite refreshing) and 180gms of steak (sliced) with large amount of fries, and my wife opted for it, me and my boys decided to try the 300 gms entrecote (with fats) and the 450 gms rib eye, both came with fries on the side and their secret sauce. The younger one tried the kids' meal, which was quite filling for him.

Now to the steaks. Honestly, I have had better. My wife's menu special was cooked rightly to the medium (as ordered) but lacked seasoning and tasted rather bland (without the sauce). My boy's 450 gms rib eye was soft, cooked as medium and nicely charred on the outside, but quite tender and moist inside. My entrocote had the right amount of fat, cooked to perfection, but again, tasted rather bland without the sauce (and some salt). On both these items, the meat seemed less than the 300 and 450 gms as opposed to the menu declared weight. The meat is neither Angus nor Kobe, so it wouldn't have tasted that good anyway, but for the price, I expected better ( I guess I paid for the avenue seating than the meat itself)!

We started off with tge onion soup, which wasn't as warm as we had in other boutique restaurants, rather filled with chunky cheese and heaps of onions (and bread slides).

While the food was ordinary, the atmosphere was hip and happening with a full packed restaurant full of guests and hyperactive servers! We were served by Nichita, who was attentive, prompt, and very helpful!.

If you are around and hungry (that one sauce, you will always need to make any food to taste better than they are) and ready to pay a little steep price for an ordinary steak and fries, you may try them out! And if you are, Bon Apetit...

Let me know what you thought of this food, if you have...

Shamefully bad, DO NOT waste your money here. Total tourist trap. Cannot stress enough how not worth it this is. Especially if you have to queue. (I didn't). Purely trades off it's location.

The salad for starters was okay but contains about 20% of the walnuts of other versions of this style of restaurant I have been to around France.

The steak was pretty bad, poor quality and the sauce wasn't as good as other iterations of this style of place. It was cooked well though but let down by the quality.

The biggest crime by far was the fries which had no taste. Well that's not totally true they tasted how I imagine wet cardboard tastes. Worse than a McDonalds fry left out for a while. Worse even still is that at every other version of these style of restaurants I have been to they bring you second and sometimes even third helpings. Here there was no such offer despite being the same price or more. Not that I wanted any more of them but the offer should have been there if I did. Again outrageously bad.

If you're looking for an 'authentic' french experience as a tourist this also isn't that. All the waiters are foreign. I don't have an issue with that but if you're looking for a true french experience in Paris this place isn't that.

I heard another family at a table by me shocked at how awful the food was. Before I got mine I thought maybe they were being dramatic but no, they were totally right.

If you're lucky enough to have a window seat the view adds a little bit but otherwise ehhhh.

The only good thing was the paper napkin. Maybe that is where all the money goes. They certainly don't spend it on the ingredients, the decor or the...

The place had a line down the block, I waited around half an hour for a table for one. There is one waiter for the entire floor, slow service. I don't know if my meat was precooked but that wouldn't be it's biggest issue, it was very low quality. The meat was cooked to the right doneness but was very tough. Overpriced massively. The fries and sauce were good, but the meat made the experience a bad one. The salad that comes with the steak reminded me of a cheap diner salad, iceberg lettuce and weird dressing. Terrible tough bread (weird for Paris). This is not a good replacement if Le Relais de l'Entrecote (the actual famous and good steak and fries place) has too much line. Main issue is high prices, would have been a better experience if the price reflected the quality I was about to get. Paid 6 euros for a small Perrier. I usually don't review, and I do not like giving bad reviews, but most reviews don't represent the reality of this restaurant. I watched a young American family's hopes get dashed in front of my eyes when they tried the meat as they could as they had not read the bad reviews, I knew to expect worse. They got out of the restaurant as fast as they could. The waiter asked for a tip even though the ticket says service included, not normal in France and only really happens in restaurants made for American tourists. When I said 12% tip he looked disappointed even though it is a lot for Europe, he did the math in his head and charged me the equivalent to 20% tip. Beware. Not...