Le Baratin — Restaurant in Paris

It was a perfectly wonderful evening in Paris. The sun was waiting to set, allowing the gentle crimson to settle over the rooftops of Belleville, and it was our last weekend in Paris. Life was good.

Until Le Baratin happened.

We had a reservation for a table for 3. As we got seated, we saw that only one person was waiting the tables - we empathized with him and tried not to bother him too much. Till 20 minutes passed and we had to remind him we existed. We tried not to bother the person who was so busy and reached out to the old man at the counter, who absolutely ignored us. Till 20 more minutes passed, and after he served three other people who came after us, finally gave us some water. Which came 10 minutes later. Just so we get the math right - it’s been an hour already. That’s not why I’m writing this review though.

One of us in our group didn’t eat meat and one only ate fish, so it narrowed down our options to 6 choices (One of which was something I didn’t like). Not bad still, for 3 people, we thought. Plus we had ordered three glasses of wine and were very excited about the L’anglore (a bottle of wine we’d always wanted). The person (not the old man) came to us to take the order - mentioned two of our choices were not available - which left us with 3 options. We placed the order for the 3 dishes - the old man came to us and stated (this is verbatim): “You can’t just order three plates amongst three people, get out of here, we don’t want your business. My wife cooks this food and it is insulting to her”. This was as we were still drinking our glasses of wine.

Blame our colonialist-ridden selves but somehow we started apologizing to him (especially as he mentioned the trouble his wife had to go through) and even offered to just get vegetables from another main course (without the meat). He started abusing us, throwing his hands in the air and pointing us towards the door, in the middle of dinner service, as everyone else was staring at us.

My friend was in tears at the end of it (She lives in France, and we were visiting her). This was a racist, abusive, manipulative and absolutely disgraceful behaviour from the person who owns Le Baratin. This sort of place has no business being in the restaurant industry - a place where one comes to eat food is sacred, and treating their guests this way is reproachful, and disgusting.

Forget business - just try and be good people if you can. He could’ve politely told us the situation and we would’ve understood - this was no way to treat a human being.

This place deserves to go out of business. Which I sincerely...

All through dinner, i was kicking myself for not having adopted Baratin earlier. Everything about the place pleases, not least the food and wines. My mother seemed to think so too.

We sat down on one of the basic leather booths. They have a large chalkboard with menus which was placed on a chair for us and a short list of wines.

We chose a Vin de Table. A guy behind the bar to serve us a glass, it was well made and was almost sainted in its purity.

The food, on the surface, could be considered typical. But once they arrive and immediately melt in your mouth, you’ll understand what all of the fuss is about.

The mussels revived me. And the lamb, my main, was packed with flavor and falling off the bone. It had a delicate balance of fat and lean, perfectly moist. All were simply turned out and very comforting.

What‘s more, for dessert, Fondant au Chocolate, a slab of rich soft chocolate, falling somewhere in between mousse and chocolate. It tasted gorgeous.

I understand what it means by terrible service here but this is not the type of place to care about much beyond what you’re putting in your mouth. It‘ll trump all the other factors anyway. All part...

I don’t care where I eat. I don’t care about the atmosphere, hygiene or service of the place. The only thing I care about is the food and only the food. I can eat at a bug infested place if the food is sure to be mind blowing. For the first time in my life I will be giving 1 star only because of the service. The man with the glasses that served us, didn’t treat us like human. Every action he did was void of warmth, but the tipping point was when I kindly asked him to put the mobile ac unit that was touching my legs just a little further as I was sweating, and he literally shook his head and went away. I called after him, and then he turned to me, said “non” and left.

I had never experienced inhumanity at this degree in my life at a restaurant, and the owners should be ashamed of themselves for letting such a person work for them. I have personally met Bernard Pacaud and dined in many good restaurants in France, I can say this one is a stain for French cuisine. The only instance where service becomes more important than the food is when the people that serve you have...