Relais de l’Entrecôte — Restaurant in Paris

After seeing this restaurant go viral on TikTok for its famous sauce and second helpings of steak and fries, my friends and I were really excited to pay it a visit! However, it’s safe to say that it didn’t live up to the hype.

We arrived a little before opening time for dinner and still ended up waiting an hour and a half in the seemingly never-ending queue before being seated. We were luckily enough to get seats outside though and it was a lovely evening, so we were still in a pretty good mood at that point.

Soon after arriving, we were asked for our drinks choices and how we would like our steaks cooked - all of us opted for medium after finding out that they don’t offer medium rare as an option, just rare, medium and well-done. The waitress then brought us our drinks and, after I gently let her know that she’d brought me the wrong drink, she tutted and sighed before bringing me my original drink. This made me feel a little uncomfortable.

To whet our appetites for the steak course, they brought us out some “walnut salads” and baguette slices. The reason I have written “walnut salads” is because mine had one singular walnut in it. The vinaigrette was pretty average and the bread didn’t taste all that fresh either.

After this, they brought out our first portion of steak and fries. This was served on quite a small plate, which is what made us realise that the “second portion” we were looking forward to was essentially just the rest of what we would have originally been given if the food were to have been served on a normal-sized plate. However, the portion of fries was really generous and they were gorgeously crisp and well-seasoned. The steak itself was okay, though the doneness of it was a little off for medium (one of my friends received some pretty rare pieces whilst I received some overdone pieces) - we got 4 pieces of this for our first portion and a further 3 for our second portion, which wasn’t a lot but we weren’t expecting a full steak, so it was okay.

The famous sauce was the part we had really been longing to taste and, quite frankly, it’s nothing more than just nice. It did grow on me throughout the meal and went really well with the fries but, flavour-wise, butter was the predominant thing I could taste and not an awful lot more. As I said though, it did grow on me throughout the meal and is quite nice, but nothing overly special.

The dessert selection, however, is vast and super tempting! I went for a chocolate cake accompanied by a rich chocolate sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. This was really dense and decadent - I would definitely recommend testing one of their desserts if you choose to visit.

All-in-all, both the food and the service left a lot to be desired at Le Relais de l’Entrecôte. For such a long wait time and such a large amount of buzz, the experience was pretty lackluster and I won’t be returning...

Spoiler Alert! For all of you tourists, especially Americans that pumped this place up as if it was a real restaurant in Paris, shame on YOU!!! It was just awful in every possible way. By pure coincidence, we were already on Champs-Elysees and decided to try it and only walked for 10 minutes. We arrived at 6pm and found it would be open at 6:30 but the line was already about 40 people deep. Naturally, we were pumped w/ excitement. We were part of the first wave of people to be seated and there were plenty of servers. We had no idea what to expect. The second we were seated, the waitress asked us how we liked our steak and what we wanted to drink and that was it. She had no paper or ipad and walked away. We were super confused, there was no menu and the only item to eat is steak frite and that was it. They start you off with a small plate of salad, no bread and whatever you ordered for drinks. In about 5-7 minutes, the waitress brought us a plate of a tiny piece of steak with fries. Even though I ordered medium rare, my son medium, there was zero distinction and the waitress did not bother to ask who had what. She dropped the plate and left. The steak was a a super cheap cut of beef with a green slightly creamy sauce and the french fires were the frozen shoestring kind you can get anywhere. It was so small, we were done in about 3 minutes. Then, some minutes later, she came back with, i guess, the 2nd portion of another tiny piece of steak with a tiny bit more fries. Once this happened, i looked at another waitress that was closer to us and her portions and prep of the steak and fries were so much bigger than ours and she seemed to take more care with serving. Our waitress just sucked and our portion was super tiny. There was another American family near us that was super loud but they were so unimpressed with the steak that they did not want the 2nd portion. Based on speed and taste, these steak frites and salad were clearly mass produced in the back. The entire style of food and service reminds me of some weird buffet places in Las Vegas. The entire dinner lasted maybe 10 minutes and for this overhyped bad steak, you get to pay 29 euros each. Just insanely overpriced and overhyped in food capitol Paris. I felt like such a dumb tourist for eating at this place. One more thing, ask for tap water or they will stiff you w/ small bottle of Perrier for 6.50 euros. DO NOT wait to eat here when there are tons of real Parisian restaurant that serve real steak frite & better prices than this Vegas mass...

Long queue, small portion, expensive but Delicious.

So the heading kind of basically summing up our experience eating here.

We arrived half an hour before the opening time, there was already a queue. But we're confident enough to still get a table. Promptly at 1900, we were asked to choose if we wanted to seat outside or inside the restaurant. We opted outside as the weather was perfect and we had the view of more people joining the queue for tables (just for entertainment)

Tables and chairs were small (as expected) you have to pull a table out before getting in to your seat if seating on the inner side.

Once seated the server came up to ask to ask us what we would like to drink. We said water, of course we were given still water not tap.

Nothing much to the menu, we were just asked the preferred doneness of our steak. After which our water came followed by a small basket of bread and within minutes our salad (part of the course).

Each items were placed on the plate individually. Steak, sauce, then the fries. Every thing taste delicious. The steak was soft and tender, with the sauce it paired really well. The "crispy" fries completes the texture of the meal. Once you have devoured your steak and fries, they will come round to give you a second serving (less than the first). It is like a lottery system who gets the bigger or smaller cuts, depending on when you are served or what was left on the tray, there seemed to not be a standard.

Nearing done, the serve will come up and asked if you would like dessert. On this day we opted not to as we were planning on getting something more specific, but to let all know they have the usual Crème Brûlée and etc.

So if this is your first time to Paris and watched Tik Tok and other social media to give this place a try, you should. The food is delicious, something that you should try once. The servers are friendly, understands English well and the atmosphere is nice, on hindsight i think seating inside would be better. The downside is the price. Rather pricey for the amount of meat that you get, granted that you might not be able to get their sauce, but in comparison (read my other posts) with the same amount of 26€-30€/person you would at least get a 300g steak, with the usual fries and salad included. Thus this will be a one time thing for us. We do enjoy dining here but again it is not worth the amount paid...