Les enfants du marché — Restaurant in Paris

YMMV. Our server with a bowl cut was unhelpful and unfriendly. When asked if 3-4 dishes would suffice for 2 people, he responded with "depends" and proceeded to provide a litany of factors that would impact this determination. One of the factors included the size of the dishes which he couldn't bother to elaborate even when asked.

The food however, was top-notch. The sardine tempura was the size of a prawn tempura. Each bite was filled with tender and giant pieces of flaky fish. This dish works out to be 8€ per tempura so not the cheapest appy.

The grilled squid and black pudding was nicely cooked (albeit a bit cold once we finished switching tables). If you're a fan of black pudding, it's quite the treat but keep in mind you get 2 pieces of squid and black pudding at about 1.5" squares which works out to be 7€ per square.

The smoked eel and foie gras was also delicious. The foie is perfectly pan-seared and melt-in-your-mouth tender and the eel was nicely cooked with a slight smokiness. I wouldn't order this for the eel since you only get 2 x 1inch pieces and you don't get much of an opportunity to enjoy it in one small bite. If you love foie, this comes with several decent sized chunks of it so it's actually worth the 40€ price tag.

Lastly, if you love your steak blue, the dry aged sirloin is for you. Considering the price of the othover with us while he looked away, waiting for us to hurry up and order. To avoid further lectures, I decided to forego asking more questions.

We were one of the first people there for lunch and we sat down at an open table as it was self-seating. People slowly started filling up the space and sat wherever. Part-way through eating our second dish (I just sliced up a bite to eat), our server came to ask us for a favor. No apologies, just wanted us to move to another table mid-bite so a bigger party could be seated at our table instead.

Mind you, there was another table behind us with only 2 people who were a bit further along with their lunch wher appies, this dish was a steal at 38€. I'd say there was maybe 5-6oz of meat on the plate if I had to guess. It was nicely charred and mooing in the center with a slight cheesiness in the crust/char. The dish also came with homemade chips but they were mostly plated with the sauce so they got soggy pretty quick.

If service, friendliness and being able to ask questions matter to you, you'll have to roll the dice and pray that the food deities bless you with a friendly server. The party that booted us were in their favors and had a much nicer server who asked them questions, in English no less, offering insight into the dish sizes and providing recommendations for the party size.

Although poor service isn't entirely uncommon in Paris, I had a much better experience just next door at The Butcher of Paris and was never asked to switch tables mid-bite when it got busy during the Sunday afternoon rush. One would hope at ~70€ pp for 4 tapas-sized dishes ranging from 24-40€/dish, 1 glass of wine and 1 glass of juice, one wouldn't feel like a nuisance as a customer who's just trying to enjoy...

Absolutely horrible experience yesterday, the evening of 3rd of July, around 19:00, male waiter.

My friend and me wanted to celebrate her new job and we selected this bar, as the food they offered looked tasty and they seemed to have a nice selection of wine. They were about half full, so it was easy to find a place. This is where the positives end.

We sat down, and we saw multiple staff members that saw us sitting down as we also greeted them (we are both French speaking, living in Paris for some time). We waited around 15 minutes for the menu but it wasn't coming. My friend went to ask for the menu. She was told (for the first time) a waiter will come to take our order. We waited 10 more minutes during which another two people came and sat down. These people were immediately acknowledged and greeted and given a menu (this never happened to us). At the same time, my friend stood up AGAIN and went to ask at the bar, if we could order there, since no one is coming. The two people that arrived after us were very nice as they looked at us and said we were there first. After they spoke on our behalf, it was the first time we were acknowledged by the actual person taking orders. HOWEVER, a reply by the rude waiter was given to us - that he is coming. At this point, we were sitting at this half empty bar for around 25 minutes and reached out to order twice. From the start, we knew we wanted to share a bottle of champagne or sparkling wine and at least 2-3 food courses. Also, at this time we felt really hungry (and already a bit disrespected) but decided to wait a bit more, since we were told the waiter is coming. INCREDIBLY, the waiter decided to go and take an order first from the people that came around 15 minutes after us. We immediately stood up and left. No reaction, besides the two guys which came after us, and which were the only ones looking sad about the situation. We are living in Paris for more than a year and this is the first time the stereotype of insanely rude waiters and hostile places was confirmed - to an extent, where I wrote my first Google review ever. I hope the next ones I write will be only positive.

I never felt less welcome anywhere. Fortunately, we know there a 100 other places around, where this would not happen. We found a seat in a nice wine bar, where we were treated politely and nicely in about 4 minutes after we left.

If I could, I would give it experience 0 stars, I don't care if the waiter had a bad day. We are glad this was not out first or only experience at Marche des Enfant rouges, as we very much like this place. Shout out to the Burger bar and the Moroccan...

DON'T COME HERE - pls read restaurant's review to mine.

To give a bit of context, I am lucky enough to have travelled to a few places around the world (based in London) and I had experienced 3 Michelin Stars to street food in Asia. My GF is French and we go to at least Paris 4-5 times a year so we are not stranger to French food or dinning in Paris.

We only had some starters but it was super expensive and it doesn't even taste nice, ie I had better food at Picard. The croquette of the day was fish with potato (8 EUR each) not 2 or 3 but ONE, I can't taste anything beside potatoes it was plain and mundane, it doesn't hurt them to season the filling inside. The fried calamari batter was dry and uneven, you will find better ones in any Greek touristy places in Greece - yes is this bad. The escargot was ok, not something I would say is extraordinary (I had frozen ones and they are pretty close to them). If you wanna waste money and wanna look hip come here but maybe have a drink and eat somewhere else. Deeply disappointed and felt robbed.

Also the service is terrible but you can't expect much in Paris but this one has been by far least attentive and have this I'm cool and chill and I will serve you when ever I care attitude. Also we asked for the bill for 15 minutes I don't know what is the best way to pay, maybe walk away so they will give us attention. The dude I asked seems to think is more important to fill water in the wine buckets and help sampling wine with the couple next door then simply give me the bill. We were being considerate as there were others standing waiting for a table to be ripped off by them.

Never again, definitely not rich and hip enough, but know better.

UPDATE: I can't reply to a replied review. Not sure the replier knows a lot of fresh food supply chain, as a lot comes frozen and defrosted when it reaches to wholesalers, markets and restaurants. It has scientifically been proven a lot of frozen food are actually more nutritious and safer (since they were just been frozen once and sold to the customer) than "fresh" food when most of them are technically not fresh as it was refrigerated, snap frozen or frozen and later defrosted to pretend this "freshness" think of fish and seafood. Anyway apparently I don't know about food as the replier had said and I'm happy to spend my money on somewhere else and I strongly believe a lot of food are better in Paris (especially Vietnamese) and I will definitely go back to a lot of restaurants in the Marais just not yours. Will definitely tell as many friends and family to stay away from this place with this attitude...