Les Vinaigriers — Restaurant in Paris

We were prepared to be charmed by this small unassuming place; cozy relaxed decor, friendly gracious welcome and service, promising small well priced carte and reasonable wine list. The starters were excellent, a very proper beef tartare and an exceptionally satisfying warm parsnip velouté with a faint whiff of truffle oil and a couple of morsels of foie gras that had complexity and depth.

There were two fatal flaws however in our experience. First was the main course. We both had the filet de canette, large serving of duck breast that was dreadful. It was obviously sous vide, and was tough, bloodless, meally in texture, and utterly devoid of flavor or any seasoning whatsoever, with the each bite getting bigger and bigger in the mouth as chewed. Inexplicably, there was no skin or fat on the duck, depriving it of any hope of redemption. The duck was served with a hodgepodge of bits of apple, vegetables and other produce scattered on the plate, with no sauce or any coherence. We ate our vegetables and left most of the duck.

The other surprising and demoralizing aspect of the evening was the rushed service. We had barely started on our aperitifs of champagne when the first courses arrived. We had scarcely put our forks down from the promising first courses when the accursed duck main plates were delivered. We had a whole bottle of red for the evening (the enthusiastic proprietor had assisted in our choice, offering a taste of three wines when our first choice was out of stock) and had barely had a moment to begin to enjoy our first glass of the red.

We were so flummoxed by the time we surrendered to the inedible duck, we passed on dessert (none of the four offerings had seemed too interesting in any event) and left a half bottle of red on the table and bailed out.

Most other reviews are positive for Les Vinaigries, and one could possibly write off the one poor duck dish, but the frantic pacing of the service is more difficult to accept. We are seasoned diners and expect a Paris dinner to be the evenings entertainment, not a slapdash rush. The two starters, two mains, two glasses of champagne and the bottle of red came to €119. Cannot recommend nor plan to return based on this meal. Three stars is...

The food was great.

The flavours were interesting and worked very well. We ordered two starters between the four of us. The ceviche was yummy. The burrata, strawberries, basil pesto, red/green tomato and some nice leaf was my personal favourite though.

We ordered some red wine glasses (offered as an alternative to ordering by the bottle) to accompany dinner. A glass, depending on what kind, varied from €5/7. They do carafes only during the lunch sittings.

We sat outside as some of the party had never been to Paris and was fascinated by the driving antics of the Parisians. It was a pleasant evening and we took a seat outside as we'd arrived a little before they opened at 7pm.

For main, I had a tasty fillet of beef with wasabi mash, beautiful mushrooms in a lovely sauce. It was a little over done for medium rare, probably more medium but it still tasted really good so i got stuck in and didnt mention it to the guy looking after us since my taste buds were enjoying the whole lot. My fellow diners had the pollock and cod dishes. The plate of pollock looked a colourful and interesting dish with the carrot puree. There were lots of nods of approval. The breaded cod looked delicious too and whilst it came out a couple of minutes after our other dishes. I believe it was worth the wait.

Next up desserts - I had my favourite desert. It was a wonderful chocolate fondant which was coupled with some vanilla ice cream and olive oil. The olive oil was a little bit of a surprise but really worked. There was also an Eton mess ordered and I can't recall what other dessert was ordered. All four of us had accompanying coffees and the Melbourne critics gave them a definite thumbs up.

All in the bill came to just shy of €200 for four people. Whilst not a cheap night out, the quality of the food and the really friendly waiting staff made this a super evening of...

They have 4 dishes and 2 were unavailable. Forcing us to have the most expensive dish or vegetarian dish. We have had reservation since a month in advance and we were a big group.

Update: We were contacted on our international phone being asked to remove our review without being offered any apology or explanation for ruining our Friday dinner. Hence I’ll take the time to further elaborate how BAD this restaurant is: Food: lack of availability and fairly flavourless. Service: had to ask for water after being seated to more than 20 min. After 45 min of being seated we were told 2 of the 4 dishes are not available. We were not offered any explanation nor apologies. The waiter was rather rude and offensive. His behaviour and attitude was twice more annoying than the bad food. Management: instead of offering apology chose to call us on our holiday, costing us 2$ a minute to take the review down. Again, no justification was offered for above mentioned.

In short, our mood was ruined and we went home half hungry. Very disappointed about the...