Marsan by Helene Darroze — Restaurant in Paris

73rd in my Michelin Stars Marathon in Paris. A two stars newly refurbished: The pros and cons of design.

What’s interesting here? First thing you’ll notice is the design. As soon as you set foot, you’ll be be impressed by the craft of the interior designer. The entrance, the hallway, the big “lab” table downstairs, the open kitchen upstairs (with its table de chef), and the dining room. Every little detail is really impressive. Just admire the table. The walls. The quality and the choice of material. The cuisine is actually a bit of the same. You’ll have very high end ingredients. We had Caviar, Lobster, Foie gras, etc… Ingredients alone do not justify a two stars but at least you know they are not fooling around. With the interior design and the ingredients they place themselves in the high end restaurants. They do fit very well amongst others two stars (see reviews, I’m trying them all!). I’d love to go more in detail about the food and, as usual, the chef character that you can see behind it. Exceptionally on this one I can’t. If you’re a normal reader, stop here. The restaurant is great, have a look at the pictures, and read others reviews and compare amongst others I reviewed. If you’re from this restaurant, please, do read the rest. First, bear in mind that I give this feedback because I do wish you the best, and I think you deserve it. To make it simple, I (and even we) can not concentrate on the cuisine when I can hear all the conversations around me. In detail: there are absolutely no sound absorber, there are sound reflectors. The sound level is quickly very high but what’s make it worse (because some French bistros have an high sound level) is that as we are not many, you can hear very clearly other tables. It could be acceptable for a lower end restaurant, but not for a two stars. I assume it’s the interior designer responsibility but the impact is on the entire experience, and completely waste my gastronomic experience. It’s not just me, my lunch partner feel the same. If you look at the two stars competition (have a look at what I posted), you ll see that they integrate sound absorbing elements. The chairs, the curtains, the ceiling, the carpet etc… I even saw at Dame de Pic some leathers “paintings “ that are beautiful and absorb sound. Please, do correct this by adding some elements, may be a ceiling, so that we can appreciate your craft. My experience: I was disturbed the sound level. I need to be able to understand the waiter, and I don’t want to know all about my neighbors conversation and lives. I can’t wait to come back and really enjoy the cuisine. Because I’m sure it deserves a better setting.

Update 2022: Came back. The sound situation did not change that much (I did not notice notable changes) but my experience was way better because I was not at the same spot, and the tables next to me were quite quiet. I still have an hard time to « read » the chef. Some time I don’t know if something is there for the 2 Stars experience or for the chef universe. One thing sure is that I enjoy the food. But in any case, you’ll have a two stars experience with the service, the ingredients, the setting and the cuisine. It does deserve...

Résumé en Français: les plats et vins étaient très bons le service restait à désirer et nous avons du attendre une heure pour avoir le dessert, ce qui est inexcusable. le prix semblait encore élevé pour une salle de restaurant moyenne, un service très moyen. Heureusement que la nourriture était encore très bonne

This review is about the fancier and pricier dining room on the 2nd floor.

I've been to Hélène Darroze 3 times in the last 10 years and it's changed quite a bit. The first time was by far the best. The 2nd time prices had risen to silly levels (tasting menus in the 250-350 euro range although it was still excellent but totally overpriced). This write up is about this 3rd time).

Good: prices came back down to something more reasonable (for a haute cuisine restaurant) instead of a huge 10+ course menu you can't necessarily eat, you now have 3 options of 4+1, 6+1, 7+2 course menus with options to chose from. This is a very good move dishes were still quite good and well made. Their presentation wasn't the fanciest I've seen, but was adequate both wines we got were deemed excellent by the wine experts at my table

Bad: they got my dad's credit card to make the reservation and make sure we'd show up but clearly they had either lost our reservation or written it down for another day. To their credit although they were apparently full that evening, they managed to sit us down anyway. Still, kind of lame to get this wrong. Being forced to buy 35 euros of bottled water because simple tap water is not an option just puts me in a bad mood. Please sell me great food, not overpriced bottled water that may not even be as safe and good as the excellent Parisian tap water. At least some of servers were barely adequate for this class of restaurant. They weren't rude or dropped our food, but clearly weren't trained for this type of restaurant either. It wasn't a huge deal, but felt out of place. My dad also was surprised they had apparently no sommelier For some reason they would not even leave us the bottle of waters we had to buy, and several times failed to refill our glasses timely (by that I mean 10mn+) the worst thing for me however is how after a good start with our dishes, it took exactly 1H for us to get our dessert (and it was a problem for tables around us too). We did ask what was going on after 30mn, and they just stalled for another 30mn. The dessert was good but not fancy and didn't look like it ought to take more than 5mn to get ready, unless they had to drive to another place to go buy it and have it made.

So, while the food and wines were quite good, the service clearly isn't up to par for this type of restaurant, and the 1H wait when I was tired, just wanted to have a nice dessert and go home, was just difficult to excuse. Pricing still felt a bit high since I can eat just as well in San Francisco for less, but maybe it's on par with other similar restaurants in Paris if they are all more expensive there. I hope Hélène finds someone to properly run her restaurant when she's not around, because as is, it needs improvements. At least they still did a very good job...

Last night in Paris and we made a last minute decision (very risky) to try Marsan and what a treat. From start to finish our experience was exceptional with extremely attentive service to the amazing food. We sat at the host table which was shared with 2 other couples who were charming and friendly but not overly chatty and the seating arrangement was cleverly done so you had plenty of space - in fact we has more space at this shared table than at all the other restaurants we’d dined at this week! Being located in a private area (surrounded by over 1000 bottles of wine!) we had a dedicated team of two providing the service which was exceptional, knowledgeable, friendly and simply couldn’t do enough for you to make our evening wonderful.

We went for the 9 course tasting menu and my only regret was I was unable to finish it all, especially when everything was so fresh, light and well balanced. So delicious, creative (without being weird) and very generous portion sizes. We even took some desserts back to the hotel transported in gorgeous boxes and bags. Highlights? Well all of it was excellent but being more into savoury dishes the asparagus, lobster and lamb standout for me.

The wine was equally creative and interesting, all recommended by the sommelier who was happy to share his knowledge and hear your opinions. Starting with a delicious rose champagne (bold colour and full of character) followed by a couple of glasses across the 9 courses. All small wine providers whose wine we probably would never of had the opportunity to try anywhere else. Perfect matches for a...