Matsuhisa Paris — Restaurant in Paris

Atelier for overpriced fast food Robuchon and other gourmet Masochi(sm) in Paris...

Haute cuisine doesn’t go hand in hand with brisk, impersonal, bored service and a rude attitude. At least, that’s what I thought when my wife booked our family of four dinner at Joel Robuchon Atelier in Paris Saint Germain.

We Arrived on time but still had one hour unexpected wait due to some bad mannered germans, who despite the hostess’s best attempts (I mean why is she there unless to establish some order in the booking times and attendance and make everyone leave whenever they have promised to?) refused to vacate on time two out of our four reserved seats at the bar table where we were supposed to sit - and -another hour and a half of noisy, chaotic, smoke clogged but cold over-air conditioned time , where we (didn’t) enjoy a matchbox sized Angus steak for 69 (both mine and my daughter’s were burned), not a trace of “black” - cod - overcooked, a regular Joe salmon and delayed desserts we got for free (sphere and le noix de coco not bad at all) with the same grace as if they were handing me the keys of a new Rolls outside and - last but not least - 600 Euro later, we left that example of snobbishness ( us part of it’s fuel) relieved, rather than satisfied.

We booked Atelier Robuchon in Paris for our last night as we believed it will justify it’s hype and popularity, more over having still a good aftertaste by the Atelier Robuchons in Vegas and Dubai we visited lately.

Judging by how hard (and don’t tell me you haven’t gone through this -how humiliating and awkward is - when -begging a maitre or a girl being so proud of their momentary super power over you , when - they stay at entrance or over the phone - feeling like Jana d’Arc or first cousin of Louis XIV......) it was to get a table at decent time ( not 6pm) the place is packed every possible day.

Our gourmet roller coaster started even worse two nights before in the oh-so famed Matsuhitsa (or rather Masochistic) Nobu in Raffles Royal Monceau hotel in Paris.

The food was not worse (is this actually good comparison?) than in the numerous Nobus we have been-Milano tens of times, London, Dubai, Miami, Vegas, Malibu, aahhh.....

But wait to see the service..... real blue blood, I mean not ours, the client’s one, but the pretentious, arrogant, rude, Napoleon-for-a-minute style of the welcoming staff, the distracted, bulimic, hungry and hungover hostesses, gossiping to each other for few minutes every time before answering a question, the waitress and waiters, who behave like they are investment bankers or fashion queens who, God knows why and how at that particular moment, need to pay some attention to you - the not Nobile tourist with unlimited budget for good food (prices rise averagely 12-15% annually by default).

The Sommelier at Matsuhitsa brought a bottle of white at room temperature ( why do they have these great big super expensive floor to ceiling glass wine drawers?) and when we asked him to cool it down a bit he disappeared together with the bottle for good. We asked 3 different waiters for more wine during our dinner and no one was able to find the hidden bottle, since that Sommelier has gone home. An hour later -dinner finished already-someone managed to dig out the runaway bottle and bring it back to our table.

The Matsuhisa inhabits an otherwise not changed design-wise part of the ground floor of Raffles, not matching it’s Japanese spirit -dark, not cozy, unfriendly.

Very rude staff, slow kitchen, generally a disappointment.

Well well well, enough for Paris and the Parisians from the deep countryside, who once stepped on the coveted reception pedestal or entrance door of your wished restaurant become blue blooded relatives of Louis XIV......

A...

We had the Omakase menu for dinner,Food was good, but not excellent (fish part of the meal was much better then the meat part), some dishes were too simple or badly executed like a very simple pre-prepared flag dish desert (basically it was tiramisu with whiskey) ,a too salty miso soup or a sushi with broken rice under that dissolved to rice grains.The service need to be improved, politeness is not the only quality needed ,we had five or six different waiters which let you feel as if you are in fast food diner, forks and knives were not changed after each dish, some waiters were too busy talking among themselves while ignoring the customers. At the entrance to the restaurant we had to wait 5 minutes until the host finish her telephone conversation while ignoring us completely and on the way out coats were handed without a polite help to put them on.The place itself is nicely decorated with good atmosphere but it lacks of privacy since the tables are too close to each other. Extremely expansive for what you get (especially the drinks are at outrageous price like 35 euro for a glass of champagne or 12 euros for a bottle of water) . All in all, for the price we payed you can find better Japanese...

Food: It was nice, but very expensive. I didn’t think anything was particularly impressive at this price point which was 200€ per person (8x People). The Sashimi pizza was lovely, everything else was good but nothing special or mind blowing.

Service: Terrible… lots of miscommunication, wrong plates arriving and we could never get ahold of a waiter. This was extremely disappointing as we were seated in the centre of the restaurant (so lots of people passing by), on a circular table with 8 people… and had to repeatedly get up to ask for things like ‘can we order…’ ‘can we get water…’

Atmosphere: In my personal opinion, I just didn’t feel like the restaurant had a nice atmosphere… there was a greeting waiters kept saying to new arrivals which involved yelling something in Japanese, but it was very annoying repeatedly being interrupted by the greeting throughout our dinner.

Overall, I don’t recommend because it was disappointing to spend so much money on a meal which was...