Relais Louis XIII — Restaurant in Paris

Edit: my flight back to sf was delayed so I decided to eat here and give it a second chance. (Changed from 3 to 4 stars)

Food

Presentation was very fancy and I can see that the chef certainly put a lot of mind to it, but the actual taste of food was maybe better than average at best. They had a very large selection of wines and champagne though. They gave us a few starters (soup and something like eggplants on crackers) and complimentary bread. I had the fried foie Gras, beef filet (steak?), and cheese plate while my daughter had the sea bass, lamb shoulder, and mango tartlet. Foie gras was pretty good, a little surprised they didn't devein it. Beef filet was definitely above my expectations, very juicy and cooked through evenly. But it's  too salty for my personal tatste, so salty that it overshadowed any aromas from the meat and the shallots, which are supposed to carry a really strong aroma. Supposedly hanger steak is a very flavorful cut, plus the veggies on the side, somehow I didn't feel any aromas.  At first i thought it was tenderloin because the texture looks like it, though it had way more tendons, so i asked waiter what cut it was. Due to language barrier he pointed to his waist and vertebrae,  so i thought he meant surloin. But after checking a google translation of the menu i learnt it was hanger steak. So the waiter does not seem 100% knowledgeable about steaks. (I'm kind of a steak fanatic) Cheese was honestly very average, the cheese at my company's  salad  bar might be better 🤔. Sea bass was really salty, came with a lot of olive oil, but otherwise fine. Lamb shoulder was good but nothing remarkable, could have found one in the states for way less and better quality and taste. Mango tartlet was interesting - had gin jelly and biscuit was crunchy.

Service

Waiters were nice, explained some info about the food, recommended good wine. For some reason I was seated right next to the entrance when there were a bunch of other tables available...

Atmosphere

Dimly lit, 19th or 18th century building, gives date night vibes. Restaurant is essentially a small room with maybe 10-15 tables max + kitchen, wine cellars, upstairs

Overall very solid, very affordable Michelin restaurant, good food but not extraordinary, definitely paying for the experience. Bill came out to 310 euros for two people.

[note that the last photo was PS'ed, I changed the red source to yellow, apparently Google image model considers that as blood and says it's "not compliant to policy" :)...

HORRIFYING EXPERIENCE:

This is one of the worst encounters I had in my life. The experience ended right before it began, in a jaw-dropping fashion!

My parisian friend wanted to treat me to a french restaurant knowing that I'm visiting from the US and missed french food. My friend made a visit to the restaurant around 6pm to verify if they had availability, which they said they do!

We went for drinks and gave them a call around 7pm to confirm. They told us we should be there at 7h30, which we did!

Upon arrival, the hostess walked us to a small table located in a small room, we were right in the middle of everyone and the tables are too close to each other. It didn't feel neither comfortable nor appealing. Especially that there were plenty of tables in the next room.

I politely asked the hostess if she could give us another table. She turned into a Godzilla. She was appalled and asked what was wrong with the table. I replied that I simply did not like it. She told me that I "you shouldn't have made a reservation then" wth? She said we "were a waste of time"

They were the ones who encouraged making a reservation and that was only half an hour prior.

She then proceeded to kick us out in a very rude manner. My friend is very shy and polite, I could see he was very embarrassed and ran outside. Well, I'm not that shy!

I asked her "what did we do wrong? Why are you upset" to that she screams hysterically "yeaaah I AM ANGRY". I replied that her job doesn't entitle her to get angry at customers.

The chef intervened, he was nice and polite. He didn't know what to do as the hostess was out of control. She then proceeded to modify behavior on command and started acting like she was a victim of something. I was horrified! She said to the chef "it's just that he doesn't want to leave". She was gaslighting both the chef and me in real time, a gem of a sociopath.

For the record, I only wanted to do one thing, which was to leave this place as fast as I could. But I wanted to stand up and let them know this behavior is unacceptable, much less at this level.

I don't recommend this place at all. If you book a table, half an hour later they will marry you to a table and there is no way out but unpleasant name calling and hysteria.

I heard that the hostess is the Chef's wife. If that's the case, I only have one thing to say: This restaurant needs a very good divorce lawyer, because that woman cannot and will not change! And as long as she's there, I'm not...

Having lived in Paris previously, we were excited to return for a brief visit and try a new one star. Unfortunately this was not a happy trial; in fact this is by far the worst starred restaurant at which we have eaten in France. I am at loss for how it received its star.

Two major areas of complaint:

Service. We have never been to a ranked restaurant anywhere that told us upon arrival for our reservation (5 minutes past our twice confirmed reservation time) that we should "come back in 10 minutes or so as we haven't set the tables yet." No apologies then nor when we came back (which I now regret we did.) The now-set table was positioned in such a way that I couldn't move my chair away from it nor squeeze in as the chair had been placed in front of the table leg. No help forthcoming until I pointed out the problem. Continuing on, the courses for our degustation menu were delivered for one, two or three of us at a time and only explained if we asked (we speak French by the way so language was not an issue.) The chef walked through the service area several times en route to apparently have an argument with the woman at the entrance. This same woman yelled down the stairs for our coats at the end of the meal and shrugged and said she guessed she'd have to get them herself. I could go on but in short, this was the poorest most unprofessional service I have had in France, where service IS a profession.

Food. The degustation menu was unmemorable. The serving dishes were white, the food was white, the sauces repetitive and the "specialty" sweet of the chef served at the end was overcooked. The only color in the meal was the spinach in the ravioli course.

This was an expensive meal that did not come close to matching even the bistro and brasserie meals we had the rest of the trip and is in no way comparable to our other starred meal this trip at Tour D'Argent. If I had not had many other meals at Michelin starred restaurants I would throw my copy away and disregard all of its rankings in Paris or any other city.

Horrible service, blah food...