Restaurant LAVA — Restaurant in Paris

After we were last year (same time) at Louis Vins, we booked our table for 2 May in advance. Which was sadly unnecessary, because when we arrived at 19:30, the place was nearly empty :-( The crew does not deserve this, I hope that they have more visitors at the weekend. So we started with Ravioles des langoustine, citron cédrat, poireaux noires et bisque anisé from their new menu. FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! Then we continued with Filet de Rumsteack (ordered medium-rare and came perfectly), petits pois, sabayon de carrottes au beurre noisette. This Sabayon was DELICIOUS!!!! The beef was also perfect. But the sabayon from carrots was one of a kind; so smooth, so delicate… We were so happy that we received supplement, we asked for. Then the dessert. I‘m usually no dessert person, but this dessert must have been created in HEAVEN!!! Salade de fraises, crème vanillée, sorbet maison à la roquette et opaline. Who would think about using rocket to create a sorbet?? And the strawberries seemed handpicked, perfect in their sweetness, and the vanilla cream? Hello?? Also very very smooth and perfectly handmade. On top the sorbet of this „salad“ as I usually prepare rocket, it was the top ingredient, blending in so harmonically. Without it it might have been ordinary, but the rocket sorbet lifted it to another dimension!! Please please go and check out this fantastic restaurant, which can also support you in chosing the perfect wine pairing (open...

Lava is a wine driven restaurant with a very creative albeit small menu. My first impression of the restaurant wasn’t great as the lighting feels off and was much too bright. The waiter brought us water and a menu but no wine list which we asked for. After 10-15 minutes, I asked again for the wine list and he apologized as he clearly forgot. It’s a great looking wine list and we enjoyed our selections. The food has a lot of unusual ingredients—some that worked and others felt like the Chef was working too hard to surprise. We noticed that the lobster dish included peanut butter as an ingredient though we didn’t try it. After another 15 minutes, the waiter finally showed up to take our order—but of course, apologized again for the delay. This was repeated with a third apology when we sat with empty plates for another 15-20 minutes. I suppose you could be happy that you certainly are not being rushed at Lava but for us, it felt that we were simply being ignored. We asked a few times for the check and then after sitting with our credit cards on top of the check for 10-15 additional minutes, we were on our way home. That all said, there is clearly an effort to offer top wine choices and creative food and based on the reviews and the full and vibrant crowd, it might be worth...

If visiting Notre Dame, this is a good choice. It is a little bit of a walk but just enough to evade the tourist traps.

The food is largely inventive. We opted for the full surprise menu with wine pairing and noted our allergies and strong dislikes with the reservation. Staff were aware and read our notes before arrival. Our favorites were the oyster with red pepper sorbet, tuna with sorrel sauce and cherry, and the beef with aubergine. My one mistake was also ordering a cheese course in addition to the surprise menu. Even though we are large eaters, this was too much (even) for me. However, the quality of the cheese was good.

Service was friendly and while fluent in English, our servers were patient and happy to communicate with me in French and switch to English when needed.

As most tourists, we ate early (around 7:30pm) but the place was quite busy with locals, even on a Thursday when we left. The total price for two surprise menus, an extra cheese course, two wine pairings and around 8% tip was around 270 Euros. We considered this a good value and...