Restaurant le Meurice Alain Ducasse — Restaurant in Paris

The food started out amazing. Then all of a sudden it just got terrible.

Food Duo of tartlettes - Great start to the meal; appetizers were on point and subtle flavors to tickle the tastebuds.

Oyster with kiwi relish - Refreshing. Salty sweet oyster balanced with macerated kiwi.

Sea bream / beet root / smoked yogurt - Delight for the senses. Presented on a pillow made of ice, the sea bream was served like sashimi on top of a bed of chopped beetroot swimming in a yogurt and beetroot soup.

Warm mallard and foie gras pâte / bitter salad - The duck and foie gras pâté was deliciously balanced. Chunks of mushroom and duck mixed with the creamy pâté in a crispy crust. The bitter salad of arugula also helps keep it light. Savory without being too heavy.

Sea bass from Opal coast on the griddle / gourd / sea urchin/ lemon - This was okay. A chunk of sea bass paired with sliced squash ribbons and squash sauce. The sea urchin didn’t really add anything other than texture. I didn’t get enough acid in this dish.

Crispy blue lobster / celery / chanterelle mushrooms / bone marrow / lovage - Amazing; herby chanterelle mushroom sauce added depth of flavor and the crispy chips placed on top of the lobster was an amazing textural contrast. Both elements enhanced the lobster meat.

Clam with horned melon - This is where the meal started falling apart. They show a display of large clams and horned melon. They then present everyone at our table with the tiniest single clam. It pretty much had no taste and just chewing on the tiniest morsel of clam meat and some seeds of the melon. There was no flavor from the clam, and no discernible sourness or sweetness.

Boiled chicken with riced cauliflower and black garlic sauce - One of the worst things I have ever eaten. Chicken was dry. Black garlic sauce was bitter and tasted disgusting. I’m not even sure how the cold riced cauliflower was suppose to complement the dish.

Herbal soup - While this was intriguing from an experience sense of bringing a reverse siphon apparatus to the table, the herby mix of lemongrass, rosemary, ginger, and other spices - this tasted like Chinese black chicken medicinal soup.

Cheeses - These were fine ¯(ツ)/¯

Coconut ice cream with shredded coconut and some pepper? - This tasted almost amazing. The coconut ice cream? Yes. The shredded coconut? Yes. The acidic pepper gel drops? Yes. Except they were too sour and blew out my palette. Conceptually made sense but they needed to temper the sourness on the drops.

Cocoa pod flower - This was delicious. Coffee ice cream inside a solid chocolate shell. Deceptive visual presentation of a giant coffee pod shell surrounded by regular coffee beans was delightful.

Atmosphere The restaurant is located in the magnificent and palatial architecture of the hotel of the same name, Le Meurice.

The paintings and chandeliers add to the air of expected opulence and accented by glass sculptures to add a modern flair.

Service First of all, what kind of a Michelin starred restaurant tells you there’s a menu and then says you’re not allowed to choose what items you want? This is atrocious considering how much the cost of the meal is. Most of the staff was fine, but there were a few that had really poor attitudes. We asked a few of the staff presenting the plates to repeat what they said because they were either too fast, too quiet, or had a really thick French accent. Some of the staff got really annoyed when we asked to repeat because we couldn’t understand them. I don’t think repeating a sentence two or three times with complicated ingredient names is an unreasonable request.

The staff also didn’t check in enough after some plates were presented. We would have sent the chicken dish back but no one came to our table for over 10 minutes and it was getting late. When they finally came to check on us we just wanted them to take the plates and move on.

Inability to choose any plates felt like being held hostage a little bit. Refusal of requests for individual choices is a bit extreme for the restaurant’s...

Alain Ducasse Bought His 2-Michelin Stars - I had high hopes coming into the evening. The restaurant décor was beautiful, the table had swiveling chairs, and the Amuse-Bouche was incredible. We had a selection of a five course or a seven (my husband opted for the seven) - that was the first mistake. (Go for the 5 course) You select two from the first section and two from the second section, one meat, a cheese course and a dessert. (That's the seven course)

I can only speak of the items we ordered. If you don't want to read any further, look for the blue circled items in the picture posted for your optimum menu option, that is if you like the items circled - like sea scallops, lobster, veal and coconut. Beware of the menu items crossed out in RED.

To continue, the first course, the Sea Bream had a beautiful presentation. That's where it ends. The beat juice had no place there except for dramatic effect over the "ice pillow." The fish itself was under whelming and poorly seasoned. There's a question mark next to the "Partridge and Foie Gras" item because my husband really enjoyed it, but I nearly broke a tooth when I bit into a buck shot. Of course, they came out to tell me it wasn't their fault and they can't find every metal buck shot in the meat (I guess that's just how life goes). But as you can guess, the experience put me off and the dish was left as is. They didn't really seem to care...because they relayed several times, "It wasn't their fault."

In the second course, the Wild Turbot was lackluster, the sea urchin was course and strangely had a rubbery consistency. Whoever conceptualized this dish should really go back to the drawing board.

In the third course, the Venison. It's only saving grace was that it was cooked to perfection. It ends there. It was served with a table side pour of a thick mud-like consistency of cuttlefish ink, making the entire dish heavy. The cuttlefish "mud" and the caviar overpowered the venison diluting any saving grace to this dish.

The dessert course, the Vanilla Pod. It should have been called vanilla cream. It was described as ice cream, but they apparently forgot the "ice" part because it was like cream soup.

For the positive note.

First, my bag had a seat of it own.

Now for the food...

The Sea Scallop was delicious, delicate and flavorful. If the meal ended there it would have been 5-stars.

For the second course, the Blue Lobster. I'm allergic, but my husband couldn't stop raving about it. I'd like to mention the Sea Bass, my husband liked it. I didn't think it was bad, nor was it outstanding. I did like the accompaniment of the fresh chicory salad. The flavors was light and bright.

The meat course, the Veal. They explained that the meat was smoked and in all honesty, it looked like there was a shimmery glaze around the meat when they set down the plate (we think it was sous vide), but the Veal was delicate and light, cooked to perfection. The flavors of the dish worked well together and was delicious.

The dessert, my husband really likes coconut, and this dessert definitely delivers on the coconut flavor.

As for the cheese course, we were brought a selection of three similar types of cheeses, then later informed that if we wanted some more there was a cheese chart that we can select from. This would have been fine, but I noticed some tables were offered the cheese cart for them to select. I guess the restaurant assumes Americans don't know anything about cheese.

Almost every item came with a table side pour, which I guess is supposed to be impressive. To serve something and let the ingredients shine would have been more impressive.

As a note, they dropped the ball on service. We had to pour our own water.

As a final note, they lost our umbrella.

I'm not a fan and will never visit an Ducasse restaurant again. I'm certain they don't need my money, and I certainly don't need subpar food at high-end prices. A true...

We were in Paris for the week and asked the concierge at our hotel, the Shangri-La, to make a number of reservations for us at two- and three-starred Michelin restaurants. Ducasse was the only reservation that was difficult for them to get, and we ended up cancelling another reservation when they got a table at the last minute, because we really wanted to eat there.

The room is beautiful, no doubt, and that turned out to be the only real bright spot of our evening. The room is so attractive, though, that the restaurant hosts principally those who are interested in constantly photographing themselves and their food. So be aware if you decide to go, you will be surrounded by an absolute circus of amateur photographers who seem to care little about the experience of a restaurant beyond the ability to take 100 shots of every dish placed in front of them.

Further, we found the service lackluster. The waiters seemed a little frightened, almost as though someone was watching and waiting for them to make a mistake for which they would later be punished. The descriptions of each course were made robotically and were, to us, rather perfunctory. There was no joy or excitement in their delivery. Which could be explained by the fact the place seems to exist primarily as a backdrop for social media posts.

We had just dined the night before at Le Gabriel. What a difference! Lovely and engaging servers who truly enjoyed talking about the food and answering questions. A couple of comparisons illustrate the different experiences we had: 1) At Le Gabriel, I had a long and fascinating discussion with the sommelier about 2014 Burgundies, and the wine we ended up selecting was far superior to that at Ducasse. The sommelier there had little to offer when asked about the wines other than how many bottles of each he had in the cellar. And, no surprise, the resulting choice was mediocre. 2) At Le Gabriel, the waiters had plenty of backup material beyond that which they volunteered for each dish, and they were happy to go into detail if prompted. We are pretty serious caviar people and, at Ducasse, the 160 euro supplement for caviar made us ask a number of questions. All the waiter could tell us was "this is the caviar Ducasse considers the finest in the world." OK, well once that's been repeated three times you get the sense he simply doesn't know anything else and, if you keep asking for more, he'll start to cry. 3) Quality of the food is not even comparable between the two. For example, both meals included one course of whole lobster tail. At Gabriel, the lobster was so succulent and wonderfully flavored. Every mouthful was a joy. at Ducasse, the tail was -- and I use this word literally -- tasteless. Plus, it was so overcooked we actually had to bear down on our knives to saw through it. Unbelievable.

Despite the fact the waiters were picking up course after course of unfinished plates from our table, it wasn't until the final course that one of them asked if I didn't like the dessert. "No," I replied. "Like most of the food we were served tonight, it was disappointing." He had no response other than to leave with the un-eaten desert. No one came to our table to discuss this matter, and when we had paid the (completely outrageous for the poor quality) tab, no one said goodnight or acknowledged us in any way.

So, you're thinking of heading to Ducasse? Make sure you are comfortable vastly overpaying for food that can only be described as average at best, that you enjoy spending three hours around patrons wearing sweatshirts (yes, you read correctly) whose only interest is leaving with some good photos, all the while being served by staff who seem so afraid and demoralized that they cannot answer basic questions or engage as human beings. If this isn't your thing, head instead to Le Gabriel and have the meal...