Tekés — Restaurant in Paris

Please note that this is specifically the VEGAN point of view:

We were 6 people to dine in and made sure to let the staff know during reservation and also when we arrived that two of us were vegan. We were ensured that this would be no problem. The waiter brought us a hand-corrected menu (while overlooking a few things, e.g. the Ricotta and butter) - you can see this in the picture. He was friendly and catered the whole group continuously.

Unfortunately, as you could see, we didn’t have a huge choice that was completely vegan. We were assured they made the Laffa with oil, and I honestly doubt it because it tasted super buttery (and that’s what it said in the menu) plus they brought a non-vegan yoghurt sauce “for the rest of the group to share”. [side note: we are vegan to reduce animal suffering, not because we don’t enjoy the taste - so what is the point of bringing out non-vegan sides for our orders?] We also ordered the Bish Bash Bouche and even though he wrote “no croutons” they brought out the dish WITH croutons and it was impossible to seperate them. Next we had the experimental chicken liver that was also brought WITH bread and egg. After telling them the third time that we ordered the vegan version all they did was put our bread and egg onto our friend’s plate and we were basically left with a bunch of cinnamon spiced oyster mushrooms for the same price. We also ordered the Abu Ezra, roasted cabbage that was supposedly completely vegan. This one also tasted like it was immerged in butter.

We decided not to take a dessert in the end - because “who knows”… Our friends ordered lemon cake and chocolate mousse dessert and the waiter started to give everybody spoons, we had to remind him the fourth (or fifth?) time that we are vegan and even then he looked at us genuinely surprised and said “you don’t want to try?”.

So to sum it up: I do NOT recommend this place if you are vegan.

If you are vegetarian or omnivore, this could be a very nice and exciting experience for you with a reasonably priced creative cuisine. Unfortunately I have to give only two stars because we were led to believe that we would get adequate vegan options and in the end got seriously...

My partner and I have stumbled upon this place by sheer luck. We were just strolling around the streets near where we were staying, and we heard this music that we all knew well. Inside, the staffs were dancing to the music. The fun and cheery atmosphere was contageous so we started to dance to the tune too. Then our eyes locked. The embarassment was short lived, as we were just happy human being at the moment. That dinner, we cancelled the reservation to one of the oldest establishement and decided to visit the place. Tekés was a place seemingly well loved by both the locals and tourists alike. We were warmly greeted by Messiah, and she guided us through the menu as if she was telling us a grand tale of adventure. She was also very kind to bring the bartender to us, when I inquired to know more about the drinks. Food wise, I appreciated that each plates had honest taste that did not lie. The serving staffs' explanations were true to the dishes. There were no secret ingredients nor sauce that hid something behind, and it made the culinary experience enthralling. All the other vegan dishes I have tried elsewhere have given me dull and gray memories, and I think it was because the dishes were vegan ingredients pretending to be something else non-vegan. My partner loved especially the Persian touch in the menus and was beyond ecstatic when the head chef came to our seats and he got to exchange conversation on the ingredients. Long explanation short, the dished we shared were fabulous, and we scraped everything off the plates. Then, by luck, we got the chance to meet Natida, the manager of the Tekés. She has presented us with myriads of surprises. In sum, the staff family, chefs, the ambiance, to the culinary experience at Tekés made our short stay in Paris very memorable.

Highly recommend to visit if you seek for interaction with the restaurant flow, want honest and innovative cuisine, and...

If you've had good food before, this place will seem absolutely terrible. If they charged 50% less, I might say it’s acceptable.

Food: We ordered three dishes. Kubane: The bread was okay, similar to what you can get in some supermarkets. The sauce was good! Experimental Chicken Liver: You can't just serve large pieces of bread and pretend it's chicken (the bread wasn’t even listed on the menu), and burning mushrooms to make them look like liver is not experimental—it’s careless and absurd. I get that in the dim lighting it might resemble those things, but it’s not creative. It’s just bad. I doubt the chef is a vegan or vegetarian. This dish was pathetic. Merguez: I have no idea why they served us a large burnt corn on the cob with some sweet sauce. Corn wasn’t mentioned at all in the menu. It was almost comical when the waitress asked if she should cut it for us.

The wine was good. Maybe this place is only good for drinks.

Service: The hostess brought her dog into the restaurant, which I’ve rarely seen in other places. I didn’t like it, though it might be a cultural thing. The staff also had some odd sales techniques—at one point, all the waiters started yelling and clapping, trying to dance, but none of them seemed to know how. It felt awkward and pointless.

I sincerely hope this restaurant puts more effort into their cooking rather than wasting time on these irrelevant distractions. You can do better! But for now, I really didn’t...