Paris 66 Bistro — Restaurant in Pittsburgh

Dined here for the first time last week. Disappointing service, food and pricing despite great atmosphere / décor.

Pros: Atmosphere / Filet / Hazelnut Tart - All excellent

Cons:

24 Frites for $8 a la carte: Yikes.

Wine List: Limited. Ordered a Beaujolais. When we asked waitress for a suggestion between that and a Burgundy / Bordeaux, she replied that she sells most of the Beaujolais and that it is "very full bodied". Needless to say it was not full bodied.

Mussels: A classic French dish. They were completely out on a Saturday night.

Service: Servers wear masks yet don't offer individual plates for bread nor a communal butter knife. Food didn't come out at the same time. We finished our bottle of wine well before our food arrived and were never asked if we would be interested in ordering another bottle or if we would like individual glasses. Empty glasses left on the table for an hour.

Nutella Crepe: Solid. Yet they don't let you know on the menu that you'll be charged a dollar extra for Nutella. Silly to Nickle & Dime people like that.

Espresso: Was not espresso. Was foamy - most likely cappuccino. My friend, who owns a coffee shop, agreed that it was not nearly the strength of an espresso and more than likely cappuccino.

This is my very first restaurant review ever. I don't mean to bash the place. But after the underwhelming experience and seeing the owner's snarky demeaning replies to those who even left 4 star reviews I felt it was only right. Don't get me wrong, there were some good aspects. Perhaps it would behoove the owner to take these reviews to heart.

I consider myself lucky as I have been to France numerous times and have traveled extensively throughout Europe at a young age. Pittsburgh doesn't get the credit it deserves for its cuisine. Unfortunately Paris 66 was nothing to write home about. It is almost as if the owner is purposely overcharging Yinzers who simply don't know good French food.

Compare to Le Diplomate in DC & Minetta Tavern in Manhattan. Price for Steak Frites (& a lot of frites, let me add), $35 & $48 respectively. Price for small filet & 24 frites @ Paris 66? $48.

After perusing the owner's replies to past reviews, I am sure he will not take kindly to this and may even make fun of me for being an overnight internet food critic. He may claim that I hide behind the keyboard and won't say it to his face. But I will, and I would any day of the week. It was an average experience at best. I take no pride in saying that. But it's the truth. I sympathize with the hardships that have burdened the restaurant industry during the pandemic years. But our experience overall was underwhelming and...

Claiming to be a true French restaurant in Pittsburgh, we had the chance to try it when some friends came to town and we also happened to get a gift certificate to it. The dinner menu was not very appealing but they had a Sunday brunch menu that was, and so we made reservations and tried them out.

The four-star rating that I decided to give them is a mix of the good things and not so good things that we saw and experienced. We’ll start with Nathan who was our server. He was excellent. Very knowledgeable about the menu – able to explain things to all of us – and was not intimidated by our questions and sometimes quirky sense of humor. He checked on us frequently throughout the meal and made sure our water glasses were full and if we needed anything. Definitely five-star service. The food was very good as well. Everything we tried was cooked well and generously seasoned. Being French food, butter and fat dominated – which is not a bad thing and you should expect this.

On the other hand, there were a few misses. Everything is basically a la carte. When you read the menu, you will see them mention that a salad comes on the side. That is simply not true. There is a garnish of well dressed and tasty lettuce leaves on the side, but it’s not a salad. If you want side veggies, you have to order them separately. We did that, and both the Asparagus in Hollandaise sauce and Haricot Verts in a butter garlic sauce were executed very well (although the beans were not trimmed at all so we did have some stems to deal with). The Eggs Benedict were cooked well, but, again, were minimalist: Two eggs on a baguette, with a squish of Hollandaise Sauce on top.

The bigger miss was the prices. This place is super expensive, even with the general inflation these days. Each of our plates was pushing close to $20. Glasses of wine were in the $15-20 range as well. Now, if these were super premium wines that might have been Ok, but we are talking about Aperitifs like Kir and wines like Beaujolais! We ended up spending around $200 for the four of us for brunch! Couple that with the minimalist approach to the food and the great service and quality food balance it out but still come down on the less than great side.

Thank you for the prompt response, Monsieur Rongier. The nice thing about reviews is that they are personal opinions. By being that, they are neither necessarily correct, nor incorrect. While I may agree or disagree with you, and you with me. I stand...

First of all: I AM French.

I've been told there is a French restaurant close to our office in Pittsburgh. I got to test it!

The menu looks serious. The wine selection is a bit disappointing though. The waiters speak French, although mine is not a native, she has only learnt it at school. I wished French schools were as good for teaching foreign languages!

The music at the beginning was almost comic to me: accordion! This is NOT the typical French music. It was probably during the first half is the 20th century. It's music for tourists, and you will hear it only in touristic places. Then there was Foule Sentimentale from Alain Souchon, which is much more typical :-).

I was about to take the Plateau Campagnard (in order to check the cheese, cured meats and the housemade pâté) followed by the Magret de Canard when a plate passed in front of me and caught my attention.

This looked delicious but reminded me nothing of the French cuisine. I asked what it was: Salade Nicoise! In France the Salade Nicoise is far from being fancy and I personally think of it more as an easy-to-prepare salad when you're on vacation with friends and you don't want to spend too much time preparing lunch.

Anyway, the pâté (please note they got the accents correct, but I noticed a mistake on the Salade PérigoUrdine ;-) anyway...) was the best of the plate, and according to the menu it's homemade. The Rosette de Lyon was so so as the other "saucisson" with pepper. The cheesea contained Roquefort (Papillon, which is one of the best I think), petit basque and some Chaume. I appreciated them. The bread was French baguette of course, it was OK or even good to be honest (please acknowledge that I don't eat French bread very often these days) but nothing compared to the good "baguette tradition" that make me so happy whenever I go back to France :-).

The Salade Nicoise was good, but I'm not an expert at all. I mean if one of my friends serves me this for lunch during vacation, I'd be super happy :-).

All in all, I think it's a pretty descent French restaurant, especially considering we're on the other side of an ocean. A bit expensive for the US though. I think it would be the same price in...