Restaurant Review

Café de Paris - London
March 2008 - Lionel Morise

1930s Europe was more than just a different time and place. It was, in many respects, a completely different world. The hedonistic heyday of the 1920s was coming to an end. The Great Depression was settling in for the long haul and many businesses, including restaurants, were feeling the pinch. One restauranteur, M. Arthur-François Dumont found a solution in his father-in-law’s secret family sauce (the father-in-law, M. Boubier, had entrusted his daughter with the secret). Very soon this famous sauce was being talked about throughout Europe. M. Dumont’s restaurant, the Café de Paris in Geneva (a predominantly French-speaking city in Switzerland) became world famous for its “Entrecôte Café de Paris,” a steak dish that uses the best cut of beef and the mysterious 25 ingredient recipe revealed to only a select few.

Today, this sauce is available worldwide, under license to the original Café de Paris. So, of course when my guest and I visited Café de Paris right here in London, Ontario, we had to try their traditional Table d’Hote, which includes this famous dish. The Table d’Hote is a fixe prix item on their menu consisting of four courses for $39 plus a choice of dessert.

The restaurant itself has been designed to reflect what you would expect a 1930s French café to look like. Primarily neutral white walls were brilliantly offset by deep red, textured wallpaper on opposite sides of the main dining area. Antique glass “windows” separated the main room into smaller areas, allowing for more privacy. The tables were covered with bright white linen table clothes and the place settings, also white, were elegant in appearance. Throughout the meal the instrumental music of old Paris played softly in the background, loud enough to muffle the conversation across the room but never too loud to interfere with our own exchange.

Before taking our order the waiter told us the history of Café de Paris and its famous sauce. I was pleased to hear clear and accurate pronunciation of French words from an also clearly English waiter. The wait staff were polite, helpful and patient, something greatly appreciated by non-French speaking customers like myself.

One interesting note: the menus at Café de Paris are as traditional as the atmosphere they strive to create. This means that the woman’s menu will not have any prices on it. If you’re planning to take your special guy out for a meal, you might want to mention while making the reservation just who will be paying to avoid any confusion later.

I was especially pleased with the bread and butter served before the meal. The crusty French bread had just enough crunch to show it was fresh and the butter had the slightest hint of rosemary. A small detail certainly but it helped to prime my taste buds for the rest of the meal.

The first item served with the Table d’Hote is a delicately sweet “Gratiné Lyonnais” (traditional French onion soup). I’m not usually fond of this soup but this was a particularly tasty version. The gruyère cheese layer was sumptuously thick, sealing in the flavour of the onion and broth. The croutons were clearly homemade and the onions themselves were soft and tender. For me, it was a surprisingly good start to the meal. This was followed by a petit serving of lemon sorbet, just enough lemon flavour to clear the palate.

The entrecôte was served in a metal chaffing dish, where the steak was allowed to simmer in the sauce. It was also accompanied by a “salade aux noix” (mixed greens with walnuts and a simple vinegar and oil dressing) and a large bowl of “pommes allumettes” (exceptionally thin french fries that reminded me of Hickory Sticks from my childhood). These delicate fries were quite tasty and light on the tongue, a nice change of pace from most potato side dishes.

Those who enjoy a good sirloin will be both surprised and pleased with the entrecôte. The steaks were surprisingly thin, less than a quarter of an inch, but were also exceptionally tender, well aged and trimmed (there was no fat to be seen). The sauce itself was everything I hoped it would be. It had a silky smooth texture and a complicated mixture of complimentary flavours. Of the 25 claimed ingredients, I was only able to recognize nine. This sauce is a perfect example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The steaks were served one on top of the other and I quickly learned that my guest’s was on the top, thus ensuring she was served first; another nod to a bygone era.

After the main course was cleared away, we had a few minutes to select our dessert. All the options sounded delightful but we settled on the “Profiterolles au Chocolat” (puff ball pastries topped with chocolate syrup and sliced almonds) and the “Pêche Melba” (poached peaches in syrup served over vanilla ice cream and a raspberry coulis (fruit sauce) and topped with real whipped cream.

The meal ended with a small chocolate shaped like the Eiffel Tower, a small glass of Pernod (anise-flavored digestif) and a single red rose for my guest, compliments of the house. Without a doubt, a meal at Café de Paris is a journey into the past, a pleasant and relaxing couple of hours that will take you away from the worries of our modern world. I look forward to returning in the future and trying some of the other intriguing items on their menu. Perhaps I’ll see you there.