John S.
Yelp
High end, borderline trendy dining in a former Jewish girls school, sharing the space with another restaurant, a museum, and a couple of galleries. After walking in to the main building, you enter the restaurant to the left. There's a decent size bar area up front, with occasional live music. Behind that is a well-lit restaurant facing an open kitchen.
Our meal here started off great with a warm greeting by the staff, and a wonderful appetizer of small bites of regional ingredients (steak tartar on pickles, egg custard with roe, minced beet root on baby cabbage leaves, small bites of pate, etc.). For the main course, we had the ox entrecote, which was delicious -- charred on the outside, and buttery smooth inside, cooked perfectly at medium rare. That dish came with two sides chosen from a list of about six. We went with spinach and bean cassoulet. Both were great, though portions were a little small given the comparative amount of meat (a lot!).
At that point, we were headed for an across the board 4/5 star experience, but then a few things started to go off the rails. We were starting to reach our price limit (not the restaurant's fault -- they serve expensive food!), but still wanted another drink or dessert. The bottles of wine were all quite pricey, and we didn't feel like ordering more wines by the glass, so we went with dessert. From a choice of only three (sweet-sour plum dish, banana split, cheese), we went with the banana split. Being in a nice, haute cuisine restaurant, we expected a new take on the common dessert, and to give Paul Saaly credit, that's what we got. But for 13 euros, we had about 6 bites of "meh": a couple of spoonfuls of ice cream, one dipped in chocolate, an interesting caramel sauce and maybe three slices of baby banana, about the size of a 10 or 20 cent coin.
After that, I stepped out to use the bathroom - a shared restroom on the other side of the building's lobby. Smokers are welcome inside the lobby, and there were about two dozen of them puffing away. Their smoke clouds stayed away from the dining area, but not from where the staff keeps the checked coats, so we had a little bit of that smell on us at the end of the night, which was disappointing. The bathrooms are also "maintained" by an attendant, who busks for change. Very disappointed that a restaurant charging €€€€ prices won't let its customers answer nature's call without having someone charge them for that too. If overly precious desserts, smokers in the lobby, and paying to use the restroom in a restaurant you're already paying serious money to eat at don't get under your skin, this would be a great place. We really enjoyed our food, but those little annoyances at the end will probably keep us from going back.
