French Restaurant Review: Le Christine, Paris

Enfin! A really exciting restaurant in storied Saint-Germain-des-Prés, which has long been an oddity, being perhaps the Paris neighbourhood best loved by tourists while at the same time lagging behind when it comes to dining options.

Le Christine is one of Les Becs Parisiens restaurant group’s tables, and this is a company which has distinguished itself for the highest quality contemporary French cooking made with first-rate produce and a relaxed but very polished modern style of hospitality that’s common in London or New York but still rather rare in Paris. To wit, your server establishes a friendly rapport with you as a way of making sure you have the best possible experience here, and the outstanding sommelier, who speaks perfect English and has a stunning knowledge of wine, is likewise on hand to guide you to some really good drinking with a style that’s complicit and pleasantly pedagogical without having even a whiff of pretension.

Arriving for dinner with a friend from Leeds, both of us liked the terra cotta red décor of the beamed dining room and its moss-green velvet banquettes, and immediately succumbed to the charm of the witty French waiter who had recently returned to Gaul from London. He advised us to go with the five-course tasting menu for a good-value €75 and fixed it so that each of us was tasting something different throughout the meal, so that we could share.

Accustomed to the often somnolent cooking of tourist restaurants in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, I was sort of astonished by the vivacity of the kitchen here, notably the smoked Breton mussels with samphire, crushed hazelnuts and preserved lemon that was my first course. The meaty crustaceans were beautifully garnished by the rich crunchy nuts and flattered by the citrus.

My friend Ginger’s grilled asparagus with black garlic cream, smoked trout roe and Sicilian pistachios was fascinating as well, and we both loved the white asparagus tart with a vin jaune sauce, Comté cheese and pine-tree buds that followed. Since all of these products come from the Jura region of eastern France, their tastes interacted with a natural elegance.

Grilled barbecued quail with sobrasada (the soft Pimenton sausage from the Balearic Islands), Parmesan foam and egg yolk sounded complicated, but turned out to be sumptuous tapestry of varying tones of umami. John Dory with wild garlic, a fish-bone jus and green strawberries was another improbable sounding dish that delivered a lot of pleasure. In a more Escoffier-like register, we both liked the aged rib-eye with Stilton sauce and airy pommes Dauphinois as well.

Before dessert was served, we met young chef Rodolphe Despagne when he stopped by our table for any comments on his cooking, and during our friendly chat, it became clear that he’s a gifted and very ambitious chef whose goal is to create modern French dishes that “provoke, in a way that’s both lucid and sensual” an excellent description of his cooking.

And just to see off any doubt that Le Christine is an excellent restaurant, our desserts were outstanding, including a hazelnut mi-cuit with amaretto ice cream and sweet clover custard, and a baba (sponge pastry) with Chartreuse, pears, verjus and raw cream ice cream.

Le Christine, I rue Christine, Paris.

Tel. (33) 01 40 51 71 64,

Three-course lunch menu €45; dinner menus €75 and €95.

From France Today Magazine

Lead photo credit : Le Christine - Salle ©Hugosourdin 2