After reading a few very flattering reviews of Tomy & Co (or TOMY&co, as they like to style it), a restaurant run by chef Tomy Gousset near the Invalides, we finally decided to go down their and taste the food.

Frankly, it was a very good decision! Here’s our review.

The area around the Invalides is beautiful without a doubt, but perhaps not the trendiest part of town, nor the centre of the city’s nightlife.

Tomy & Co is thus a nice surprise to find in the area – its elegant black / green interior design is smart without being pretentious, the drawings of vegetables on the walls are cute, and the copious use of wood give the space warmth. The staff is very smiley too! Perhaps the 7th arrondissement is finally chilling out a little?
That said, the restaurant really likes to make sure you will be honouring your booking.

We reserved a table two days before by e-mail. A reply came asking for us to re-confirm the day before the booking (i.e. the next day). Before we could do so, the restaurant actually called us to make sure we were coming. Then, on the day, they called us yet again! Very odd…
Once we arrived there though, things were much more laid back.

The three-course menu is at 47 euros, which is not too much for the area, and for those with deeper pockets and a larger appetite, the tasting menu (available in the evenings only) costs 68 euros, with an extra 45€ if you want a selected glass of wine for each dish.

We decided that the 47€ was fine, and ordered a glass of wine to accompany it. Bread was brought to the table with salty butter, followed by a little amuse-bouche of roasted parsnip coiffed by a slice of beetroot. Very pretty.
Each course of the menu has around five choices, with one or two involving a supplement between three and eight euros.

For the first course we ordered:

– (with a 3€ supplement) black sea bream with gravlax and beetroot, caper flowers and a honey-mustard sauce miel, and

– fresh kitchen garden vegetables, vinaigrette and gomasio, with wild herbs.

The bream was well marinaded, melt-in-the-mouth and almost sugary. You could taste the olive oil and touch of Espelette pepper. As for the vegetables, they came beautifully presented, colourful, in a mixture of bitter and sweet. Cooked to perfection, we were a little surprised they were served cold, but the ensemble really was excellent.
For the main dish, the confit pork cheek appealed, served with brussel sprouts, olives and mashed potatoes served in a separate dish.

The pork was melty, but crispy at the same time as it had been grilled – a very good mix. Even the mashed potato (often bland in restaurants) was a success!
Our other main was pollack with squid ink ravioli, shiitake mushrooms, hazelnuts and wild garlic.

The fish was super melty and placed on the ravioli covered in sauce, with a hidden green purée underneath all that! Each layer was delectable.
We imagined the desserts would be at least as good as the other dishes, so we braved the 4€ supplement for the dark chocolat tart with crunchy buckwheat and dolce de leche ice cream, with our second choice being the tapioca, mandarine and basil ice cream and a citrus crunchy biscuit.

The chocolate tart turned out to be a very fine slice, cut into two even slimmer slices. Having paid extra for it, this seemed a little mean. In any case, the fine base was suitably sweet, complementing the non-sweetened ice cream (a clever combination) and the buckwheat added a welcome crunch.

The other dessert also combined different sensations, with a mix of textures and pronounced tastes. Perhaps not the fireworks we were expecting at the end of such a prodigious meal, but an original creation nonetheless.
All in all, we have to say our meal at Tomy was very agreable indeed. The setting is good, the team is all smiles and prices acceptables (just watch out for the extra few euros for certain dishes – they can increase the menu price by nearly 50%!).

The good news is that Tomy Gousset has just opened his second restaurant, this time even nearer our hotels, and he’s called it… Hugo & Co! We can’t wait to go down and check it out too.

Tomy & Co (here) is open weekdays only for lunch and dinner

Tel. +33 (0)1 45 51 46 93

Website / Other website / Online booking / Facebook / Instagram

A post shared by Tomyandco (@restaurant_tomyandco) on Mar 22, 2018 at 1:59pm PDT