After opening at the beginning of May, in an area not particularly known for its great restaurants, l’Escudella has been taken on by the team behind the Christine, the Colvert and Maison Babine, all great eating options that are regularly recommended by our hotels.

The menu is succinct (but destined to change throughout the year), but what sets the place apart is the evident love they have for delicious French cuisine…

The area around Invalides, the Rodin Museum and École Militaire is pretty calm, with wide avenues, smart buildings and the Eiffel Tower not far away. It’s here that the team behind Le Christine has decided to launch their latest project, l’Escudella, a restaurant that they have taken over, completely renewing the menu and investing in new items for the woefully-lacking kitchens (there was no proper oven, no ice cream making machine, etc.)…

The contemporary interior design liberally uses blue and orange, with lighting reminiscent of sea shells, and the clientele seems to be a mix of locals and those working in nearby offices, especially the government agency l’Agence nationale de la cohésion des territoires which is just opposite.

You’ll find one main room stretching back from the street (including a few tables on the terrace), and there also a small separate room to the back, near the kitchens, perfect for a business lunch. It’s a smallish restaurant, but tastefully decorated.

For lunch, there’s a tasting menu on offer for 60€ 😳, but we chose the fixed three-dish menu at 39€. While choosing our dishes, we were served two cubes of homemade focaccia, and ordered some sparkling water, prepared on-site via a special system.

There are only three or four choices per course, but the owner told us this would no doubt change / evolve (and the menu notes that this is “Inspiration n° 001”, implying more to come).

To start, we chose nous choisissons un chicken, foie gras and pistachio pâté en croûte (for a 3€ supplement), which was delicious, probably because all the ingredients are homemade and it’s one of the chef’s favourite dishes to make.

For the second started we chose an œuf parfait (very soft-boiled egg) with peas and tarragon, but a vegetarian version (without the meat sauce of bacon bits). The egg was perfectly cooked, the peas were fresh, and the small pieces of cabbage (or perhaps celeriac?) added an agreeable bitter counterpoint.

This is all served with bread by star baker Jean-Luc Poujauran, for which the baking is finished on-site to make sure the bread is absolutely fresh.

For the first main dish, we chose tandoori cod fillet with baby turnip and hints of citrus (kumquat and lemon). This was cooked to perfection, with the centre almost raw and a good shine to it. The accompaniments were nicely (lightly) tart and bitter.

For the second main we chose the gnocchi, which turned out to be very large and quite salty, with a morel mushroom sauce, wild garlic flowers, walnuts and comté cheese. All very proficiently prepared.

Deciding not to have a cheese plate (even if it looked very appealing) we chose our desserts – strawberries with rhubarb, basil and olive oil (served by chef Rémi Poulain in person!) and a chocolate soufflé with a homemade yoghurt sorbet.

We can only say that they were both wonderful. The perfect end to a very tasty meal indeed.

It’s not much of a surprise that Escudella is a good choice for eating out, and we’re pretty sure the place is going to get very busy very quickly. Better get down there before the crowds so you can tell all your friends you found it first!

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L’Escudella (here) is open Monday-Saturday for lunch and dinner

Online booking here

Website

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