We had a splendid meal at the Sergent Recruteur restaurant on the Ile Saint Louis in June 2013, so when we heard that some of the crew there had ‘deserted’ to start their own place, we just had to visit.

It’s on the other side of town, and a lot smaller, so we wondered if the magic would stay intact.

Here’s what happened during our three-hour epic meal…

We got to the Déserteurs on time at 8.30pm. The restaurant has around 25 seats, and fills up very quickly. Compared to the Sergent Recruteur, the décor is simple to the extreme – exposed stone, wooden tables and lots and lots of beige. There are no pictures on the walls, no fancy light fittings – it’s beige all the way here.

Seating is a little tight and not especially comfortable (more about that later). Perhaps the neutral setting is supposed to spotlight the food even more? Only a few details betray the fact that a certain amount of thought has gone into them such as the Nontron knives and delicate glasses.

As with any hyped Parisian restaurant, 75% of diners are not French – word spreads fast these days. A table of nine Americans chattered away to one side – although they seemed perfectly pleasant, they were to make our evening a very trying one, although it wasn’t really their fault.
And so, as we said, there’s a palpable feeling of panic. The waiter (there’s only one for the entire place) sits us at our table and can then be seen running back and forth to other tables. In the meantime (and it was a fairly long meantime) we didn’t have the menu, or any water, or any bread.

After about ten minutes, the waiter returns with the menu and some bread. Hurrah!

Les Déserteurs has a fixed menu which changes every night, costing 45€ or 60€ for four or six dishes, which is not excessive. As we are vegetarian, we asked for a couple of adjustments to be made, and that didn’t seem to be a problem. We ordered some sparkling water and sparkling wine and everything seemed set! I say ‘seemed’…
Enjoying our wine rather more than the sea of beige surrounding us, we waited for the first dish to arrive. And waited. And waited. 45 minutes after we arrive, the first dish finally gets to our table –  potatoes from the Île de Ré, finely sliced turnip, a smoked aubergine mousse they call baba ghanoush and a teriyaki sauce.

The whole thing is beautifully presented and finely crafted, which may explain why it took such a while to arrive (!) The scene is set for the evening.
Although a marvel to behold, the dish is fairly petite and only takes a couple of delicious minutes to finish. Unfortunately, the next dish takes a while to arrive – a very long while. It seems that the table of nine Americans is making normal service for the rest of us almost impossible. Delicately composing beautiful, freshly-cooked food monopolises the three chefs, meaning that we have to wait.

So wait we did. At 9.45pm, over an hour since our arrival, the second dish was served. That’s a pretty long wait, at least we thought so. High time to tuck into some Albenga courgettes with an olive emulsion, herb salad and geranium leaf. Lovely looking and very crunchy.
It is now 10.15pm, nearly two hours since we sat down. Only two tiny dishes of (beautifully presented) vegetables have been served. Our American friends are deep in conversation. Our legs are starting to ache. It’s hot. Night is falling.

Suddenly the third dish arrives. Hurray for grey sea bream from Saint-Gilles with cider-rapeseed, wild asparagus and grilled cucumber from the Paris region. The presentation is pretty stunning, and the asparagus lovely, but the fish rather neutral. It’s great to know where all the ingredients are sourced, but if they could arrive a little faster and have a little more taste, that would be wonderful too.

A certain rhythm has been set. We now know that we can expect at least 30 minutes between each little plate of food, and knowing that here are six on the menu gives us an idea of how long this whole meal-ordeal is going to take.

The fourth dish arrives at 10.40pm, and luckily it’s the most exciting of the evening, made especially for us – lightly grilled and halved carrots, a wonderful carrot, saffron and honey puree, baked Nile beetroot, sweet caramelised onion and a little salad. Delectable stuff. Amazing.It is now very nearly 11pm, which apparently is time for dessert! Luckily, it’s the second astounding dish of the evening – a deconstructed blackcurrant and redcurrant cheesecake with wild fennel and blackcurrant and cheese sorbet. Wowzer!
But it’s so late now! It’s too hot in here, my legs are aching. I took my shoes off a while back to try and help relieve the pain, but it isn’t working.

The second dessert – and last dish of the night – hits the table at 11.15pm. And… surprise! It’s the cheesecake again. The waiter starts giving us the list of ingredients again, and we look a bit dumbfounded before stopping him in his tracks and telling him that it’s what we just ate (20 minutes earlier). He tells us he thought as much, and takes it back.

So the real second dessert arrives shortly afterwards. A saké baba with elderberry ice cream. It was OK, but frankly we were exhausted, too tired even to take a photo. All the energy (and enjoyment) had been drained out of us.

Les Déserteurs has only been open for six weeks, and there are certain things we can excuse while they get into their stride, but it’s incredible how similar our experience was to eating at Dessance – cuisine full of ideas with careful presentation, a large table of people that slowed up service for the entire restaurant, the same dish served twice because the waiting staff and kitchen were in a panic, and three hours needed to get through the entire meal – and not by choice.

Restaurants like these should not accept big tables, or if they do they should have more chefs for the preparation. However good the the food, waiting three hours for it to be served will almost certainly test your nerves and ruin the experience, as unfortunately it did ours.

The Les Déserteurs restaurant (here) is open Tuesday night, and from Wednesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner

Telephone: +33 (0)1 48 06 95 85

Website: www.les-deserteurs.com (not working yet as far as we can tell. Or perhaps it just takes three hours to load?)

Facebook: here

To check out all our photos of the restaurant Les Déserteurs, click the play button below, then click the four little arrows bottom right to go into fullscreen mode.