I don’t know how we’ve managed to do it but somehow we’ve brought the English rainy summer to Paris. Arriving this morning we’re tired, not exactly jetlagged but feeling similarly so due to the early rise to catch the Eurostar. We’re trying to find Drount, a Michelin starred restaurant and one of Paris’s chicest restaurants neat the Opéra but of course we can’t as the street that it sits on is not on any of our 4 maps. We finally find it, a light grey elegant building, with vivid blue Juliet balconies above.

Drouant is not just the centre for things culinary but also the centre for things related to Literature. Every year it hosts the Goncourt, Renaudot and Apollinaire awards (France’s most prestigious Literature awards) on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of the building. The baby of Antoine Westerman it’s interior is given its zing by Émile-Jacques Ruhlmann. We’re greeted with broad smiles and deferential service. We have a few options for lunch, Drouant has a Plat du Jour for each day of the week-today it’s stuffed provencal vegetables for an absolute steal at €20. There is also a 3 course menu for €43 as well as an la carte selection.

A friendly fellow diner sitting next to us, the helpful Monsieur De Ville, sees our confusion and offers his suggestions. He has just had the €43 3 course meal and whilst it sounds great, I am still full from breakfast so we have to decline. Monsieur de Ville has tried so many items on their menu except for today’s Plat Du Jour and he explains that on Saturdays, there is an opportunity to meet some winemakers and enjoy a 3 course meal with 2 matching wines for €55.

Unusually, although we had read that Drouant does hors d’eovures sampler plates of 4 items, it appears that this is no longer the case. Monsieur de Ville, one of Drouant’s more regular customers confirms this with them and is surprised at this. My husband settles on the Plat du Jour and I choose the Duck Livers with peach, one of the “exceptional items of the season”.

Chateldon water €7

Apart from recommending us restaurants, he also suggests that they bring us the Chateldon water-the water that Louis XIV loved so much that he would order it be brought up to him at great trouble and is in such a limited production that it is only available at finer establishments like this. He flags down the manager who is bringing us regular sparkling to ask him to get us this one. It is actually markedly better which even my husband echoes (hopefully I haven’t created my own Louis XIV!).

Bread and butter

Stuffed provencal vegetables €20

Our meals arrive, the stuffed provencal vegetables look spectacular and fairly substantial. The eggplant, zucchini and capsicum are stuffed with a combination of pork and finely diced vegetables, in fact my mother makes something very similar at home, sauce and all!

Duck Liver with peaches €26
The duck liver with peaches are tender and lovely with a seared outer. I am ambivalent about strongly flavoured liver but this is so cleverly done as to reduce the strong liver taste. The peaches are a wonderful complement to it and are dressed with coriander. Even my husband, skittish with organs, is blissful eating this.

Petit fours

We’re too full for dessert, not used to eating this much for lunch although the desserts sound wonderful. We instead sip the Chateldon sparkling water, feeling just like Louis XIV and nibble on the delicious Petit Fours, sweet stewed candied orange slices and dark chocolate squares.

Napoleon’s Apartment, The Louvre

And speaking of over the top, I leave you with some photos of Napoleon’s apartment at the Louvre. A little over the top, but I’d say yes to that Dining Room any day!

Napoleon’s Dining Room, The Louvre

Napoleon’s Dining Room, The Louvre

Drouant

16 Rue Gaillon, 2nd arrondisement (8 minutes walk from the Louvre)
Open: Monday to Sunday 12-3pm, 7pm – Midnight
http://www.drouant.com

After an afternoon at the Louvre, the only possible thing we are in any shape to do is walk a little down the road from the hotel for dinner. You see, our eyes were bigger than our brains so we thought that we could see everything that we wanted to although we did see the Mona Lisa (along with it seems half of Paris), Vermeer’s “The Lacemaker”, Michaelangelo’s sculptures and Napoleon III’s apartment (crazy gorgeous, especially the dining room). So we stumbled down the road from our hotel and that’s where we were welcomed warmly at Le Mesturet, a bistro serving traditional French food. It seems they’re used to overseas visitors, they ask us where we’re from and then smiling, hand us English menus. I get the feeling that they have a stash of other menus in a variety of languages.

Menu

For dinner, they have a menu formule: 2 courses for €19.50 or 3 courses for €25.50 and one is allowed to choose any of the dishes from the menu. We ask what is good and they point out what they’re known for. It’s hard to choose but we finally settle on the our selections, one that has our host worried, the Calves’ head. “Have you tried this before?” he asks hesitatingly. “No but we want to” we answer firmly. He laughs and says “Well I love this, it’s very good. It’s a Parisian only dish. Most chefs in Paris come from from all over but this one is originally from Paris itself. Tell me if you don’t like it though”. We promise to.

Amuse Bouche-pork and egg omelette

We pop in some of the complimentary appetisers, a pork and egg omelette. It’s tasty, and we’re glad that we tried this as other tables received olives. The crunchy French bread arrives just before our entrees do.

House specialty: grilled eggplant, tomato and goat’s cheese from Artisanal cheesemaker Lethielleux

The eggplant salad is enormous for a starter and our eyes widen when it approaches the table. The eggplant is soft and the tomato and goat’s cheese good although this is a fairly safe dish and similar to one that we’ve had at home often.

Slowly simmered rabbit terrine

The rabbit terrine is lovely, full of rabbit meat and delicious with the toasted baguette. It doesn’t have that strong rabbit smell which I dislike and I am glad that we ordered this.

Slow cooked duck from the Jeansarthe farm, shredded, topped with a layer of puréed potato

The shredded duck “pie” topped with mashed potato is lovely and heady with a judicious amount of red wine added to it. We often find that red wine is often abused and overused in cooking but this has just the right amount added to it.

Tête de veau (calves’ head)

And of course the dish that you’ve been wanting to know about, the Tête de veau is soft and unctuous, simmered until fall apart soft. The meat and soft jelly like ring of fat is mild tasting and when the cornichon remoulade added, gives it that added extra. It’s said to be a favourite dish of Jacques Chirac and takes about 5 hours to cook and must be fully cooked (never undercooked) and allowed to cool completely once it has finished cooking, otherwise it will explode.

We desperately wanted to order the Baked Apricot and lavender dessert with violet ice cream but they’re out of Violet ice cream which was the component that really intrigued me. No matter anyway, we’re both stuffed from the delicious meal and hearty serves. We’re given a friendly farewell, if only we lived locally (we don’t!) this would be our local restaurant.

Le Mesturet

77 Rue de Richileu, 2nd arrondisement Paris
Open: Monday – Saturday 12pm-3pm, 7-10.30pm

I know that I’m basing a whole story on a single ice cream. But it’s no ordinary ice cream, believe me on this. It’s from Berthillon, a famed luxury ice cream maker whose flagship store is on my favourite place of all in Paris, the Île St Louis. This small connected island boasts some of the prettiest shops and streets, it’s like walking in a movie set. It seems that shopkeepers here have not been bitten by the rude bug like many others in Paris. Or maybe I’m so in love with the area that I don’t even notice. Berthillon is so good that they incredibly, shut their shop for 2 weeks in August during Summer and are closed on Mondays, although you can buy their ice cream from several stores on the Île Saint Louis and elsewhere that proudly display the Berthillon logo.

I will confess now that I am not a huge ice cream lover. Actually let me be more specific, I love ice cream but can only eat at best 1/4 or 1/3 of a scoop. Something stops me and I think “No, that’s enough”. That can probably save me from a future of obesity (ok my pastry addiction cancels that safety net out). But at Berthillon I can eat the whole thing and I do – selfishly.

The line of course is long for the ice creams here. It’s no secret that their ice creams are wonderful. What is especially wonderful is that a flavour tastes of theirs always tastes so strongly, intensely and unmistakably like that exact flavour. Case in point is Pistachio: I once tried their Pistachio ice cream and it has ruined me for life. I tried one in Sydney at a supposedly fantastic ice cream shop only to be bitterly disappointed. You see it wasn’t even vaguely Pistachioey enough. Berthillon’s is unashamedly full of flavour, if someone served you a scoop of any of their ice creams and didn’t tell you the flavour, you’d guess it within the first blissful lick.

Abricot and Pistache ice cream double cornet €4.20

I choose a double scoop, one scoop of Pistachio and one scoop of Apricot. A single cornet is €3, a double €4.20, a triple €6 and a quadruple €8. The apricot sends me into raptures, it’s sweet true Apricot flavour sings through every single lick of this delicious ice cream. The pistachio, a pale green hue, not one of those lurid strong greens, is voluptuously creamy and so nutty it’s a complete delight as always.

Things this deep and intense should come with a warning label.

Range of cheeses in a shop on the Île St Louis

How cute are these umbrellas?

I think this shopkeeper is tired of people dripping Bethillon everywhere!

Berthillon

31 Rue St.-Louis-en-l’Ile Paris
Tel: 33-1-43-54-31-61