Magic in La Cordonnerie

If you ever go to Paris, go to La Cordonnerie (20, rue St-Roch, Paris 75001, France ). Here are some tripadvisor reviews - this is where we found out about it, looking for a restaurant close to where we were staying.

In my opinion, La Cordonnerie is outstanding in style, setup, quality, taste, and the art going into each dish. We had a table right next to the chef and his surprisingly tiny kitchen. He told us a little about the daily specials while chopping chives and onions, and when he had more time, came to our table to explain each dish, with emphasis on the specials, and showed the ingredients, and, whenever he had something plated for another table, the final piece.

We decided to try them all - three starters, two entrees:
- Smoked salmon mousse in crispy fried crepes -
- Arugula salad with fried mushrooms (Girolles, similar to chanterelles)
- Pan-fried foie gras with balsamic-cocoa happiness
- Seaered scallops in tarragon sauce with couscous and green beans
- veal stew in mustard sauce with potatoe gratin and pinto beans
All of these dishes had a combination of textures and flavors that made them very exciting and memorable. The most impressive was the crema di balsamico with cocoa surrounding the foie gras - for me the most unexpected combination and amazingly good. The scallops were seared to almost crispy caramelization on one side, much more than we would have thought possible, but tender and perfect inside, and wonderfully tasty with their tarragon sauce.

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The really unusual thing was that although some of the combinations seemed at first thought odd to me (which I definitely go for..) they tasted so well together that it became entirely natural to think of them as made for each other. The combined tastes made perfectly sense.

I found another, really cool food blog telling about La Cordonnerie and chef Hugo - Angela experienced a different special (perch with tarragon) and has more pictures to show (the one on top is linked from that blog, actually..) - we were simply too perplexed and captivated by what we saw and smelled and tasted to even remember taking photos..
Go to Paris! And go have your perfect dinner!