I recently visited Paris with a friend and we decided that we wanted a really nice meal on our last night. We wanted somewhere near the Eiffel Tower as we wanted to see this lit up at night, although we knew the prices would be higher in this area. We looked in the guide book and read about the Café Constant, it looked pretty good so we decided to try it out.
LOCATION:
The restaurant is located at 139 rue St Dominique, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. It is within easy walking distance of the Eiffel Tower and the nearest metro station is Ecole Militaire or La Tour Maubourg.
THE IDEA:
Café Constant is run by Christian
Constant who is a Michelin starred French chef. He owns a few places and the Café Constant is designed to give good food at relatively good prices.
THE EXPERIENCE:
We arrived at the restaurant at about 8pm on a Friday evening. The café was fairly busy but we were seated straight away. Downstairs there was a bar with a few tables and upstairs there were more tables. The restaurant doesn’t hold a huge number of people but they do seem to do a number of seatings and as it was France there were plenty of people just coming in to eat as we left as about 10pm.
We sat upstairs. There were about 12 tables. The tables were all very close together as the restaurant is very small so it is not an ideal place if you want a private conversation.
The menus at the Café Constant are written on chalk boards. Each table is given one board. I like this idea – it looked really effective, although it did mean that one person had to hold the board while everyone else decided. They have the menu in English as well as French which was really good as most places don’t do this (which is fair enough – we were in France!) but our limited French would not have extended to translating some of the fancy ingredients on the menu here!
The waiters were excellent in the restaurant. Our main waiter was actually from Britain. They were all very polite and attentive although there was one that didn’t speak any English so be prepared to remember some school French if you can!
For my starter I chose the asparagus and my friend had the lobster ravioli. Mine was asparagus in a cream and basil sauce with a poached egg and croutons. I can honestly say that it was one of the most delicious starters I’ve ever eaten. Everything was perfectly cooked and seasoned. My only slight niggle was that it wasn’t quite enough. My friend was also very impressed with her starter, especially that there were really good sized pieces of lobster in it.
For the main course we both chose the beef. This was a piece of beef cooked with a sort of jus and served with mashed potatoes. Again this was absolutely delicious. No complaints about the temperature this time. The beef was really tender and perfectly cooked. For dessert my friend had the rice pudding and I had the apple tart. The rice pudding was cold which I personally couldn’t have stomached but she said it was wonderful. My tart was gorgeous, it came with caramel drizzled on it and vanilla ice cream ( which I’m not keen on but the waiter brought me out some cream separately). The ice cream looked lovely and you could see that it had been made with proper vanilla.
We were hugely impressed with out meals. We left feeling full but not over-filled and happy with everything. The menu had lots of other dishes available. Starters included Foie Gras and artichoke and mushroom salad. Mains included chicken, lamb and duck and desserts included profiteroles, crème caramel and cheeses. There definitely wasn’t a huge choice for vegetarians but this seems to be standard in France.
PRICES:
We ordered from the set price menu (I’m not sure if there’s another, this was the only one we saw). Starters were all €11, mains €15 and desserts €7. Our meal of 3 courses each, a half litre of red wine for my friend and a beer for me came to €40 for me and €45 for her with a tip included. This is more than I would normally pay for a meal out but when in Rome…..(oh, I appear to have been in Paris….same rules!!??). For the standard of food and the amount it wasn’t too bad and it was a special meal so we didn’t mind too much.
CONCLUSION:
This restaurant definitely ranks as one of the best meals I’ve had in a long time. I would highly recommend it as the food was excellent and so was the service. The atmosphere was good as well. The prices are quite high but for the quality of food in the location you can’t really do better. I’ll definitely return next time I’m in Paris.
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