Cuisine:

• Diner
• Fine Dining
• French

Senderens Description:
Opened by renowned chef Alain Senderens in 2005, this restaurant offers an a la carte nouvelle menu with an asiatic twist. Specialties include roast duck with spiced honey, vanilla-scented lobster, veal and langoustine tartar, pan-fried rabbit foie gras and semi-smoked salmon.
The Art Nouveau decor includes some interesting carved wood panelling and sculpted bronze wall lamps.
A name change (Lucas Carton became Alain Senderens) and a new style usher in a new beginning for Senderens. On your plate you'll find Moroccan style sardines (yes, they're on the menu!) with strong notes of cumin, while a simultaneously served gazpacho is tempered by a garnish of tomatoes and pesto. Cèpe mushrooms prepared three ways (raw, with a poached egg) are innovative as is the veal tartare. Langoustines with rice noodles, a truly inventive preparation, is certainly destined to become a permanent fixture. Scottish salmon lightly smoked is brazenly served with a fiery, whiskey-diluted mineral water. The combination is surprisingly merry even, it must be said, with the side of ice-cold ribbons of Thai spiced cucumber that come with the dish. Roasted cod with a chorizo cream sauce suggests the Iberian Peninsula while the Javanese curried lamb with mango and lemongrass speaks of Asia. Just back from Shanghai, Alain Senderens imagined, some months ago, a pigeon stuffed with rice noodles, black mushrooms and ginger, first poached then deep fried. Today, the dish is made with Racan pigeon, crab meat and Qi Lan tea, reaching a perfect balance between flavor and texture. Monkfish and Spanish mussels in green curry is delightfully exotic. Farmouse Saint-Nectaire cheese and fine slices of raw cèpe mushrooms is redolent of the countryside. Desserts are the grand classics of the erstwhile Lucas Carton: chocolat soufflé, a savarin cake imbibed with punch, and a rose-perfumed macaron. Each dish is offered with its wine but without any obligation. Despite the redecoration of the dining room, the Majorelle-style Art Nouveau woodwork remains (thankfully) present, yet tables and chairs are in storage---no doubt one day they will be used again. For the moment, neither tablecloths nor porcelaine exhibit the slightest luster of luxury. Service falls a bit short of seamless. Upstairs a tapas bar and a sushi bar are scheduled to open soon. A la carte count on €70 (without wine). With suggested wines, around €100. A hefty sum, surely, but in light of the atmosphere and the context, it's an opportunity not to be missed.


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