Weekend Cooking/Paris in July: A lunch in Paris

This time six months ago we were in Paris, having spent Christmas in the Netherlands, some time travelling around Northern France, and then we were heading off to Southern Italy and Singapore. I have already shared about a couple of the memorable meals that we had while on our trip, including a fabulous New Year's Eve dinner at Mont St Michel and dinner at the Jules Verne restaurant at the Eiffel Tower. I didn't post about all of them as I wanted to save those for this Paris in July event, so I will have a couple more over the next couple of weeks.

Did you know that you can eat at Michelin star restaurants in Paris for really quite reasonable prices by eating set menus at lunch time. I found out by following an author who visited Paris and had a few of these lunches.  The idea is not dissimilar to the tourist menus that you see everywhere in France. You have a couple of options for starters, lunch and dessert and you can choose if you want two courses or three for a set price. 

As soon as I heard about it, I definitely knew I was interested but I wasn't quite sure how we were going to find a Michelin star restaurant. I am sure that there must be an app or something. In the end I needn't have worried. It turns out that you just walk out of your hotel, cross the road and voila! There was one directly across the road from our hotel. We did have to sit at the bar because they didn't have any tables left but I was still very happy with that.


So, here are some pictures from our lunch at Le Sergent Recruteur on Ile St Louis. All up it cost us 49€ each plus wine. I am not suggesting it is a cheap lunch that you would do every day but as a once off on a trip to Paris, we loved it. It's definitely more affordable than doing a three course meal for dinner! We  also didn't need a big dinner so it works itself out really.

In Australia, you tend to get one serving of bread and that's it, whereas this delicious bread just kept on coming. And the salted butter....so good.

We did have an amuse bouche but I can't remember what it was and I didn't take a clear photo of it. I think it was a kind of crab dip with some bread! 

For my starter I had the Leek cooked slowly over a flame, smoked eel, mussel, mimosa vinaigrette, with citrus fruits, honey and ginger.

My husband had Royal of duck foie gras, daikon radish and mushroom in a watercress cream as his starter

We both had Pearly haddock with sea fennel steam, sweet onion pissaladiere, light mousseline of charlotte potatoes

Dessert of the day was a totally delicious peanut tart. I am not normally a fan of peanuts but this was so good! 

And our final little tempting treat were these mini chocolate tarts.

As I was putting this post together, my husband and I were talking about this lunch and we both agreed that next time we go to Paris we will definitely do this kind of Michelin star restaurant lunch again.

I am sharing this post as part of Weekend Cooking, but also as part of Paris in July, hosted at Words and Peace.

Weekly meals

Saturday -  Roast pork, baby potatoes with soy glaze, broccoli

Sunday -  Chicken curry and rice

Monday -  Steak, baby potatoes, beans

Tuesday - Zucchini Risotto

Wednesday - Pressure cooker spag bol

Thursday - Kimchi fried rice

Friday - Ravioli

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page