Le Cinq Restaurant Review, Paris, France

Reviewer: Foodnut.com Le Cinq 31, avenue George V, Champs-Élysées 75008 Paris, France, CA 33 (0) 1 49 52 70 00 33 (0) 1 49 52 70 10 (Fax) Le Cinq Website

Le Cinq is a famous two Michelin star restaurant in the Four Seasons George V Hotel in Paris, right near the Champs-Élysées. The restaurant had earned 3 Michelin stars in the past. Eric Briffard, formerly of Paris’ Les Elysées has been head chef since 2008. He is known for dishes with a precision of flavors. They serve classic French Haute cuisine using classic French culinary techniques. Le Cinq embraces newer, lighter cooking styles, and always incorporates the freshest regional ingredients. Le Cinq serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner and has been open since 1999. A la Carte as well as two prix fixe menus (160, 230€) are available at dinner. We choose the cheaper Decouverte Gourmande Summer Menu de l’ete. (160€)

Decor, Vibe – Grand room with elegant chandeliers, massive flower arrangements, majestic decor, old paintings, and exquisite room detail. Awesome dessert cart positioned right near the front door. Beautiful views of the Hotel’s courtyard and garden. Tablecloths, china and silver are all custom made. Dimly lit, romantic lighting. Tables have were nicely spaced to give diners more privacy. Diners included some well dressed locals and many hotel guests from around the world. Michael Caine was dining when we were there.

Menu Pictures (Click to zoom into any picture)

Website Menu – Full Picture Menu Set

Amuse Bouche of Fried Calamari. Seemed unusual for Paris. Excellent quality and incredible amounts of it too.

Amuse Bouche of Avocado puree with tomato, topped with poprocks. Two little tartletes topped with tomato, and leak, onion, peas.

Freshly Bake Breads

Incredibly excellent bread and butter with seaweed. French butter is light years ahead of American butter.

Picks:

Enfant Creme de velaille (7€) – Kid’s Cream Chicken soup had heavy chicken flavor and was fairly creamy. A Very good soup.

Enfant Potage de legumes mixes (7) – Kids Vegetable soup was served to the kids like royalty. This soup was excellent, even better than the chicken soup.

Enfant Penne a la tomate et au basilic (9) – Kid’s Penne with tomato sauce and basil was a top notch simple pasta.

Enfant Des de cabillaud, risette aux esperges (16) – Kid’s Back of cod, asparagus risotto both were very good. Start those foodie kids early.

Enfant Selection de glaces et sorbets aux fruits (8) – Three kinds of freshly made fruit sorbet. Beautiful and very good quality.

Mojito (24€) was tall and excellent. Very strong and lots of muddled mint. The most expensive cocktail we have ordered.. ouch

Tomato Sorbet

Millefeuille

Dry Ice Video

Tomates De provence en millefeuille – Tomatoes from the Provence region as a “Millefeuille” (layered pastry) with almonds, raw shrimp, tomato sorbet, lemon – rosemary puff pastry brioche was excellent and a complex multi layered treat. It included a fun dry ice side dish with almonds, and a tomato cleanser with almond whip.

Foie Gras de canard des landes – Fresh sauteed duck foe gras from the Landes region, roasted with black Sarawak pepper, braised rhubarb, Mura des bois strawberries with elderberry juice was simply excellent. The best Foie we’ve had to date, and we’ve eaten a ton of them. Huge piece that really went well with the decorative strawberry foam and the excellent bread they serve. Must get for Foie fans.

Pre Dessert – Basil lime sorbet and strawberry mousse was a light cleanser that helped ready our taste buds for dessert.

Fraisier Minute Facon George V – Strawberry granita, ice tart with Pistachio ice cream was excellent. The ice cream was very smooth and creamy, contrasting well with the lighter granita and strawberries below.

OK:

Char fish

Omble Chevalier de source – Char from the “Des Plans”, menuiere style with garden herbs, braised chantrelle, periwinkles, bergonol sabayon was only an ok dish, not excellent. It looks great, fresh fish, and was cooked fine, but we not sense any specialness or delicacy.

Lapereau du poitou – Young Rabbit with rib loin, leg quarter from the Pomtou region – cooked with squids and razor clams from the Galier region, preserved vegetables bouquet was fair. Sauce was heavy, rabbit over cooked, and the seafood – rabbit combo just did not work. We should have gotten lamb instead.

Pans:
None

Let’s Start with Dessert

Noughat

Mini Cakes

Cakes

Chocolates, Macaroons

Petit fours, chocolate candy, nougat, rocky road candies, strawberry and more. Excellent but overwhelming selection. The pictures speak for themselves.

Candy to go

Service was top notch, some of the best around. The friendly servers spoke English and treated us like royalty without standing over us. The lower priced prix fixe menu produced a good value and was filling, no need to order a la carte. Even though we had some clinkers entrees, we would still recommend this restaurant. It is a good introduction to high end French dining.

Over 50,000 bottles of wine are available at high markups, glasses from 19€. Le Cinq has a very reasonable lunch menu (85€) as do many other high end restaurants. Book at least a month in advance, email booking works.
English is on the menu. Children’s menu is available for kids on their best behaviour. Metro: George V

Restaurant Map: