Au Passage – Paris

You’d never discover Au Passage by chance. It’s down a dingy back alley barely wide enough for one vehicle, where all you can see are garage entrances, air-conditioning units and washing lines. It is well off the tourist trail. There are no other commercial properties. But when we found it, the restaurant was completely packed apart from the table we had reserved for lunch.

The lunch formula is exceedingly simple. They offer a starter, main, cheese and dessert for a mere 19 euros – less if you start omitting courses. To keep costs low, there is no choice at any stage apart from the main, and no quarter is given to vegetarians. We drank a pair of rustic wines from the Costières de Nîmes – a fat white, and a leathery, acidic red.

The one starter on offer when we were there was a tasty little salad of marinated mackerel with sweet white beets. We had one each of the two choices for main. A piece of barely done (and delicious) trout was served with cauliflower that had been marinated in lemon and oil, and a herby salad. A great dish – lovely elements, lovely combination. The other main was Tartare de boeuf coupé, a deconstructed steak tartare. The beef was coupé, that is, in chunks rather than mince, and all the ingredients came in neat little piles that we had to start by mixing – it felt rather like opening a child’s playset. I’m very partial to steak tartare, but whither this craze for deconstructed dishes? In this case at least, the supposed marginal benefit in customer interactivity with the dish (you mix it yourself – apparently that’s good) is totally offset by the loss of the two or so hours in which flavours of the dish could have been infusing with each other. Oh well.

Time was pressing on and I had a flight to catch. Lunch so far had been a bit slow as our orders seemed to have gotten caught up behind a large tranche of others going through the kitchen, so I couldn’t sample the St.Marcellin or the chocolate mousse.

Dinner is different from lunch – there are choices. Given the low prices and the stripped down décor (it’s close to anti-décor) I’m tempted to call Au Passage the Ryanair of fine dining, but that would be slanderous, as lunch here was an enjoyable experience.

1 bis Passage de Saint-Sebastian 75011