TLDR: Le Cinq was a total disappointment, along with Le Violon. After these two dinners we lost all excitement for fine dining in Paris and almost wanted to cancel our reservation at Le Gabriel. Thank goodness we did not, this meal absolutely restored faith in Paris fine dining, it was superb. All photos are of Le Gabriel since I lost inspiration to keep taking photos at the other two.
Le Cinq (***): the food was lackluster at best, and absurdly overpriced ($750 USD/person pre-drinks). I will say the service was A+. The front of house staff was highly attentive (almost too attentive, we felt like we were under surveillance), and the amount of employees is shockingly high. The servers were considerate and had good personalities. However, I don’t go to a restaurant just for good service. The ambiance was very dated and stuffy. The food was not great. Most dishes were bland and boring. The highlight was the peas (yes, peas). Nothing wow-ed us and there was a lack of innovation. However, the desserts were very very good but I don’t go to a fine dining restaurant just for the desserts. We kept waiting for things to turn around and for the next course to astound us, which never happened. Maybe half of the dishes were good but not impressive. I even stopped taking photos of the courses half way through the meal because I just didn’t care about them anymore. This place has extremely positive reviews especially on this subreddit so I just wanted to provide my differing opinion for those on the fence about dining here. Would not recommend and would not go back.
Le Violon (*): I was originally going to exclude this from the review since I wouldn’t categorize it as fine dining, but I saw another post about it in this subreddit which had good reviews so I want to give an alternate opinion. We dined here without a reservation. The ambiance is awful, fluorescent lighting that feels like an office, above the tables are overhead luggage storage racks you see on a train, and the worst offense was the fact that the wine room is literally inside of the bathroom with no partition (seemingly unsanitary). The general vibe of the restaurant was total chaos, with servers running around with their heads cut off. As for the food, again we left very unimpressed. We would have rather just gone to a random French bistro on the street and likely had better food and ambiance.
Le Gabriel (***): WOW this may have been the best meal of our life. Every dish was so unique and innovative and was a journey for the taste buds. After our uninspired meal at Le Cinq, I was leaning towards trying their international tasting menu in lieu of the French tasting menu so that way we could have something special and not boring. However, the server suggested the French menu which we did not regret. We opted for the 9 course instead of the 7 course. While this was too much food for me and I had to regrettably leave the ladder courses half eaten, I’m glad we got it because the two additional courses (octopus and langostine) were two of the best ones. Every dish was a unique combination of flavors we have never tried together before. Even with the French menu, there is slight Asian influence which we appreciated. The ambiance was beautiful, elegant, modern and calm. The wait staff was attentive but not overbearing. I could not recommend this place enough. My only complaint was that we were uncomfortably full on the walk home haha.
by buffy575