Through a succession of different owners and chefs, Chardenoux, now known as Le Chardenoux, has been part of my life in Paris for thirty years. Now this storied old bistro has been rebooted as a fashion-forward restaurant redesigned and redecorated to attract a trendy crowd of younger Parisians. For all intents and purposes, it’s basically become an entirely new restaurant.
This is actually the second revision of this address within the past five years, since chef Cyril Lignac gave it a freshening up and added a fleet of contemporary French dishes to the traditional menu of bistro classics when he originally took it over in 2014. You can read what I thought about this first reboot of what had always been one of my favorite Paris restaurants here: CHARDENOUX, Paris-An Eternally Charming Bistro, B+
On my way to dinner at the new version of Le Chardenoux, I found myself thinking about how restaurants can offer a very intimate reflection of larger changes in the life of any city. My short take on the reset of this restaurant was that the 11th Arrondissement has gentrified so much that the previous version of Le Chardenoux probably wasn’t doing the business that Lignac wanted anymore, and so he decided to completely pivot away from the bistro formula towards a fashion-driven table that would appeal to twenty-and-thirty something Parisians. This tribe isn’t especially attracted to traditional bistro cooking, which explains the new seafood centered menu, which also has a burger and sate chicken for non fish eaters. In their eyes, the Belle Epoque style of the restaurant’s dining room probably also reads more as just plain old rather than charming, hence the new decor by trendy London based interior designer Martin Brudnizki.
Even before Brudnizki got to work, this was already one of the prettiest restaurants in Paris, with a big zinc bar just inside the front door and beautiful and very delicate Belle Epoque floral moulding on the ceiling. Happily, these elements have survived some rather radical Miami Beach style cosmetic surgery, but the serene elegance of the decor has given way to a decor that’s meant to look good in Instagrams. Brudnizki filled the previously empty ceiling medallions with busy murals of trees branches and also added some ornate not correctly scaled Baroque chandeliers and a patterned floor that replaced the original workaday tile. He also added some plump ribbed oversized velvet banquettes and a dimmer switch or two to create a sort of louche lounge atmosphere in the evening. If you didn’t know the restaurant before, it’s pretty. If you did, it’s sort of like Charlotte Rampling has morphed into Kim Kardashian.
Cyril Lignac is a consummate culinary professional, so the food here is good. The menu is divided between three subheads–Shellfish & Crustaceans, Raw & Marinated and Sea & Land, along with a short selection of desserts. Coming for dinner with Bruno, we began with Utah Beach oysters served with small chipolata sausages–a delicious combination, like they do in Bordeaux for me and sea bass carpaccio with olive oil, lemon juice and pink pepper corns for Bruno. Both dishes were well-prepared and attractively presented, but I also couldn’t help but thinking that the new menu requires a lot less cooking time and culinary effort than the one it replaced. In other words, these are simple, high turnover items that an only marginally trained kitchen staffer could easily be trained to make. The bottomline, of course, is that more elaborate cooking is time-consuming, and so expensive.
Judging from the crowd in the dining room, Martin Brudnizki’s decor as bait is having the desired effect. The other diners were young, and there were a lot of logo designer handbags in evidence, which created a see-and-be-seen atmosphere more like what you find at the Hotel Costes dining room or similarly trendy Paris restaurants such as Monsieur Bleu or Le Girafe than a bistro. Since night clubs have almost become extinct in Paris, restaurants have filled the gap as the main venue for socializing among the city’s bright young things.
My langoustine ravioli with cabbage in a spiced bouillon was pleasant as a main course, as was Bruno’s salmon in Thai (lemongrass and lime leaves) bouillon with cockles. Again, both dishes were nicely prepared and plated, and shrewdly conceived to appeal to the new demographic the restaurant is courting. Other options included a lobster roll, which look rather skimpy on a neighboring table for 27 Euros, deep-fried strips of sole with aubergine tempura, sea bass baked in a crust of salt for two at an eye-watering 90 Euros, and scallops with Jerusalem artichokes, black truffles and dark rum.
The dessert not to miss is the excellent vanilla-cream-filled praline-pecan millefeuille, which is made in Lignac’s very good patisserie just across the street.
The new Le Chardenoux is a pleasant restaurant, which is usefully open daily, but I still felt slightly wistful at the end of my meal here. Why? These days I can get a lobster roll at lots of other places in Paris, but it’s increasingly difficult to find a dish like the beautifully made navarin d’agneau I ate the last time I came here. Economic globalization is getting some blowback these days, but food trends have never been more international.
All photos by Thomas Dhellemmes
1 rue Jules Vallès, 11th Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01-43-71-49-52. Metro: Charonne or Faideherbe-Chaligny. Open daily for lunch and dinner. www.restaurantlechardenoux.com. Average a la carte 60 Euros www.restaurantlechardenoux.com
The post Le Chardenoux, Paris | An Old Timer Gets a Major Lift, B- appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.