We took a big family trip to Paris this month and stayed at the Park Hyatt. We did our best to…read moreexplore the city's incredible restaurants, but were relieved to get an easy dinner at Café Jeanne the night we arrived.
We were a party of nine with three small children who'd just spent about twenty hours in transit, and all we wanted was a relaxing place that would feed us. Thankfully, Café Jeanne was able to accommodate our group on the patio, which felt lovely and Parisian, and not just like the restaurant that happened to be in the lobby right across from the elevators.
Service was good, and the meal was pleasant, an al fresco 8:00 dinner with some much needed wine in summer sunlight. I had the beef tartare with all the fixings--capers and tarragon and onion and egg and mustard, I believe--and it hit the spot. I also had a snail with parsley butter, which wasn't bad, but wasn't the best snail I've eaten. I also tried a bite of the croque monsieur with Comté and smoked ham, which was satisfying but also a €35 ham and cheese.
One thing to note about the patio is that there's a very prominent ice cream trolley, which happened to be right by our table. Our children noticed, and so we had ice cream for dessert. This turned out to be a good thing. The Park Hyatt's pastry chef is a Korean woman named Narae Kim, who came down at some point during the dessert service. My parents were especially happy to meet a Korean world traveler doing cool things in Paris, and we all enjoyed some excellent ice cream--chocolate, pistachio, yogurt, and strawberry and English garden were among the flavors on offer, and each cup came with a caramelized Arlette wafer.
This was my only meal at Café Jeanne, though my husband and sundry family members made it down for breakfast, where the pastries were reportedly fantastic and kept my children more or less fed throughout our trip. It wasn't the most exciting place we ate at in Paris, but it served its purpose more than well enough.