What a disappointment. My experience at Pierre et Jean can be summed up in three words: sweet,…read morebitter, and pretentious.
The kitchen smells were amazing, and the whitewashed/wooden/modern loft vibe made this Michelin starred restaurant appealing to the layperson. We sat upstairs where the smells wafted up and tickled our noses, where we felt removed from the buzz yet able to look down on everything. I had high hopes.
My hopes were still high when our apéritifs arrived with amuse-bouches to whet the appetite. I ordered the house cocktail, a sparkling wine with dark cherry syrup and a hint of gin. There was no hint of gin whatsoever, and I could barely taste the cherry. The amuse-bouches, I will say, were tasty. The wine, a red Pernand-Vergelesses chosen by our talented chef friends, was great.
Things really started going downhill when the starters arrived. It was here we started to notice that the dishes were more pretentious and pretty than mouthwateringly delicious. What better way to test the skills of a renowned chef than to try something traditional and simple: the pâté en croûte. Here it was simple and good, nothing exceptional. I probably could have had the same thing at a local bistro for half the price. I tried my girlfriend's poached egg, which was probably the best choice out of all the appetizers, but the caramelized shallots overpowered it all the same. Her husband had the escargots which were, he said, "Fine."
At the beginning of our meal, we saw what we thought was the rabbit at a table across the way, and I settled on that. It turns out that what had looked so good (I stress the "look," because at this point I'm not sure it would have tasted amazing), was actually the roast pigeon. My rabbit was rolled up in a thick layer of fat with tasteless chanterelle mushrooms, sweet potato, and a small brioche in the center of the plate, all slathered in a sweet reduction. Too sweet, too artsy on the plate, and not at all satisfying. I ate all but the fat, but my chef friend, who had ordered this as well, couldn't bring himself to finish it.
Something happened in the kitchen, delaying our desserts, so the chef offered us a sweet treat in the interim. It was creamy, it was cold, and it was bitter like marmalade. I'm not sure what it was, but it did come with a creamy peanut ice cream that was pretty tasty. To be honest, I wouldn't have noticed the delayed desserts--they arrived immediately after this sweet and bitter interruption, not long after we had surrendered our main plates. The dessert I ordered, which I was told would be intriguing and refreshing, was indeed both intriguing and refreshing: poached pineapple with lemongrass ice cream and coffee cream. It didn't work well together, as you might expect. I ate the bits of cold coffee cream and then passed it on to someone else to finish. I should have known better. I'm not a dessert person, anyway.
I don't think this was a simple case of my friend talking this place up and having dashed hopes. The food was just not great, and certainly not worth the price at 50€ a head.
