When you read this blog regularly, you know that I adore the Paris museum Palais de Tokyo with all my heart. The ever-evolving Palais de Tokyo is an exciting 22.000 m2 anti-museum par excellence that hosts since 2002 the most fabulous exhibitions of contemporary art in Europe.
No need to say that we visit it on regular bases. . (more about a recent visit of the INSIDE exhibition in the following blogpost)
Usually, we try to have lunch at Tokyo Eat, the noisy but still-cool-after- 12-years museum restaurant of Palais de Tokyo.
But as we love to try new things and this one has been on my ‘want to visit list’, we made finally a reservation at Monsieur Bleu.
Monsieur Bleu is located in the Palais’ new wing, perched right on the quays of the Seine and blessed with an unrivaled view of the Eiffel Tower. You can enter the restaurant from the Seine-side, but if you’re nice to the doorkeeper, you can have access trough a secret mirror wall door in the museum itself.
So what about this long expected Monsieur Bleu experience?
I will be brief about it: its’ irresistible!
The interior I call sophisticated timeless, understated elegant and above all, chic. But no worries, nevertheless Monsieur Bleu shows of it’s class, you’re very welcome after or during your museum visit. We lunched together with friends & children and thanks to the excellent, good looking and über friendly staff we felt very welcome. (Sometimes not that easy in Paris sometimes.)
And the food…. Waw! Benjamin Masson, formerly chef of the exquisite Parisian restaurant ‘Petrus’, carefully designed a diverse menu where ‘traditional’ dishes are in perfect harmony alongside ‘international flavors of exception’. The bar menu is created in collaboration with Alix Lacloche.
We had linguine homard ( delicieux), langoustines rôties with artichauts and an ‘émulsion au curry’ (even more delicious and a must eat again dish), ‘nems vietnamiens’, ‘pavé au turbot’ with clams and mussels and tuna ‘mi cuit pavot sésame’, avocado, cucumber and young spinach…Prepared with perfection, full of flavor and super fresh ingredients. As we love and to be honest, as it should be.
But the best was yet to come. Although I am not a real dessert lover, we saw some desserts passing by we could not resist.
The meringue with raspberries and vanilla ice was to die for and the vertical built up ‘millefeuille’ with custard cream, whipped mascarpone and pistachio was a real masterpiece, architectural and taste wise.
We loved Monsieur Bleu, and this will become for sure one of my favorite spots in Paris for lunch, but we’ll try it again this summer, on the terrace along the Seine.
Wonderful.
Kate
Opening hours :
Everyday from 12pm to 2am
T. (+33) 1 47 20 90 47
monsieur@monsieurbleu.com
Terrace open from May to September
A la carte between 30€ and 50€
Valet parking service: 20, avenue de New York 75116 Paris
©ALL photos by Kate Stockman_THE SQUID STORIES