I recently got some great suggestions from this sub for my trip to London and Paris. I plan to do a write up of the full trip, but wanted to do separate posts for a few standouts and/or places that haven’t had a detailed review lately. I was very excited for dinner at Septime, my first tasting in Paris, and am sorry to report it was pretty underwhelming.

The food wasn’t bad by any means. Every dish had something about it I liked, and a couple of them I liked a lot. But most of the dishes fell short of that satisfying hit of a good dish, let alone the “wow” of a great one. Some of the dishes were incredibly salty, the sauces in particular, which I know was meant to add flavor to less flavorful ingredients, but that doesn’t result in a balanced dish if the flavor isn’t there by other means, especially if composing anything less than the perfect bite results in an unpleasant mouthful.

But my biggest issue was with the progression of the meal. I’m always glad to have small courses and more veg during a tasting, but the meal didn’t feel substantial enough, not just in amount of food, but in terms of bringing enough flavor and satisfaction to the table. There were three veg courses that felt like each could have been a light little throwaway course to help transition between canapés and more substantive courses; that’s too many, out of seven, of which two are dessert. I have no problem with this many veg dishes per se, but I couldn’t help comparing them unfavorably to a ceps and celery small plate I’d had at Frenchie Bar à Vins the night before, which I thought was tastier and more interesting than any of the seven dishes I had at Septime. I have a relatively small appetite, and this is the first time in my life I have ever left a tasting contemplating going out for a second dinner; the only reason I didn’t was because I had another reservation the next night (at Amâlia, which was so much better that it assured me my experience at Septime was not just my taste being off).

The service was fine but left me a bit cold, particularly compared to the meals I had later in Paris (Amâlia, Alliance, Le Rigmarole). I should note I was a solo diner, and the tables around me did seem to get more attention and a warmer service. If I were to go again, I would probably just got for one of the walk in bar seats instead of getting a reservation.

What I ate:

Cabbage broth with brown butter (not pictured): tasty, too salty but forgivable to me because of the depth of flavor (which I didn’t find to be the case with subsequent dishes)

Bread sticks with kimchi salt: fine, but it was hard to get the sauce to stick to the breadstick

Scallops from Normandie, cured with kombu, juice of heritage squash, fig leaf oil, sage, gooseberry, carrot: tasty, fun, interesting

Mushroom veloute with whole mushrooms, pine sabayon, walnut oil: fine but the velouté itself was too salty; it was good in small amounts with the mushrooms and bread, but difficult to eat otherwise

Celeriac, seaweed butter, grape: another dish that was fine; first bite was too salty, second bite was underseasoned, more pleasant afterwards; the most interesting and tasty of the three veg dishes, but I would have appreciated it more if not served after the velouté

Cauliflower, dehydrated caper leaves, lemongrass: if I hadn’t been keeping count, I would have been shocked for this to be the second to last savory course; the most underwhelming of the three vegetable courses, not unpleasant to eat by any means, but it’s just a piece of cauliflower that really hasn’t been transformed or elevated in any way; I’ve had cauliflower as tasty or better as a side at many a garden variety casual restaurant

Roasted pigeon, anchovy, fermented plum sauce; on the side, tostada with pigeon ragout: my favorite dish of the night, perfectly cooked and very tasty, though still, nothing more interesting than a well-executed protein with a nice sauce; the tostada was a welcome addition since I was really craving more substantial bites

Clementine, fermented red fruits, verbena oil: a pleasant predessert palate cleanser, like an elevated fruit salad

Chocolate sorbet, smoked paprika oil (sorry, took a bite before I remembered to take a photo): I’m admittedly not a fan of chocolate sorbet, so hard to assess this usefully, but I would have expected something a little more here, as this felt like a step down from the predessert

Vanilla cake petit four (not pictured): this was nice, I would have taken two or three of these instead of both desserts

by arianrh

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