L’Atelier Etoile de Joel Robuchon, Paris

My first taste of Michelin starred food was at L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas a few years ago. Since then, I have been on a bit of a mission to visit other Robuchon restaurants, and have so far been to the one in London and Paris St Germain. Last weekend we went to Paris for a few days and managed to tick another one off the list, the recently opened L’Atelier Etoile de Joel Robuchon.

The restaurant was a bit of nightmare to find, at the top of the Champs Elysees but actually within a shop called the Drugstore. Down some steps within the store we came across the typical red and black design of Robuchon restaurants. Inspired by a sushi bar, diners are seated at a long bar around an open-style kitchen, so you can see your food being prepared. Despite not having a reservation, coats were taken and we were shown to some bar stools.



Amuse bouche

 Our pathetically limited French wasn’t too much of a disadvantage as our waiter spoke English and was happy to explain some of the options on the menu. Although there are traditional starters and mains, we decided to go with the tasting dishes – small plates of Robuchon creations!

An amuse bouche was brought out first – a shot glass with a jelly-like substance. I heard the waiter say something about fennel but the rest of the ingredients escaped me. No matter, it was delicious.

The first of my small plates was aubergine soup with a poached egg, mushrooms and small slices of ham. From the picture, you can see a mesh-like decoration in the middle – I am uncertain what this is but it looked good, and tasted good too! Although quite a mixed bag of a dish, all the flavours went well together.

We decided to share our next course. This was “Le Burger” Robuchon-style. The dish was actually split into two plates which was a nice touch. Le Burger is a tiny beef burger, topped with fois gras and bell peppers, in the smallest bun I have ever seen! It came with a side of crinkle cut fries and homemade ketchup. “Better than McDonalds?” the waiter enquired after we had demolished it. Just a bit.

My third and final plate was “La Caille” – quail stuffed with fois gras and the infamous Robuchon mash. I have heard different things about this mash, from it being a third butter to half butter. It is incredibly rich and creamy and you can’t eat much of it. But it is amazing!

We missed out dessert. Despite the portions being small, the food is very rich and it is surprising how full we felt.

The only mistake I made was ordering the wrong wine. I am not much of an expert on French wine, so ordered the cheapest. It was a Columbard/Sauvignon and it was awful. I replaced it with a glass of red because I think it is harder to get an undrinkable red wine.

So another wonderful experience was had at Joel Robuchon. It is not cheap, but then neither is Paris in general so it is well worth a visit. It is not stuffy or formal and we felt we were made very welcome with great service from the various servers. Outstanding.

Carriages, Knaresborough

The regular school friends’ lunch had a twist last Saturday as it was one of our number’s 40th birthday. A surprise lunch out in Knaresborough followed by some embarrassing karaoke in Leeds was planned down to the last minute, with transport generously provided by one of the husbands.* So four ladies and a husband piled into the Zafira and roared off up the A1 with two labradoodles in the back.
Carriages is a lovely cosy restaurant with a comfortable bar area and tables available in a few different rooms. There is a lunch menu and a tapas menu, so we decided to order some tapas and a bottle of Pinot.

Two tapas portions each seemed to be about right, but we also ordered a few extras – patatas bravas, olives and garlic bread.

Scallops and crab were served in a shell. A really generous serving of scallops, considering this was a tapas dish, and presented in a lovely creamy sauce.

I was keen to order the parma ham and quail egg salad and wasn’t disappointed. Tiny fried quail eggs complemented the ham and rocket leaves perfectly.

Cod pieces were served with pancetta and a creamy sauce on the side. 

Other dishes included huge green lipped mussels which were served with a tomato based sauce. A couple of vegetarian dishes were given the thumbs up by the non-carnivore in the group.

After lunch, we retired to the garden for our coffees – a covered area with a view of the valley. It almost felt like summer! The bill was provided promptly so we paid up and went to visit a few other Knaresborough hostelries.

Carriages is great – a lovely setting, great food and pleasant service. The evening menu was on a blackboard and looked wonderful. Maybe next time......

Side note: OK Karaoke in Leeds afterwards was a revelation. A private room, snacks and Pinot were provided and a massive selection of songs was available for us to systematically murder. Brilliant place.


*we are not practicing polygamists, this was H’s husband.

Brio, The Light, Leeds city centre

Brio is great if you are starving. I was starving as I had been up at the crack of dawn and not considered breakfast. So when I arrived at 12pm, I was determined to order a big bowl of pasta. I wasn’t disappointed – the Rigatoni Bolognese was a huge portion and generous on the meat Bolognese sauce. We also shared a side dish of garlic tomato bread which is excellent at Brio – a very thin base which is just how it should be.

Another plus is that they serve tea. I have decided that I don’t like soft drinks – fizzy pop and the like. If I am not on the wine, I would rather drink what I would drink at home – tea or coffee. So far this new plan is going well – the Roundhay Fox made tea for me, as did Brio.

This was a half term lunch with mum, sis and the nieces. Brio is a very family friendly place and lots of families were taking advantage of the children’s menu. It is not somewhere I would go to for a nice evening meal out, but for a hearty lunch during a shopping trip or before a visit to the Light’s cinema, it fits the bill.

My only criticism is that there was a bit of a “held-hostage” moment at the end. This is a Leeds Food Leads pet peeve. Despite mum practically waving the bill and her card in the air, and me pointedly standing up and putting my coat on, it took a while for someone to arrive and let us pay. Who knew it was so hard to part with your cash in Leeds?

Fazenda Rodizio Bar and Grill, Leeds city centre

After a few drinks in The Hop, we had a table booked at Fazenda for an early dinner on Saturday. On the website it says “a unique dining experience - we are proud to bring you all the tradition behind the unique and original Brazilian way of serving meat”. Walking through the doors, we were invited to have a drink at the bar before being shown to our table. Fazenda serves a nice bottle of Pinot Grigio.

We were seated in a booth, where we were told about the “Fazenda experience”. Basically, you get a card rather like a beer mat that is red on one side, green on the other. When you want meat, you turn the card to green and a server arrives with a large skewer of meat and proceeds to cut some off. Each diner is given a pair of tongs for taking the meat from the server. All sorts of choices appear - rump steak, ribs, lamb, pork, chicken and some salmon served from a trolley. When you want the meat to stop coming, you turn the card to red.

In addition to all this meat, there is a buffet with a huge choice of salads, including cous cous, coleslaw and potato. There are quite a few appetizer items as well, including sushi rolls (which I was not expecting but was very pleased to see!) The servers also brought other sides to the table including chips, cheese bread and empanadas.


The buffet!


For pudding, R had the Toffee pancakes, which looked great.

The place became busy pretty quickly, even though it was still early. I believe this would be a great place to go in a large group, as you would avoid the problem of waiting for everyone to be served, while your food goes cold, which seems to happen in some restaurants.

The Fazenda eating experience is not really me, though. I think I am a bit underwhelmed with buffets, as I have had my fill of those on our many trips to Vegas. I am also not a massive meat-eater. I eat meat often, but my eyes are never automatically drawn to steaks on a normal menu, and I don’t believe that lots of meat makes a meal that memorable.

In addition, I found it quite interesting that certain meats were coming thick and fast to the table, but there was no filet mignon to be seen, despite it being on the menu. After a few visits to our table with other meats, one of the servers quite abruptly asked us what we were waiting for. We said the filet, and finally it arrived.

Despite this, I am glad we went and tried it – I had seen it reviewed in a few places and it sounded like an interesting experience. It is definitely suitable for a more committed carnivore than for me.

Roundhay Fox, Roundhay, Leeds

Back to the Roundhay Fox for lunch last Saturday. Not as busy as a Sunday and so we easily got a table for six adults and two children. A and I shared a pot of tea in the bar while we waited for our dining companions and we were all shown to a table quickly when they arrived.
The menu is extensive and so I spent ages trying to decide. They have a set menu with a number of choices on for £8 for two courses, £10 for three, which is really good value. I decided to choose from the main menu though and settled for the sesame chicken starter that I had last time!

For main, I ordered homemade haddock fishcakes, which came with chips, side salad and a herb mayonnaise. The fishcakes were full of fish and very pleasant. Presentation is excellent.

I couldn’t manage a pudding, but SH ordered the Banoffee Cheesecake which looked amazing.

I am impressed with the Roundhay Fox. Second visit and still great. A step up from basic pub food in a really nice atmosphere.

Bird by Vineet, Alea Casino, Leeds

Another trip to the casino meant trying their other restaurant, Bird. A Lemon drop Martini in the bar before dinner needed to be sipped, not glugged, and I think I pulled it off. I am not used to delicate small drinks so I had to put the glass down between sips to ensure I didn’t neck it in seconds. It was a perfect drink to begin the evening.

A few rounds of Blackjack saw me twenty quid down, but A was about fifty up so thankfully saved my bacon and bought my dinner. Seated in Bird by nine, we were provided with menus along with poppadoms and dips.

Bird has quite an unusual Indian menu although some of the dishes were familiar.  Sarah T and I decided to share the Street Food selection for starter. This came served in cones, a brilliant presentation. It was made up of onion bhaji, paneer salad, mini samosas, Goan chicken wings and fish amritsari. This is a great sharing plate which I would really recommend – not too much to fill you up and gives you the opportunity to try different flavours.

The main courses were great and you can order them in half portions which are perfect for Indian food as too often, there is way too much and I end up needing to lie flat and nap. We ordered the Lamb Bhuna and Saffron Chicken Korma.

Steamed rice and keema nan on the side complemented the dishes perfectly and were great for mopping up the sauces.

Bird is a lovely restaurant and really good value. There are a few set menus you can have which looked like a great deal, but we wanted to try the a la carte. There were not many diners but perhaps it gets busy later when the gamblers have lost their shirts at the tables. We prefer to break up the gambling with a nice meal, and Bird fits the bill perfectly.

I read today that James Martin is opening up a restaurant in Alea soon. I can’t wait to try it when it does but really hope it is not replacing Bird.

Edit:  Turns out the James Martin restaurant will replace Fig, not Bird, and will be opening in March.  Can't wait!

The Bankhouse, Fulneck, Pudsey

A bit of a last minute decision to eat out on Saturday evening led us to the Bankhouse pub in Fulneck, Pudsey. After a long month with payday still a week away, we wanted some cheap and cheerful pub food.

The Bankhouse has a lovely beer garden with views over the Fulneck valley. In the summer, it is a fantastic place for sitting out and enjoying a leisurely pint. In January, however, you definitely need a seat inside so we booked a table for 7.30. (They don’t require reservations but it is a good idea as it gets busy, especially for Sunday lunch).

The pub is a lovely traditional pub and serves a good range of real ales. As we walked in, we had a bit of a wait at the bar as there were quite a few customers in. We let the bar staff know that we had booked and were pointed in the direction of the “restaurant bit” which is a small area to the right as you walk in the main entrance. We weren’t really shown to our table so we just figured out ourselves which one it was.

The menu is typical pub grub. We shared starters of deep fried brie and chicken dippers (we wanted the pate but it was off). For main, I had the lamb shank (one of the specials) which was served with bubble and squeak, leeks and peas. The Bankhouse is not mean with the gravy, thick and delicious and plenty of it! The lamb was tender and fell off the bone.

A had rib eye steak. He said it was okay but realised it was probably a bad move to order steak in a pub – he asked for medium rare but it was served more on the other side of medium. Pubs tend to be good at the scampi and chips and roast dinner-type meals. But a steak is better ordered in a restaurant.

G had the steak and ale pie which was homemade and served with some really good thick chips.

V ordered the salmon and mushroom tagliatelle. It was quite a strange mix – lots of salmon, mushrooms and other stuff, not much tagliatelle. Pasta dishes seem easy to get right but there is actually a fine balance to be created between the pasta and the other ingredients. It is interesting as the dish was more balanced in favour of the more expensive ingredients, whereas the cheaper pasta was a bit on the lean side.

Despite this, I have to say that the Bankhouse does good pub food in a pleasant atmosphere. They have a good selection of ales but sadly the wine leaves a lot to be desired. As regular readers know, I am a Pinot Grigio fan. Sadly, the Pinot at the Bankhouse was the worst I have ever tasted. I would argue it tasted more like a Chardonnay (which I hate) and I couldn’t drink it. An easy thing to rectify – Pinot is not expensive and there are plenty of lovely reasonable brands out there.

The pub had a band on after nine. They were great but too loud for us. With the possibility of conversation at an end, we called it a night.