Ze Kitchen Gallerie

After only eating pastries, chocolate, cheese and bread yesterday, I was seriously hungry for dinner.  Dinner was not until 10:15.  A tad too late but miscommunication.  We thought the reservations were for 915.  Oh well.

Ze Kitchen Gallerie is a tiny swank restaurant on the left bank.  Not sure how they were able to have a store front restaurant with big glass steel windows.  That in itself is impressive.  Nothing in Paris gets by landmark. Everything is so old.  The building just get redone, nothing gets ripped down. 

The chef behind Ze Kitchen Gallerie is trained in french cooking who did a stint in Asia.  He is into the green market, flavors and trying out new things.  The food was imaginative and delicious.  The space is simple.  Hard wood floors, tables scattered about that are close enough but not that close to your neighbor.  Different artists work on the walls.  Not sure if they rotate their work but at the front of the restaurant are books that represent each artist and show their work.  I like that they are promoting different artists.  Even the menu is designed by one of the artists on the wall. 

Two of us began with the raw tuna.  5 small pieces of sliced tuna over a kumquat sauce and one fava bean, one slice of asparagus, one small artichoke and more.  In essence, each bite you took was a little different.  Jessica had the marinated octopus.  The octopus had been shredded and looped up like angel hair pasta.  Served on a rectangular plate over cold poached tomatoes and a ginger marmalade.  Outstanding.  The mixture of textures and different flavors here so worked.  The dish was cold too which I liked.  Josh had eggplant that had been roasted and mashed along side burrata cheese deep fried dumplings.  Over the eggplant were thin slices of prosciutto.  A high end mozzarella stick.  Fred had a pasta dish.  Large pieces of pasta that looked like donuts with tiny pieces of octopus cut up and a foamy sauce.  It wasn’t brothy but the sauce clung to the pasta.  Never really seen anything like it before. 

Dinner was good too.  I had the shrimp and crab.  3 poached pieces of shrimp, completely shelled, over a green mango sauce next to tempura soft shell crab.  It was simple and the mango was the taste that put it all together.  Josh had the veal confit.  Clever using veal instead of duck.  Jessica and Emily went with the specials.  A Dorado and a john dory fish each paired with a Thai based broth and vegetables.  Fred had what I had. 

This is all from memory.  Had a bit too much wine so I am a little foggy this morning.  We had a bottle of wine from the
 Domaine Olivier Pithon which was delicious.  I’d like to get a case when we get home.  The wine was called La D18.

We passed on dessert…had our fill for the day and by the time we walked out it was past midnight.

It is amazing really although not really, that everyone has a site now.  What is interesting is most of the sites are really well done but aren’t kept up so menus don’t change.  What is great is that you can track everything down.  Ze Kitchen Gallerie even has an English section although I can tell you that last night we were the only people in there speaking English.