I never liked restaurants with huge menus that serve every kind of dishes and cuisines. It had to be a seafood place, a meat place or Italian, Chinese etc
A case where a restaurant serves just one dish is kind of intriguing for me, and that is exactly what Le Relais de l'entrecote is about.
It all started in 1959 from Paul Gineste de Saurs in the Porte Maillot with the opening of « Le Relais de Venise-Son Entrecôte ». Soon after the Relais de l’Entrecôte opened as a bistrot in Paris keeping up till today with the same recipe.
We visited the Marbeuf bistrot near the Champs-Elysees while other addresses do exist in Paris (Benoit and Montparnasse) and one more in Geneva. The decor is typical Parisian with small tables and bamboo chairs outside, wooden inside close to each others. Wooden panels cover the walls, red cloths are on tables with white paper cloths on top and yellow cotton napkins.
As I previously said, this bistrot serves only one dish, entrecote with french fries, you don't get a regular menu but rather just a simple question, ''how would you like your steak cooked?''. We opted for medium. Truth to be told you get a wine menu and a dessert menu.
At first we were offered some pieces of freshly made baguette with an extremely hot mustard, along with a green salad with walnuts and radish which is complimentary with the steak. Then the steak arrived in a big platter, enough to fill the plate of each dinner for 2 times. The meat, tender and juicy and the fries crispy were then poured with an amazing green sauce. You can look on the net for the secret recipe, I did and found some different versions with spices and herbs even anchovies. Whatever was in the sauce the result was simply amazing.
We had a bottle of Chateau de Saurs from Vignoble Gaillacois, north west of Toulouse, which was ok and priced as much as other restaurants-bistrots in Paris charge for just a glass. So definitely you shouldn't skip wine here.
At service there was a lovely Italian lady, very friendly and chatty while also pretty fast.
Don't expect to make a reservation for this bistrot. We had to wait almost half an hour to be seated, but it was totally worth it. Not only everything is so tasty but also very fairly priced and with excellent value wine.
