Le Reminet

[NicoleAJ]

I had the most overwhelmingly positive experience at Le Reminet in 3 rude des Grands-Degres (telephone: 0144070424). A couple owns the restaurant--the wife, who takes the orders has celiac, and the husband is the head chef. We heard about the restaurant here as well as on a few other forums and decided to try it. They open at 7:30, and because we happened to be there before 7:30 on the Thursday night that we arrived in Paris, we were able to get in, but I would highly recommend making reservations ahead of time as it is very busy and fairly small, and since most dinners take 2 to 3 hours, some people who didn't make reservations had a really long wait outside.

When we arrived I had my French diner's card out, but when I asked for the meal sans gluten, they told me that that would not be a problem, and asked me what I wanted (tons of things on the menu can be altered to exclude gluten). By the way, for those of you (myself included) who don't have great mastery of French, the staff is fluent in English and happy to oblige--it seems that they fill the front room with tourists (many of them American) and they have a bottom floor dining room where a lot of the locals eat. Interestingly enough, I heard the man sitting next to me order his food sans gluten as well, so we struck up a conversation with the couple beside us, and it turns out that he was from Belgium (also a celiac) and his wife was originally from Spain. We talked for quite a while about where it's easiest to find gluten free meals in Europe, and they showed me their gluten free product guides for Spain, Belgium, and France.

I ordered pumpkin soup, which they served without cream, which must have had gluten in it--it was absolutely incredible. I haven't really had good fresh soup since my diagnosis (except if I make it at home), so this was quite a treat. Then for the next course, I had lamb, which was delicious and cooked to perfection. It came with a cheese and eggplant dish that really made the meal, and it was garnished with a tomato reduction and a pesto as well as a creative looking and tasty fried potato structure. It was, by far, the best meal I've had at a restaurant since going gluten free. For dessert, I had the most phenomenal dish. It was a coffee meringue that was as crisp as a cookie, and then it had dollops of the richest and creamiest chocolate mousse. They sprinkled cocoa powder over the dish, and then served an espresso jelly on the side--it was out of this world.

We enjoyed the restaurant so much that we made reservations for Saturday night as well. Surprisingly, we saw our gluten free couple in the Louvre the next day, and they had made reservations for Saturday at 8 as well, so again, we were seated next to them, and continued our conversations from the other night. I was so overwhelmed by how good the lamb dish was, that I ordered again that night, along with the mousse, but this time with a mixed green salad instead of the soup--again, since I ordered the meal sans gluten, I didn't even have to worry about asking about the dressing.

At this point in our trip, I'd had a few cross contamination issues at other places that had made me ill, and I never had a single problem after eating either meal at Le Reminet, so, again, we made reservations for Sunday night. This time I had the pumpkin soup and the mousse, but for the main course I had a pork chop that came with this type of cheese and fried onions on the top, and it came with this gluten free potato au gratin dish that was absolutely delicious. Again, the meat was cooked to perfection, and everything was wonderful.

I can't speak highly enough about this restaurant. The service was fantastic (maybe a bit slow to get the check, but after a great meal like that, who really cares anyway--it was just nice to spend a bit more time with my sweetheart in that romantic atmosphere). It is also a bit pricey in comparison to some of the other restaurants you could find in Paris (we spent approimately 100 euros for each meal--some a bit higher some a bit lower), but we also got a decent bottle of wine with each meal. However, we thought it was well worth the money to leave each night having had a fantastic meal that caused no concerns of gluten or cross contamination.

In fact, the other couple said they hadn't had too many problems gluten in Paris but only because they sent most of their meals back once or more in order to make sure that they were right.

By contrast, Le Reminet was not just a good restaurant for eating a gluten free meal (i.e. the type of place you wouldn't want to patronize if you didn't have gluten concerns)--it was just a great restaurant where you happened to be able to get gluten free meals with no concerns. This is why my boyfriend was willing to go back so many times--he had a great fish dish, some really succulent rabbit and got the lamb one night as well. It came to feel like our restaurant in Paris, and I hope that the next time I return that Le Reminet is still thriving, so I can give them lots of business again.

I apologize for the length of the post, but I couldn't hold back having had such a great experience!

[TCA]

My husband and I went to paris a few years ago. I'm not positive, but your description sounds just like a restaurant that we ate at. It was the BEST food we had while in france. I wasn't gluten-free at the time, but on the off chance that we ever get to go back, I'll remember that!

[NicoleAJ]

I hope you do get a chance to go back. It's such a culinary treat, especially post-diagnosis, and very romantic as well!