Restaurant de l'Hôtel de Ville (Game Menu)

This is about my second visit to Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville, I wrote about my first visit here

Just four days after my excellent first visit to Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville, I made my return to try a different menu. Autumn is hunting season in Europe and Hôtel de Ville offers a dedicated chasse (hunting) menu featuring a selection of wild-caught game meats. I had been wary of choosing this menu on my first visit after my server warned me that the game dishes were “very strong” but after loving the hare a la royale dish I was confident enough to give a full tasting menu a try.

While a la carte is available, I decided to go all in on the tasting menu since I really don’t have the chance to try any of these dishes where I live in the US. The menu offered a choice of appetizer and a selection of five main courses (my selections highlighted in red).

Food

As I’ve mentioned previously, I don’t usually drink alcohol but decided to have a glass of wine with a handful of meals for this Europe trip. The sommelier remembered this from my previous visit and offered to pour me two half glasses so I could get a little more variety in wines (I was only charged the price of one glass). He selected a white to pair with the first few courses and a red for the rest, both great choices.

The appetizer was a grey partridge, served in a Caesar-style sauce, which was delightfully tangy. Cauliflower shards provided texture, complementing the pleasant “bite” from the rare-cooked meat. The meat had a mild flavor but was still reminiscent of the flavor of “dark meat” poultry.

The next course was red deer medallions served with endives in a reduction of Grain Noble, a Swiss dessert wine. I’ve commented previously on the strength of Hôtel de Ville’s sauces but this was probably the best of the bunch. Tangy and creamy, like a perfect Thousand Island dressing, it was a perfect pairing with the red deer, which had a richer and earthier flavor than farm-raised venison I was used to.

Wild boar came next, served in a puff pastry and adorned with aromatic white truffles. The boar was nuttier and leaner than standard pork, with the lean profile working well with the buttery puff pastry and rich leek sauce.

These first three courses were all fantastic and I suspect even those unfamiliar with wild game meats would enjoy them.

Moving into the more intensely flavored meats (it was at this point that the red wine was served to me), the next dish was wood pigeon. This had a distinctly gamey and smoky flavor, with a grainy texture that leaned a bit on the dry side. Cutting into small pieces to allow for plenty of sauce in each bite was a winning strategy, especially since the sauce here was another winner with strong parsley and green pepper flavors.

Chamois, a mountain goat-antelope found in the Alps, was served next. It had been larded, wrapped in fat, which helped balance the very lean nature of the meat. Unique to this meat was a distinctly peppery, almost spicy, flavor that I’ve never before encountered in a cut of meat (apparently this comes from the diet of wild chamois).

The final game course was a dish prized among gourmands: woodcock. The woodcock is a bird with a unique flavor from its diet of earthworms and it has been hunted extensively for this unique flavor (the cocker spaniel breed of dog gets its name from its use as a hunting dog for this particular bird). In fact, several jurisdictions have outlawed the sale of woodcock in restaurants to curb pressures from hunting, though possibly because of this the Eurasian woodcock currently has a conservation status of “Least Concern”.

Woodcock is traditionally roasted whole and served with its internal organs intact. This version served at Hôtel de Ville took an interesting spin on this approach by turning the offal into a pâté folded into a crêpe. Pieces of meat and mushrooms topped the crêpe and a sauce with a rich celery flavor came on the side. The result was delicious: the meat was like a lean roast but with an earthy mineral flavor. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a meat that tasted so perfectly made for mushrooms. The notes of celery from the sauce balanced everything beautifully.

As with my previous visit I was offered a selection of cheeses from the bountiful cheese trolley. After previously deferring to my server, I felt confident enough to make my own selections this time. I chose the Brillat-Savarin, Appenzeller, and Selles-sur-Cher.

Dessert featured the same clementine sorbet as a palate cleanser I’d enjoyed previously as well as a new dish: a tiramisu with vanilla ice cream. This was one of the best tiramisu’s I’ve had thanks largely to the high quality coffee used to give this a deep and rich flavor, balanced nicely by the ice cream.

Final thoughts

I enjoyed my second meal at Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville immensely. The novelty factor of trying dishes I’ve never had anywhere else was obviously a contributing factor but even without that it was still a delicious meal with great service.

After two meals, Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville was one of my absolute favorite restaurants from this Europe trip. I especially appreciate that it’s neither a trend setter that caters to globe trotting star chasers who will visit once and never again, nor is it a dusty museum subsisting as a relic of the past. It’s a place that tastes and feels alive with a fresh spirit that still pays respectful homage to its rich history.