[review] Gastronomic restaurant Les Chemins in Guainville (chef Géraud Dupuis)
To celebrate our birthdays, JB booked a gastronomic restaurant an hour from Paris. Note: this article is NOT sponsored, we booked ourselves and paid out of our own pockets.
The restaurant is called Les Chemins and is located in the Domaine de Primard, a hotel that is part of Relais & Châteaux. Here’s the hotel. There’s a large outdoor pool, but since we weren’t hotel guests, we didn’t dare go check it out.
And here’s the restaurant. JB tells me there’s a “regular” section and a gastronomic section.
There’s a single menu. The only choice is between a 5-course or 7-course menu. 7 courses = an extra starter and cheese. Of course, we opted for the 7-course menu. They asked if we wanted to know the menu in advance, or if we preferred to be surprised. And they asked if we had any allergies.
The menu is seasonal, ingredients come from the estate and local farmers. Each dish highlights ONE ingredient, cooked in different ways.
Here’s what we tasted:
- Amuse-bouche, followed by Watermelon: Neuvic caviar, Isigny cream
- Tomato: in textures
- Zucchini: Basilou from Perche, basil
- Trout: meadowsweet, girolles
- Veal sweetbread: carrots, hay
- The cheese trolley of aged cheeses
- Apricot: pine nuts, savory
Price: 180€/person, excluding drinks
I really liked the starters which were full of flavor and surprising notes. The dishes were chosen with great care and the pacing is impeccable. The concept is excellent as you discover watermelon in a novel texture, and tomatoes with varied flavors. Even the butter and bread are delicious. But from the first main course onwards, it deteriorated.
The quantity/price ratio could be improved; for example, apart from a few traces of caviar in a starter and the veal sweetbread, there were no WOW ingredients we couldn’t find in our everyday dishes. At the time of payment, the servers asked the opinion of a customer accustomed to gastronomic restaurants and her feedback was very detailed; I think all these suggestions will be taken into account and the restaurant will improve very quickly.
The dining room is large but has few tables. It opens onto a sunny terrace. It’s quiet and pleasant.
