Ardent, 40 rue Richer, Paris 9
Ardent is a project of the owners of the restaurants Office and Bien Élevé, both a little further down on the same street. It opened in June 2022, but this was my first visit.
The location is in the southern portion of the 9th arrondissement, a bustling area that has seemingly upgraded in the past decade.
The room is small, but airy.
As you might expect, the room was almost entirely filled with French people taking their lunch.
The carte looked interesting; I took the 25€ lunch menu (see the very top of the carte — it’s easy to overlook) and decided that if that was good, the rest seemed interesting enough that I would be back to try the à la carte.
The wine list is mostly (if not all) natural wines, but well-chosen and at fair prices. These were the wines by the glass:
I took a glass of the Côtes Catalanes red from Domaine du Clos des Fées. It was light and decent, but nothing to write home about. It also should have been served cool, but instead was served at room temperature. Sigh!
The first course was a salad of fennel with coriander seeds and fennel purée:
It was clean, fresh, and light with saline hints — a good opener.
Next was braised chicken breast with vegetables (which I asked for to replace the puréed potatoes):
This was a good, standard dish — nothing exceptional going on here, but satisfying.
Dessert was hazelnut brownies in a crème anglaise:
Nothing lost in translation with these brownies — they would be praised in the U.S., and with the addition of the vanilla crème anglaise, the dish was elevated to something considerably better.
The bill:
In these post-Covid inflationary times, the lunch menu is an extraordinary bargain. It’s relatively simple, but well done, and enough to make me want to come back again and explore the other dishes.
As I mentioned above, Ardent is the joint project of the owners of Office and Bien Élevé, both down the street. I’ve not been to the latter, but the former is much in the same style and quality and price range as Ardent. In short, it doesn’t seem to be a destination restaurant, but it is a very good address if you are in the neighborhood.
Ardent
40, rue Richer, 75009 Paris
Tél: 01.47.70.35.12
Mon-Sat lunch and dinner
Métro: Grands Boulevards, Le Peletier, Cadet