Brion by Geoffrey Lengagne, 17 rue Lamartine, Paris 9 -- Second Visit

Last June I had lunch at this new restaurant (opened March 2024) and had a generally favorable response, but one dish did not quite work for me. But what worked worked very well, and so I looked forward to returning for last night’s meal. I was not disappointed.

The interior was a warmly-lit refuge from the rather dark, bleak side street outside.

This being the Monday evening right after the holidays, one didn’t expect much of a crowd, and there wasn’t. When I arrived at 7.30 pm, there was one French couple in their thirties, and by the time I left at 9 pm, another French couple — also in their thirties — had come in, and that was it.

Dinner is a choice of four- or five-course tasting menus and à la carte.

I’m generally not a fan of tasting menus, so I went à la carte, all with enticing options representative of mid-winter food here:

As before, the wine list is overwhelmingly natural wines, and the wines that I recognized were quality names. The list of wines-by-the-glass:

I chose to start with the grilled squid, puntarelle (a type of chicory, pistachios, and beet sauce with horseradish. With it, I chose a glass of the Pan - Les Aricoques from the Savoie region.

The wine was thoughtfully served while I was waiting for the first course so that I could also enjoy it as an aperitif.

The wine is from the Altesse grape and showed all the freshness that its French Alps origin would lead you to expect. It has a nose of honey and bushes and in the mouth showed great clearness and some minerality in a medium-weight body enlivened by fresh acidity.

The first course was a delightful pair with this wine.

The grilled squid tentacles were done perfectly with no rubberiness and no smokiness. The puntarelle provided fresh greens that might have been a bit boring on their own, but when combined with the beet and horseradish sauce (beneath the puntarelle and so not shown here) they melded into a slightly spicy whole, given extra texture by the pistachio nuts. This dish was typical of chef Geoffrey Lengagne’s style, taking various ingredients and combining them into a symphony that is greater than the sum of its parts, yet with each element retaining its identity.

For my main course, I chose the duck grilled with spice and cocoa and with preserved quince, salsify, thinly-shaved chestnut, capers, and grapes. To go with it, I chose the Anjou red wine from Domaine Séverin.

As with the white, the red was served ahead of the course so that I could savor and evaluate it.

From the Cabernet Franc grape grown near the town of Angers in the Loire Valley, this wine was rich and intense with spicy Cabernet Franc fruit and a little iodide in the nose. It would be a great match with the duck.

The duck was cooked perfectly and matched beautifully in texture and flavor by the other elements. Another outstanding dish.

For dessert, I chose the chestnut with calamansi (a type of citrus) along with coffee ice cream, cocoa, and buckwheat.

This was a tour-de-force finish to the meal, light and not too sweet with a harmonious blending of textures, flavors, and temperatures.

The final bill:

As I pointed out in my earlier review of the restaurant, Chef Lengagne is willing to take risks, and in my experience, the generally work the way they should (one mild disappointment out of six plates in two visits). I strongly urge you to visit Brion and see what updated French cuisine can be.

Brion

17 rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris

Monday-Friday, lunch and dinner

Tél: 01 40 18 10 93

website: https://www.brion-restaurant.fr

Métro: Cadet, Le Peletier, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Grands Boulevards, Richelieu-Drouot, Saint-Georges