Jtépadi !, 9 rue Paul Lelong, Paris 2
This restaurant opened in late 2019 and came to my attention shortly thereafter, but before I could make it there, Covid intervened. Upon my return to Paris, I didn’t make room to try it until last night.
The name is phonetic for rapidly saying “je ne t’ai pas dit”. The website describes the restaurant as one of bistronomie among friends. One of the owners told us that they don’t get many tourists, and the night we were there seemed to be filled with a number of groups going out for a casual dinner after work.
The restaurant sits on a long, narrow street, so it’s not going to get much tourist traffic, even though the rue Montorgueil and Place des Victoires areas are not far away.
It is bright and cheery inside, but on this hot evening, we sat outside.
The carte contains a number of choices at attractive price levels.
I didn’t photograph the wine list, but it has very attractive prices for the wines. As for the selection of wines, it’s quite unusual, as there are some very fine producers but also some more common producers that I would not expect to see in the same company.
On this hot evening, we wanted something cool and easy, and so took a 2021 Brouilly vieilles vignes from Château de Corcelles, a respectable producer. The wine was slightly underripe/bitter on the finish in the fashion of traditional Beaujolais (a style becoming increasingly difficult to find with hot vintages such as 2018, 2019, and 2020), and was just the thing to go with the food we chose.
We also received immediately what looked at first like it might be gougeres, but in texture seemed instead to be made from potatoes.
For her entrée, L took the hummus with peas, which was not on the menu,
and I took the vitello tonnato
Both were attractive and good enough, but I thought that each need some lemon to give it tang.
For her main dish, L took the skate wing (aile de raie):
It was served de-boned (not always the case with skate wing) and tasty and flavorful, and went well with the capers and potato mousseline.
I took the pintade (guinea hen) with peppers:
This was an excellent dish, as the pintade was juicy and flavorful and mixed well with the peppers both in texture and in flavor.
For dessert, we split the Tarte Tatin of figs with fig and pistachio sorbet:
The dish was pleasant enough, but by calling it a Tarte Tatin, I expected some caramel to be mixed with the fig flavors (which in my mind could have been divine), but there was no caramel, and so the dish, while not bad, was mildly disappointing. (On the other hand, if it had been described simply as a fig tart, we might not have taken it at all.
The bill:
On the whole, the food here ranged from good enough to very good (the pintade and the aile de raie) and the prices are attractive in Paris where inflation has often been severe. The food is bistronomic in style, that is, contemporary French, and the products are good and fresh. One gets the feeling that the aim is more to make a good atmosphere for friends to meet over without the the food assuming a major focus of attention. A little more seasoning for some of the dishes and a little upgrading of the wine list (eliminating some wines from mediocre negociants) and this could be a restaurant worth seeking out. For what it currently is, it provides good value.
Jtépadi !
9 rue Paul Lelong, 75002 Paris
Tél: 09 53 97 39 91
Monday through Friday lunch and dinner
Métro: Bourse, Sentier, Musée du Louvre/Palais Royal, Rue du Louvre, Grands Boulevards