La Datcha, Paris 11

Sep 03, 2024

Chef Maxsyme Zorin is originally from Odessa. In France he has worked at various Alain Ducasse establishments, among others. With La Datcha, he embarks on his first venture on his own, having opened the restaurant in December 2023.

Datcha (dacha in English) is a second home in the countryside in Zorin’s native Ukraine (as well as Russia and various other former Soviet republics). Typically, it is somewhat rustic, and that is represented here by the wooden tables.

The restaurant is on two floors of a building on the rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud and seats about sixty people. Timbaud was a leader of the metallurgical union in France, and the quarter was once the center for light metallurgical industry in Paris (with the former union headquarters, now an event space, just up the street). The building, set on a corner, looks as though it probably originally did house light industry, although immediately prior to La Datcha, it housed a café.

The dinner carte/menu:

I rarely choose tasting menus because I do not like large meals, especially at night. However, the combinations seemed so interesting that I could not refuse, and so I took the six-course, 85€ tasting menu, consisting of three entrées, two main courses, and a pre-dessert and dessert. (There is also a ten-course tasting menu.) In the end, there was no doubt that I made the right choice.

I won’t go through a bite-by-bite description of the meal, but just note that Zorin’s style is to combine a wide range of ingredients into a single dish and to get them all to work in harmony. The ingredients themselves are highly seasonal, and in this instance, they were perfect for the end of summer and just peeking at the autumn to come. I look forward to going back in a month or so to check out the early autumn offerings.

The wine list is decent-sized for a new restaurant. In each region, it features wines from moderate prices (starting at 40-50€ per bottle) up to a few prestige bottles at levels well into three figures. Selection and markups are not bad. The wine-by-the-glass selections also offer a good choice:

As an amuse-bouche, I was served a very good tarte fine of butternut squash with citrus:

Next came very good bread with three butters: regular, with espelette, and with parsley (that also contained quite a bit of garlic):

With the first courses, I took a glass of white Corsica wine from Domaine Fiumicicoli. It was floral and waxy on the nose and provided good breadth and depth in the mouth.

Cheese-filled pepper with green beans, pine nuts, basil, sage, and tomatoes. It was refreshing and outstanding.

A wonderful dish of daurade (sea bream) with both cooked and raw figs and bottarga.

Salmon-filled ravioli with green and yellow zucchini, salmon eggs, and a sauce of (very mild) Dijon mustard.

For the two main courses, I took a glass of 2022 Bourgogne-Hautes Côtes de Beaune red from Domaine Georges Joliot. Alas, as is so often the case, it was served at room temperature and not cool.