Le Servan, 32 rue Saint-Maur, Paris 11
Le Servan opened in 2014 and immediately became a hit with those who track new restaurant openings in Paris. It is a small bistrot with Asian-inspired cuisine. As it’s not far from our apartment, we initially went several times, enjoying the food, but the wines were a problem. The restaurant served exclusively natural wines, and they often were of the kind that were not commercially acceptable (i.e., serious flaws). As a result, we’d not been back since 2015.
The restaurant recently has been the source of glowing praise in some of the press that covers the food scene here. Moreover, most of the natural wine scene has cleaned up its act and no longer serves flawed wine. And so a revisit seemed in order.
The restaurant is situated at the intersection of rue du Chemin Vert and rue Saint-Maur, a little downhill from the northwestern boundary of the Père Lachaise cemetery. The building itself is drab, even rundown, from the outside. Although the address is on the rue Saint-Maur, you can enter from the rue Chemin Vert, as shown above.
The interior (presumably deliberately) has not had a makeover, adopting the shabby-chic style that I think may have begun with the 1981 film Diva and since has been adopted by notable public spaces such as Paris’s Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
The clientèle the day we were there for lunch was predominantly young French people in their twenties and thirties with a sprinkling of Asian and perhaps other tourists, mostly of the same age. They looked for the most part as though they worked in the area.
The day’s lunch carte:
We decided to start with the clams and the broccoli tempura, and then L took the raviolis of pork and shrimp, while I took the chicken with mushrooms and chestnuts.
The broccoli tempura was delicious — firm and sensual with plenty of flavor and hot spice.
The clams, however, were a major disappointment. They lacked taste and the broth they were served in tasted musty.
The list of wines by the bottle is extensive and still exclusively natural, with many names that in my experience are producing sound wines and some of which I would want to order, and markups are reasonable. But we didn’t feel like sharing a full bottle at lunch, and as I recognized some of the names on the list of wines by the glass, I assumed we would be safe ordering by the glass.
L took a glass of Côtes Catalanes from Domaine Riberach, a producer whose wines I’ve had and liked in the past (although it’s been mostly red wines that I’ve tried and nothing in recent years). I took a glass of vin des Allobroges from Domaine Belma, a producer I did not know, but I have liked several other wines from Allobroges. Neither glass was worth finishing. As I looked around the room, I could see the reds were cloudy in appearance. In short, while the wine list shows bottles that I know and would purchase, the by-the-glass selections continue in the old-style it’s-natural-so-it must-be-good school.
For our mains, L very much liked her spicy and flavorsome raviolis.
Alas, my chicken was fairly standard and bland.
The bottom line:
In contrast to several enthusiastic reviews of Le Servan that I’ve recently seen, this lunch assured that it will be another while before I go back. Even if you do not order wine with your meal, the problematic clam dish and the ho-hum chicken dish were not of quality that I was expecting.
Le Servan
32 rue Saint-Maur, 75011 Paris
Monday-Saturday lunch and dinner
Tél: 01 55 28 51 82
Métro: Saint-Maur, Saint-Ambroise, Richard Lenoir, Philippe Auguste