L'Évadé, 23 rue Clauzel, Paris 9
L’Évadé is the second restaurant of chef Rémi Poulain, the first being L’Escudella across the river in the 7th arrondissement. This foray into the Right Bank opened in September 2023 on the premises of the former 23 Clauzel restaurant.
The restaurant sits in the middle of a one-block street in the 9th arrondissement, with the trendy rue des Martyrs market street at one end of the block.
The interior space leaves the wooden supports and stone walls exposed, drawing a contrast between the age of the building and the comfortable modern furniture and lighting.
On a Monday lunch, the restaurant was partially filled with French diners, none looking pressed to get back to work.
The menu works as the conventional 2/3 plats at lunch (with some additional special offerings), at quite reasonable prices given the effects of inflation and this upscale neighborhood.
While examining the carte and the very good wine list, we were given light, flavorful foccacia with olive oil and rosemary as an amuse bouche.
For wine, we chose a Pouilly-Fuissé from the outstanding producer J. A. Ferret. The wine was crisp and mineral with very good depth, and served at just the right temperature (cool but not cold) — we were provided with an ice bucket, but M. Poulain’s suggestion went with our thinking: leave the bottle on the table until it became sufficiently warm to require a dunk in the ice bucket.
We both took the fish and chips as our first course:
The dish was enjoyable, but frankly was nothing more than very good fish and chips.
For her main, L took the smoked skrei (a member of the cod family) with an emulsion, brandade (the cornflake-looking pieces) and chives the green sauce peeking through from beneath, which she was very pleased with:
I took the pintade (guinea hen) stuffed with savory and mushrooms, pommes darphin, and salad of young spinach:
Both the pintade and the pommes came shaped in brick forms. They were good dishes for mid-January, packed with flavor but not too heavy, and with a nice cut from the spinach and its excellent lemony dressing.
For dessert, L took the somewhat deconstructed Mont Blanc:
She very much liked it, especially the chestnut ice cream.
I couldn’t resist the cheese plate from Bernard Antony to finish the wine with:
Antony is a cheesemonger in southern Alsace, near Basel. He was legendary when I first heard of him in the 1990s, then there seems to have been a period of relative decline in the early 2000s. Recently, a son has taken over and I have heard that the top quality is back, so I wanted to check that out. Indeed, this selection was of very top quality. There were four paper-thin slices of 24 month-old Comté that were exceptional; a wonderful, creamy Coulommiers cheese from about an hour east of Paris; and an outstanding sheep’s milk cheese from Corsica.
Good coffee and mignardises of chocolate filled with hazelnut cream finished off the meal:
And finally, the bill:
(through a promotion offered by the booking website La Fourchette, we received 30% off on the carte prices which was slightly less expensive than taking the menu for the same dishes).
L’Évadé provides quality bistronomic food for moderate prices in a pleasant setting. It’s worthy of your attention, especially if you go to explore the shops on the rue des Martyrs before or after or if you want to go to the nearby Musée de la Vie Romantique or Musée Gustave Moreau.
L’Évadé, 23 rue Clauzel, 75009 Paris
Monday-Saturday lunch and dinner
Telephone: 01 48 78 74 40
Métro: Saint-Georges, Pigalle