Sadarnac, 17 rue Saint-Blaise, Paris 20
Cheffe Lise Deviex, born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1991, opened Sadarnac in autumn 2018, and from the beginning the restaurant has been receiving excellent reviews. If the restaurant is not better-known, that has to be due to the location on the in the village of Charonne in the 20th arrondissement on the outskirts of Paris. Yet, this location provides part of the charm and additional reason for you to make your way out to the restaurant.
A bit more about the delights of Charonne and then I’ll get on to the restaurant. Although Charonne only became part of Paris in 1860, the village there goes back much longer, as evidenced by the 12th century church St-Germain de Charonne. The area has the feel of being in the French provinces and not in bustling Paris, and I urge you to explore it when you visit Sadarnac.
The restaurant sits on the cobblestoned pedestrian street, Saint-Blaise.
With the pleasant warm weather continuing, we sat outdoors instead of in the small, cheery dining room, and had this view of one of the buildings from the old village:
The restaurant has the format of unannounced tasting menus, three or four courses at lunch, three or five at dinner. I don’t like this format, but I am willing to put up with it for Sadarnac’s cuisine. One unfortunate aspect of this is that the dishes came without full explanation and in mumbled French.
We chose the three-course menu, knowing that there would be more than just three dishes.
The wine list is not terribly extensive, and frankly, it needs some replenishing. Where one is ordering a blind tasting menu, one needs bottles are versatile to go with many types of food — fish, meat, vegetarian. Reds from Burgundy, the Loire, and Jura all fit that bill. We took the sole red Burgundy on the list, a reliable 2017 Auxey-Duresses from Matrot.
The wine was perfumed with red cherry fruit that carried on in the mouth. Medium-weight, the wine had round tannins and freshness, making for enjoyable and easy drinking.
We had two amuse-bouches. The first was a tart of dried artichoke (the brown thing on the white cream) with something red (red currant?) and some kind of cream. Unfortunately, the crust was so delicate that it burst in my hand and most of the dish wound up on the ground. But I very much enjoyed what I was able to eat.
Next came a green tomato gazpacho with bits of red and yellow cherry tomatoes and a thin crust atop it and focaccia served on the side:
The gazpacho along with the cherry tomatoes was delicious — incisive and lively with plenty of flavor. My only regret was that there was not more of it.
Then came potato gnocchi. Again, I couldn’t get all the ingredients, although there certainly were some shallots and chanterelles there. Anyway, it was a very good dish with the excellent contrasts of flavors and textures.
The main course was lamb wrapped in a thin pasta along with a lacquered eggplant and a smoked eggplant purée. This was a reimagined version of classic southern French ingredients (lamb, eggplant) that gave a new twist to them and worked seamlessly.
Dessert was pear and pistachio (pear was more than just the slice shown; the pastry was filled with a pear cream). As with the rest of the meal, it was very good.
Canalés as mignardises:
And the bill:
Sadarnac is a very good restaurant working in modern French style. Perhaps for the food itself it’s not necessarily worth the trip to this remote spot of Paris, but combined with the experience of the area around it, it will give you a wonderful time. There is room for the restaurant to grow into something even more.
Sadarnac
17 rue Saint-Blaise, 75020 Paris
Tél: 01 72 60 72 06
https://www.restaurantsadarnac.fr/
Tuesday and Wednesday dinner, Thursday-Saturday lunch and dinner
Métro: Maraichers, Gambetta, Porte de Bagnolet