The ambiente and the service of this restaurant were rather good - coming in, being seated and taking in the atmosphere of La Closerie de Lilas immediately promises a stylish and satisfying dining experience. As a starter my wife and I shared a tray of...oysters, which came on an impressive raised tray and tasted fabulous. As the main course I had the filet mignon with a stack (yes, a nicely crafted stack, not a pile) of Pommes frites. The arrangement of the food on the plates was also nicely done, however, there were 2 things that I felt could have been better. Namely, the meat was smothered in a thick and tasty, refined gravy style sauce - but it was smothered in it - I would have preferred it in a small bowl on the side. Then, the meat itself was not as tender as a perfect fillet mignon could be, it was ever so slightly chewy still - and seemed to have a higher water content - it felt almost moist- which lead me to believe the meat may have not had enough time aging (28 days are perfect in my view, this one, in my view, may have had perhaps a week). The knife should have gone through it like through soft butter, but that was not quite the case, I still needed to “saw” a little bit to cut through the medium-rare cooked filet. It was still an enjoyable meal, but also not quite top notch. Then, my wife ordered a fish course as her main the red mullet. It was fine , but overall felt a bit unspectacular- the fish has a mild taste, it was mildly seasoned and felt a bit bland overall. When we walked out there, we had a food only bill coming to ca 130 EUR for one starter and 2 mains (excluding wine, coffee etc which were all good) and felt that was a bit pricey for what we got. We did not mind the overall price, but - the execution should have been a bit better.More
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