Mallory Gabsi was the restaurant of a semi-finalist in French TV’s Top Chef 2020, Belgian Chef Mallory Gabsi.  The very small place was furnished with small marble top tables, stuffed chairs, with music in the background, lots of beautiful light polished wood and mirrors on the wall to make it bigger.  The entry room had 2 larger communal dining tables across from the kitchen opening.  The menu at lunch offered a la carte options as well as tasting menus of 4 or 7 courses and a special 3-course lunch menu.  While they offered wine pairings we opted to order wines by the glass.  One problem with the place was the saucing.  They seemed to like to present the plate and sauce at the table but often the sauce was not with the server and so there was a lag between served and ready to try.  Places were set with a decorative spoon which stayed throughout the meal.  It was pretty but I didn’t find any sauces I wanted to use it for. While this place has one Michelin star, it didn’t do it for me, the food was as brown as the decor.  It looked elegant but was all eye candy with little flavor.  Maybe we hit it on an off-day, so I hope someone else tries it and can report a better meal.

Set-Up

 

Food

We started with an amuse bouche of clams on a seaweed chip which was an okay start.  After ordering another amuse was presented on some wadded paper – beef tartare and wasabi in a very thin crisp roll.  The meat was tender and slightly seasoned.  The exterior had a powder of tomato, onion and garlic.  It was better than the first.

 

Bread service was a brown bread that was lightly toasted on the end slices and very thickly sliced.  They did not serve butter, which was fine by me as most of the bread is best used to soak up any remaining sauce on the plate.  It was fairly dense bread.

 

Scallops, pumpkin mousseline, and chocolate crumbles were with the jus of the scallops. The buttery sauce was extremely flavorful, especially with the wonderful scallops.  The crunchy bits added some texture and the pumpkin introduced another flavor.  It was quite good.

 

Langoustine was with a roasted shallot and herbs.  It was an artful plate but the look was better than the flavor.  Some lemon caviar was on top of the perfectly cooked langoustine and that was nice.  Where it went down was the large amount of green herb goo that was inside the shallot.  When eaten together it completely overwhelmed the delicate small crustacean. In addition, there was way too much of the green for the plate to be balanced.  There was already a sauce on the plate that was dotted with a couple of flavored oils.

 

Jersiaise Cow, hay, and arch were listed as the main course.  This was a French cow smoked with hay and presented with a garlic mousse, fresh herbs and tomato chimichurri.  The beef was cooked nicely rare but was chewy and had little to no beef flavor.  It was best enhanced with the red sauce as the white garlic one was way too mild.   It was not a success.

 

Rose, litchi, and raspberry made up the dessert.  Milk ice cream was on some crumbs alongside a rose cake decorated with cassis coulis at the table.  The cake had a waxy exterior and was filled with pink/raspberry goo.  The crumbs by the ice cream had lost their crisp but did add texture.  Somehow this one didn’t have much appeal.

 

Last treats were a faux pepper chocolate and marshmallow chocolate.  The marshmallow had a crisp cookie on the bottom with a sweet marshmallow top.  The “pepper” had the tiniest bit of heat but the red coloring quickly melted on your fingers and made it too messy to eat.