Friday, August 27, 2010

Paris: Le Volcan and Hotel des Grandes Ecoles

I was moving some books the other day and found an interesting bookmark: the business card for Le Volcan, a wonderful French restaurant in the Latin Quarter that Christine and I discovered while staying at the Hotel des Grandes Ecoles not too many years ago. The hotel is located on Rue Cardinal Lemoine off the Blvd St Germain, a wide, private, cobblestoned walkway behind imposing green doors, opening up into its own little square filled with flowers that front a charming pink chateau. As you can see from the pictures on the wired2theworld website, the exterior is perfect, the rooms are small and old fashioned, and you're within walking distance of the Luxenberg Gardens, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and Shakespeare and Company, not to mention several jazz clubs, museums, art galleries, and famous bistros that surround St Germaine. That's if you turn right and walk down the hill towards the Seine. Turn left and you're in a little village of shops, restaurants, and town houses, and that's where Le Volcan is located, just two short blocks away.

We came upon Le Volcan late on a cold Christmas eve, just following where the streets took us, and entered with no expectations, since the place was deserted, as was the village around it. Although they must have been getting ready to close, we were taken to a side room with a fireplace, next to the kitchen, and looked through the white curtins at the silent street outside. The unrushed, smiling waitress who spoke no English gave us a menu, which included a number of fixed price multi-course selections. I don't recall what we ate, but remember that it was all exccellent bistro food at a reasonable price. The lady who writes wired2theworld has a picture of Le Volcan on her website and mentions that the restaurant was a favorite of some of the folks at the Grandes Ecoles when she visited two years ago. Here's what she wrote:

"Le Volcan (10, rue Thouin, 75005 Paris, 01 46 33 38 33, www.restaurant-levolcan.fr)
has an 18 euro, 3 course menu which turns out to be one of the best values of the trip.

"Mom has Foie gras (+4 euro), salmon, and cappuccino ice cream and I have escargot (yum, garlic and butter!), a "gratin de aubergine" which is a ground beef and eggplant casserole (sounds odd, but it was really good) and a chocolate "charlotte" for dessert. The other diners are mostly French with a smattering of English speaking tourists."

Looking at Le Volcan's menu (see below), I probably had bœuf bourguignon, my favorite. I DO remember my desert, something I never had previously, but something I'll always remember: the Colonel (lemon sorbet with a side shot of vodka). Wow!

wired2theworld

Le Volcan

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