52 Faubourg St Denis in the 10th impressed me most today by its ability to serve exciting, different forms of food in unusual ways.


The firsts we shared were a tartare of oysters and scallops in a warm mushroom sauce and sauteed chicken livers with a sweet potato puree and balsamic, pistachio, tagine sauce covered with a wafer.


Those were interesting enough but our mains were outside the envelope; coq au vin and rabbit - no big deal, eh? Non. Big deal. Both deconstucted; the chicken came as a rollatine with confited potatoes, mushrooms, bacon and a garlic/parsley sauce; the rabbit with a really really good risotto, cuttlefish-chorizo and rosemary .


Desserts were also different and deconstructed; a clafoutis of pear and ginger, allsprice and sesame ice cream and chocolate, clementines and confited kumquat.


Our bill with 2 bottles of wine, one of filtered fizzy and 4 coffees, was 188.70, this 94.35 E a couple.