I have eaten in terrible Italian and French restaurants with Italian and French chefs. So no surprise if I just loved the perfect French food of Le Bistrot de Reacine even if there is no French chef in the kitchen (but the head chef trained in France for years according to the maitre).
Le Bistrot occupies a large old-style villa in a street full of Western eateries, Wuding Lu. And do not be misled by the Bistrot thing… this is a fine dining venue.
They also operate a bakery in the same building (on the right). Their bread is well worth a trip.
The visit
Once a year I treat to lunch in Shanghai two good friends and this year I invited them to Le Bistrot de Racine for a Sunday lunch.
My phone reservation (that I had to change, so there might have been some misunderstanding) was lost, but there were tables available. I was escorted to my table in a lateral dining room that must have been a veranda. The maitre spoke English.
The table was splendidly appointed.
The bread basket deserves a special mention: all the bread was fresh and perfectly baked. And just good old-school bread, with the addition of a brioche and some flatbread with pistachio.
We ordered three appetizers and three mains for this lunch. We did not try the desserts because we moved to another venue for a sweat treat afterwards.
The first dessert was a classic beef tartare (with M5 quality wagyu and an organic quail egg) that came with hand-made potato chips. A bit skeptical about the chips, but, as I could say of all dishes, it was perfectly executed and very enjoyable.
Another tartare, this of bluefin tuna with guacamole and topped with Russian caviar. It came with rice chips with pepper seaweed.
We also had a pâté en croûte with an amazing array of ingredients: Rougie duck foie gras and leg, veal, Iberico pork, French ham, black truffle. It was an explosion of flavor, better shared among several people. This dish also illustrates the chef’s predilection for crusts and pastries that will be in full display in the mains that we ordered.
The first big ticket item was a Wellington steak that came presented like an abstract painting.
The Wellington steak is a dish that requires a certain degree of technique to cook the beef without burning the pastry. On top of the steak there was also a nice chunk of foie gras. We all greatly enjoyed this dish.
The next main was another dish “en croute”, this time a seabass.
Inside the crust lied a perfectly cooked seabass in a delicious sauce.
We also had lamb chops (char-grilled from New Zealand). This was another excellent dish, some of the best lamb chops I saw in Asia with some morel mushroom and truffle mushroom jus to delicately enhance the flavor.
The check
We spent 2,050 RMB for the food and water (296 USD). A main and an appetizer will easily set you back of 100 USD, more if you add a dessert, and much more if you drink wine. And I would not say that the dishes are suitable for sharing, with a few exceptions (like the pate and perhaps the Wellington). It is an expensive restaurant, but the quality is there. The food is perfectly executed with top ingredients and I will certainly go back to try some more dishes.
Where in Shanghai:
609 Changde Lu near Wuding Lu
In Chinese: 静安区常德路609号，近武定路
Thank you for the review. Following this I went for a dinner. Well it was excellent! The Filet Wellington was cooked to perfection. The wine was excellent (maybe a bit expensive) and the service impeccable. They served a basket with different kinds of fragrant bread. great advice, keep it up!