La Table du Clarance’s cuisine is quite inventive in its classic guise, with the quality you’d expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant, but with a few welcome creative touches. No more, but no less.

For my second evening in Lille, I chose to dine at La Table du Clarance, the Michelin-starred restaurant of the hotel of the same name. The reasons for my choice? A mixture of interest in the promise and lack of availability in other restaurants I had in mind. So I went there expecting a fairly classic but quality cuisine.

Let’s see how it turned out.

You’ll find all the articles about my stay in Lille at the bottom of the page.

The concept

La Table du Clarance is a Michelin-starred gourmet restaurant offering cuisine that at first glance seems rather classic, but in fact is more creative than it appears.

In the end, the cuisine is quite in keeping with the restaurant’s setting.

The setting

The restaurant has two dining rooms. One named the dining room, a bit plush, where I’ll be dining.

It’s not as old-fashioned in real life as the photo might suggest. The tables are well spaced out, which is appreciated.

The second, called the vestibule, which I saw only briefly, seems more sleek and modern.

In fine weather, you can also enjoy the property’s magnificent garden.

And finally, the cuisine is perfectly suited to the setting. As you’ll see, there’s a very classic base (the dining room), a little creativity but not too much (the vestibule) and the occasional flash of freshness (the garden) that surprises and tickles your curiosity.

The menu

You’ll see that it illustrates my point perfectly.

There were also two menu options, and since my visit I’ve noticed that the range has expanded in this area, with longer 7- and 9-course menus in the evenings. The chef had only been in the job for 3 months at the time of my visit (but he was second-in-command to the previous chef for years), so I guess it took him a while to really create menus that felt like his own.

The dinner

I arrive at the restaurant in the early evening. When I mentioned the restaurant’s setting, it reflects the hotel’s style: a plush, bourgeois townhouse.

I’m taken care of and seated at my table by an obsequious maitre d’hôtel. Or rather, honeyed, bootlicking style, which has a way of getting on my nerves very quickly.

The table is set in a sober, uncluttered style that nicely balances the old-fashioned feel of the room.

I’m asked if I’d like water or an aperitif. In terms of sparkling water, they have Chateldon and house water. He’s not telling me they’ve got a kind of Soda Stream machine, is he?

For the aperitif I ask for a Negroni as usual. The waiter quickly comes up to me to ask if I’d like them to make my Negroni with an Italian bitter with notes of rhubarb and vanilla. Let’s be crazy, I like bets.

Not bad at all, this Negroni. Perhaps not dry enough for my taste, but the vanilla-rhubarb flavour is very nice.

The menu is brought to me and I begin to explore.

They bring me canapés. Too bad they didn’t arrive at the same time as the aperitif. Welsch-style cabbage and radish and horseradish toast.

Tasty, but I preferred the cabbage, the other being a little flatter despite the horseradish.

I’m brought bread with a local butter reworked with guérande butter.

The bread is good and the butter a real treat.

Second amuse bouche with a waterzooï (fish soup), a quenelle and I don’t know what else.

Tasty and iodized, I really like it.

Mr. Honeyed arrives to ask me what I want. With the aperitif and amuse-bouche that followed in quick succession, I barely had time to read it. I ask what’s in the set menu! It will be a surprise. I’ll take two minutes to think about it. Let’s go like this then (instead of a surprise these are dishes from the menu, maybe they change every day?).

The first course arrives: Duck foie gras terrine, pig’s feet, Japanese barbecued langoustines, artichoke, puff pastry brioche.

I’m informed that this dish is not included in the menu, a complimentary treat from the chef.

The foie gras is fine and light, the langoustine perfectly cooked and the aftertaste smoky and barbecued…The marriage of the two is a real success.

This dish has a touch of Proust’s madeleine for me, as it reminds me of the langoustines I ate at Gordon Ramsay’s Pressoir D’argent, whose heads had been barbecued before being pressed into a creamy sauce.

In short…I’m a fan.

The chef comes up to me and asks how things are going so far. Either he really wants to know what customers think, but it’s a bit early in the meal, or, like at Lucas Carton, he’s in a hurry to get opinions on a new dish and has offered it for testing…or he reads Travelguys and I’ve been blown.

Then there’s Alexandre’s cappelletti, stuffed with burnt onion cream, fermented citron, fava beans and “pot au feu”-style broth.

The onion stuffing is original, but the downside is that it’s hard to detect the taste of the rest, especially the pasta. The broth is excellent, with the citron adding an original lemony flavor.

It’s very well thought-out and realized, but there’s something inexplicable about it that bothers me a little, without my knowing what.

Then the following dish: Line-caught cod, peas, carrot, butter with pod vinegar.

Peas and carrots come in a variety of forms: mousse, ice cream, vinaigrette, caramel, purée.

The fish is perfectly cooked, as can be seen in this photo…

As for the peas and carrots, they’re good and quite surprising, but in the end the fish with its sauce and caramel would have been self-sufficient.

Time for the cheese cart.

I’ll have a St Romain (delicate cheddar), a pavé de calais and a Maroilles.

The cheeses are served with a cabbage and apple preparation and cabbage bread.

It’s finally time for dessert.

Gariguette strawberries, low-fat poppy cream.

The strawberries are good, but the whole may lack a little sugar and I find the cream bland. Fortunately, the meringue saves the day.

I then order a coffee, with which they bring me…the digestifs menu. It would have been better at the same time.

I’ll finally have a mirabelle plum liquor with my coffee.

There was chartreuse on display but not on the menu…too bad.

Finally, I’ll be brought a selection of pastries and chocolates from which I can choose…

If the strawberry cookie and gummy bear don’t remind you of some of the (admittedly industrial) cookies and sweets of your childhood, throw the first stone at me. But you don’t always get the chance to go 40 years in the past in one bite.

All in all, a very good meal. I was expecting something rather classic, but in the end the chef knew how to surprise without venturing into overly complex and convoluted recipes. Simplicity that doesn’t distort the product is a good thing.

The service

Then there was Mr Honeyed, but I only saw him twice. You’ll think I’m being insistent, but that’s everything I abhor about service, the smarmy, obsequious character (did you see the film Le Grand Restaurant?) that we’re fortunately seeing less and less of.

The rest of the staff are warm and attentive, with excellent customer relations.

The pace of the service was perfect.

Atmosphere

Pleasant, lively but not noisy.

Bottom line

A good meal that surprised me more than I thought it would. Behind a rather classical façade, the chef knows how to surprise and be creative, but discreetly and without venturing down risky paths.

And in an age of culinary hyper-creativity that can produce the best as well as the worst, staying within reasonable distance of the basics is a good idea.

The articles of my stay in Lille

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