“I do not wait in line for food,” I warned my friend when she suggested we have lunch at le Relais du Comptoir. The storied 6th arrondissement bistro does not take reservations, and located, as it is, right off the boulevard Saint-Germain, I knew that we would have to get there at noon in order to secure a spot in the tiny dining room. When I arrived at 12:20, I scored the very last indoor table (and as a result, spent the entire lunch putting up with the draft). But we had good reason for choosing this spot in particular.
Le Relais du Comptoir is the brasserie on the ground floor of the Relais Saint-Germain hotel, long run by Yves Camdeborde, one of the founding fathers of bistronomy, that portemanteau of a dining category that sees the codes of the bistro – comfort food and conviviality – married with the ingredient- and technique-driven mindset of fine dining. While Camdeborde still owns the Avant-Comptoir family of restaurants that dot the streets around this old faithful, he has since passed the range here over to Bruno Doucet of the Régalade family of restaurants. And as such, it was high time we returned to see if it’s still up to snuff.
“The service here is always terrible,” my friend observed. Terrible it was not, but it was a bit disorganized. Still, we persevered in ordering a two-course lunch from the menu marrying bistro classics – ASOM-award-winning egg-mayo, escargots – with a handful of more dolled-up offerings like a truffled croque monsieur or lobster tail with celery root risotto and Parmesan emulsion.
We tended towards the former: My friend ordered the French onion soup topped with a generous layer of melted Comté and a scattering of chives. The cheese was melted without being over-toasted, making it easy to incorporate into the soup, as opposed to other iterations where this layer becomes so crispy you could almost lift it off in one piece.
I, meanwhile, dug half-heartedly into an ultra-disappointing frisée aux lardons: a frisée salad covered in a generous layer of totally bland bacon (it takes effort to make bacon bland…) and a split, cold soft-boiled egg. The only saving grace was the vinaigrette, which was bright with red wine vinegar and managed to make the lettuce, at least, palatable. I smushed the egg on the lovely bread from Thierry Breton and held my breath for the mains.
These, thankfully, more than redeemed themselves: My friend’s slow-cooked pork belly was, as promised, both crisp and tender, served atop a well-balanced cabbage base.
I, meanwhile, dug into a contemporary play on one of my favorite bistro offerings: steak tartare. This one was au couteau – cut with a knife rather than ground – and thus boasted loads of texture. It was a must given the generosity of the seasoning, which was bright and spicy with a generous dose of mustard and large hunks of cornichon and green onion. The sucrine lettuce wedge on top was a bit difficult to integrate into the dish – to cut it meant crushing the pile of beef below – but it was a welcome replacement for the fries that usually accompany the dish, echoing them nevertheless with a generous dusting of fried onions.
If you’re looking for a quick bistro lunch in Saint Germain, le Comptoir du Relais still scratches the itch, and I’ll be dreaming of that tartare for a while. But ultimately, even if I were the type to wait in line for food, it is not, to my mind, worth queuing for.
Le Comptoir du Relais – 9 Carr de l’Odéon, 75006