Disclosure: I was a guest of the property for this meal.
I live for moments when I discover a truly surprising restaurant, one where the flavors and textures actually make me think. After nearly 20 years in this industry, these moments are rare, and yet I lived quite a few at ChoCho.
This restaurant in the 10th arrondissement is helmed by Thomas Chisholm, a young Franco-American chef who grew up between New York and Perpignan. After working at Michelin-starred Parisian restaurants like Sur Mesure, Itinéraires, and AT, he was a contestant on the 12th season of French Top Chef, where he showcased his experimental cuisine, which comes into full focus at this restaurant toeing the line between the precision and creativity of fine dining and the convivial playfulness of contemporary gastronomy.
The menu at ChoCho is made up of small plates intended to be shared, about three of which are more appetizer sized and five of which are more main sized. The price discrepancy between them isn’t nearly as crazy as it might be in other spots, with the apps priced between 12 and 15 euros and the mains between 17 and 28. There’s also a cheese plate, a caviar supplement, and two desserts. You can order à la carte, or you can opt for a five-course tasting for 75 euros (62 for the plant-based version).
We opted to go à la carte, following our server’s recommendation in splitting four dishes. But before we could dig in, the kitchen gamely sent out two amuse bouches, which proved to be one of my favorite bites.
The innovative Teq’Paf (9) is imagined a bit like a non-alcoholic tequila shot: a glass of sweet red pepper soup marbled with vinegar for a gorgeous, tie-dye appeal comes with a pot of Espelette pepper-spiked salt laced with just a touch of sugar and a quenelle of rosemary and bell pepper aioli on griddled lime wedges, each of which is draped with an anchovy. You’re meant to sprinkle some salt on your hand, lick it, shoot the soup, and finish with the anchovy chaser. It was a super fun initiation to the playfulness of this menu, and it was delicious to boot, with a lovely mastery of the balance between acidity and richness.
The pacing here was on-point, something I’m always aware of in small plates places. It was only once we’d finished our first course that the second arrived: a pan con tomate (12) reimagined with a host of intriguing toppings. On a base of olive oil-fried toast was spread a thick and rich tomato purée, atop which were scattered a fermented green tomato brunoise, bits of black garlic, fried capers, raw slivers of onion, and pickled samphire. The entire thing was showered with a blanket of manchego, and it was absolutely delicious, with the perfect marriage of sweet and savory, soft and crisp. My only bone to pick was something that would come up a few times over the course of the meal: It wasn’t hot. I’m all for a cold dish, but it would have been nice for the fried toast to at least be warm.
Next up, we dug into a broccoli dish (16) that, while enticing on the menu, would prove to be my least favorite of the night. Don’t get me wrong: There was a lot to love about this plate, which paired griddled broccoli with a bouillabaisse emulsion and kale chips, all piled atop a lovely house-made ricotta.
The kale chips were lovely and crisp, seasoned with a Pringles seasoning that intrigued me on the menu but that I found unfortunately a bit artificial in flavor. The broccoli, meanwhile, wasn’t nearly as charred as I would have expected, given the description on the menu; it tasted, instead, as though it had maybe been steamed or pan-cooked rather than grilled or griddled. And to add insult to injury, this dish, too, wasn’t terribly warm.
That said, the bouillabaisse sauce was lovely, and I found the melt-in-your-mouth raw sardines divine. At any other restaurant, I might have been more charmed by this dish, but ultimately, it paled in comparison to the others.
Next up was the house signature: the plat à saucer (12). This regularly changing innovation always includes a dish of sauces and a house-made roll you’re meant to drag through them. The version of the dish on the menu on our visit was particularly charming to this native New Yorker: a fresh everything bagel worthy of the name accompanied with a plate of arugula and lettuce purée, Philadelphia cream, blobs of lemon confit, and small piles of smoked trout seasoned generously with dill and topped with a pickled onion.
While the roll is a bit small to share between two people, the copious house bread was a more than worthy replacement when we’d finished our bites of warm, chewy, New York-style bagel. It was close behind the hors d’oeuvre as my favorite dish of the night.
Our last dish was also exquisite: a shallot tarte tatin (17) served with a rich beurre blanc sauce. A base of buttery puff pastry was baked between two pans to keep it dense and shattery and topped with caramelized shallots, which I suspect were seasoned with a honey vinegar. The pickled mustard seeds and peanuts added a lovely savory note and welcome texture, and while my dining companion found the rosemary a bit overwhelming, I liked the way it added a bit of earthiness to what was otherwise a fairly sweet and rich dish. (I, meanwhile, found the crème crue to be overkill; she told me I was wrong. This is the kind of food you pleasantly spar over, analyzing every bite. In other words… my favorite kind of meal.)
We were full by this point and had decided to share one dessert, but after deliberating over both offerings, we decided we couldn’t pass up either of them. “We don’t have to finish them,” I said, as I ordered both. (Spoiler: We did.)
The first was a play on cookie dough ice cream (13), with a disk of raw cookie dough settled atop amaranth ice cream and paired with a dark chocolate ganache scattered with toasted and puffed amaranth and white chocolate. The earthiness of the amaranth was an intriguing addition to what was otherwise a fairly sweet dessert imbued with nostalgia, but overall, it didn’t wow me. I found the cookie dough too sweet and too rich in its cold disc form. Perhaps if it had been a bit warmer, a bit softer, or in smaller pieces, I might have liked it more. While my dining companion agreed that the form of the cookie dough might have been better imagined, she loved the flavors, especially the dark chocolate ganache.
I was much more enticed by the other dessert: a peach creation (14) pairing peach sorbet, house-made crescenza cheese and tapioca pearls laced with floral Earl Grey syrup. A rosette of yellow peach slices surrounded the ensemble, which was crowned with a sheet of crunchy pink tapioca. I loved the wholehearted embrace of sweet peach and savory cheese, and the juxtaposition of the chewy bubble tea pearls and the thick crescenza, with its texture halfway between feta and cream cheese, was mind-blowing.
This dessert was new on the menu the night we visited, and I feel certain it will only improve as peaches come into the height of their season. I also might have liked more Earl Grey flavor, which was barely perceptible amidst the peach and cheese.
Aside from my temperature quibbles (I’d like my hot food to be hot), I don’t love the layout of the room, which is designed with conviviality in mind. The creativity on the plate demands time and space to analyze, and most of the seating is of the shared table variety. We scored one of a few solo tables, but I would have liked a bit more space between us and our neighbors. That said, on the right night, with the right dining companions, strangers could easily become friends over this innovative food.
Chocho – 54, rue du Paradis, 75010