Datil is a plant-driven restaurant in the Marais taking a sincere, mindful approach to excellent sourcing… and thankfully, for once, I didn’t feel beaten over the head by this (laudable) philosophy. Instead, the story is shown on the plates, which marry a wonderful generosity that I think people often fear plant-based food will lack with judicious touches of sweetness and acidity.
The airy, light-filled setting does wonders for cultivating the ideal ambiance in which to discover the 95-euro five-course tasting, with flowers and brightly colored glassware standing out in an otherwise white-toned space.
I like me a menu with a logic, and this one didn’t disappoint. Seasonality is the mot d’ordre here, and on my visit, asparagus was at its peak. The no-waste mentality means that it’s no surprise that the meal began, as so very many tastings do these days, with a broth.
Here, it was made with asparagus offcuts enlivened with lemon verbena and citronella. The result was as savory and comforting as chicken soup.
This first amuse was followed by a second asparagus-driven pairing: an asparagus “salad” with rounds of sweet green asparagus settled atop a spelt cream infused with sweet, savory, starchy corn kernels. While tiny, this dish was a real journey, from the vegetal notes at the top all the way to the sweetness at the bottom of the earthenware bowl.
The gorgeous lentil cracker served alongside it was tasty as well, though it was definitely the element of the meal that ate most like stereotypical health food, with its green lentil flour base. I ultimately found it more aesthetically than gastronomically pleasing, though I wasn’t unhappy it was there.
In stark contrast, the following dish offered a clear departure from the image of “health food.” I’d never eaten a deep-fried salad before, but I highly recommend it. This bundle of herbs coated in a super-thin lentil-based tempura batter was an aromatic powerhouse, with the pleasantly fatty, rich scent of fresh frying oil transporting me to a beachside chippy or childhood carnival. A touch of bright, lightly acidic herb purée underneath lent a touch of balance.
The bread service features grainy bread from Mamiche with a plant-based alternative to butter: a sunflower purée drizzled with sunflower oil, which brought an earthy, slightly sweet note.
The first course continued in this asparagus-driven vein, but it felt anything but samey. A combination of white and green asparagus had been cooked separately, in either broth and olive oil or a seaweed-infused liquid. The spears were served with crispy puffed rice, parmesan shards, and a slightly sweet and deeply briny seaweed ketchup. (There was ostensibly some grated egg yolk in there too, though it disappeared entirely beneath the parmesan-anchovy sauce that, while certainly umami-rich, was devoid of any really pronounced anchovy flavor.)
I loved the crispy fried capers scattered hither and thither, and the herbal sauce vierge was the perfect accompaniment. This balance of sweet, earthy, rich, and bright was beginning to emerge as Chef Manon Fleury’s calling card, and it was one I wholly appreciated.
The asparagus course was served with a pillowy, slightly sweet bao bao bun, the perfect implement to soak up all that lovely sauce.
Next up, I received this gorgeous plate of wild asparagus tied into simple bows and scattered with purple flowers. It was drizzled tableside with a thick potato soup rendered creamy thanks to the tuber’s own starches rather than copious quantities of butter and cream.
The resulting dish ate like a fine dining treasure hunt, for beneath that thick, velvety soup sat not just asparagus but rounds of purple potato, sweet leek, bright whole kumquat slices, and garlic-infused sauerkraut. Fried bits of potato gave me all the nostalgic pleasure of the potato chip crumbs at the bottom of the foil packet, while spring garlic oil contributed a lovely depth.
That said, the stars of the dish were undoubtedly the plump, sweet oysters, the best I’ve ever had in my life. I saved the last til the end and savored it with my eyes closed. That bite may have been the most delicious thing I’ve eaten all year.
The potato waffle that accompanied it, while delicious, almost felt superfluous – as though it were hedging to ensure that omnivores still found the menu rich enough. It’s a gesture I can appreciate (and see frequently at other plant-driven restaurants), but it was unnecessary for my own personal dining pleasure.
The final savory dish delivered on a common fine dining trope: that of being the least impressive of the lot. Here, slightly-overcooked cuttlefish was served with an onion stuffed with a sweet chickpea-daikon purée studded with tender squid’s heads. A cornichon flower, while pretty, added little to the dish, and the same was true of the somewhat gluey onion sauce that was added tableside.
I did like the base of sautéed spinach and a condiment made with the restaurant’s namesake plum, more chickpeas, and walnuts, but I was confused by the choice to serve nearly the exact same dish on the side, in its own little bowl.
Luckily, this was the only part of the meal to truly give me pause, and the fraisier that followed was, quite simply, the best strawberry dessert I’ve eaten all season. A strawberry genoise was paired with a combination of fresh, pickled, and lemon-macerated strawberries. A yogurt purée and thin layer of strawberry-infused almond paste added a lovely touch of richness, and I actually quite liked the savory base seasoned with just a touch of kalamata olive.
The side of kalamata olive sorbet, however, felt a bit confusing. It might have benefitted from a touch more richness (i.e. perhaps being in the form of an ice cream rather than a sorbet.) That said, I had already begun eating before I heard a different server telling a neighboring table to begin with the sorbet, which I had not done. This might have changed my eating experience.
And while we’re on this subject… the only other thorn in my experience was indeed service, which proved a bit uneven. Some servers seemed far more knowledgeable than others, and I often found myself craning to listen to what another table was being told to complement my own, slightly more paltry information. Pacing at the outset was also quite slow, though it picked up as the meal continued, and I noticed that nearby tables received even their first courses at a slightly brisker pace than I had.
The meal concluded with a trio of mignardises. My favorite was that candied pecan on the left, but the little square of far breton with Agen prunes was lovely as well. And the cold infusion of Datil plums was a nice callout to the restaurant’s name and a lovely palate cleanser.
Datil got quite a bit of press when it first opened in 2023, some of which was positive… and a lot of which was negative. The latter stemmed in large part, not from the cuisine, but rather from what some critics saw as an overly performative philosophy on the part of founder Fleury, who sought to counteract the overwhelming maleness of the universe in which she worked by only hiring women in the kitchen.
I can see how some diners might find other elements of this no-waste, plant-driven restaurant a tad performative. At the beginning of the meal, each diner receives a booklet of art pieces that have inspired the chefs in creating the menu, a move that could seem a bit overly highbrow but that I found pleasantly novel (and a nice distraction from being on your phone.) Explanations about sourcing or upcycling were kept relatively brief (even by more verbose servers than mine), and ultimately, my main takeaways were sincerity, care, and above all, phenomenal talent for showcasing seasonal French produce it in all its splendor.
Datil – 13 Rue Des Gravilliers, 75003