If you didn't know this was a restaurant you'd never find it. But it is so worth finding. From…read morethe street you walk past all the lit windows and climb several steps to a door that I can't recall if it has so much as a brass plaque on it. But you swing open that door and...
Well, not magic. Just dark bricks and a near-empty bar to the left. So you go downstairs.
And that is where the magic happens. That is where the tables are full, and, European style, you may end up sharing your table with complete strangers. The brick ceilings are low and arched, darkened with age and I imagine the soot of years of candles. It actually looks a bit like the interior of a brick pizza oven, come to think of it. The atmosphere was cozy and the place gave off a good feeling, the kind of place you want to go back to.
I was gonna get the pike fish, the menu description intrigued me. (Thank goodness for Google translate.) But I always ask the servers what's amazing, and he said hands down the burger. I had no idea I wanted a burger. But it was the perfect meal for me at that moment. Sometimes things just click. It was dense. It was meaty. It was thick and a little bit smoky. I had trouble getting it into my mouth, and I went through about 4 napkins because it was so juicy. Even the fries were the perfect crunch.
Hubs and his work colleague each went for steak. I tried hubs' (that's what I do, and it's part of the marriage contract, right?), and it was the perfect doneness for me, medium rare, almost but not quite bloody. Be advised, though, hubs had ordered his "rosa", which is to say medium and pink. They evidently consistently undercook their steaks, because I was a little sad for hubs' colleague, who ordered his well-done, and that's just wrong (at least he didn't top it with ketchup). But it came out a happy pink, which was his plan, so he's figured out what to say to the chefs to get what he wants.
Hubs' colleague told us before we ordered that the creme brulée was amazing here so we each got one. Delicious! And accompanied by fruit, ice cream, and a decorative garnish of chocolate, mango, and raspberry syrups.
I love recs because I never would have found this place, or that meal, or that dessert without help. And I would go there again in a heartbeat.
