Monsieur Paul Restaurant Review - Epcot - France Pavilion - Walt Disney World - July 15, 2019

Posted by F S on Jul 15, 2019

Today we talk about Monsieur Paul Restaurant located at Epcot in the France Pavilion, this one is upstairs from The Chef's de France and the entrance is behind the downstairs restaurant.

From your first look inside you will see that this is an upscale restaurant. You are greeted by the hostess at the foot of the spiral staircase that will take you to this beautiful space.

The dining area has spared no expense. The furnishings are beautiful as are the fixtures and attention to detail of the painting of the ceilings. There are large windows that face out to the lake where the fireworks are displayed. In years past it was a great place to eat and view the fireworks but we noticed this time that the trees out front have now grown to a size that blocks most of that view except from one table. We weren't there to watch the fireworks though, we were there to eat so it didn't bother us either way.

From the moment you sit down and see the table setting you will realize that this restaurant has become what I like to refer to as Victoria and Albert's little brother.

We begin our meal with bread service, with choices of french baguette, cheese bread or olive and garlic bread.

Hubby chose the French Baguette and the cheese bread. He liked these both a lot and was offered more bread when his plate was empty which he then had the same one that I had.

While I chose the olive and garlic bread. If you know me you know I don't have a weakness for bread. Any kind of bread. So most times I will pass on bread service. But this was a wonderful bread with not too much garlic and lots of great olives. I enjoyed this a lot. And that's saying something.

At Monsieur Paul there are now two different types of menus. One is a standard menu where you can order Appetizers, and Main Courses individually.

The other is a Prix Fixe Menu with two different offerings. The first being the Menu Prestige. This menu is a four course menu where you have choices of some of the courses. The second is the one we chose for this evening and is called the Menu Degustation. This is a 7 course tasting menu that is set by the chef and has no choices to be made. They all looked wonderful to us so we went with the Chef's choices. I do have to say that the Menu Degustation only has one item that is on the regular menu. All of the other courses are described by our waiter as the best the Chef has to offer and is not available otherwise from the restaurant. So we were in for a treat for sure.

We started our 7 courses with the amuse bouche of a Semi-Cooked oyster, emulsion, fennel and lime caviar. I must say if this was to tease our palate it did just that as well as our eyes. We knew right away we were in for a wonderful meal. This bite of the sea was absolutely breathtaking. I'm not a fan of oysters or fennel but this pairing really heightened all of the flavors of this amuse bouche.

The second course was the only one that you will see on the regular menu and it was the Escargot tart, with parsley coulis, whipped cream and ricotta with garlic, and marinated vegetables. Parsley coulis is what is painted around the rim of the plate, and the world's smallest mushrooms can be seen atop the whipped cream and ricotta on the rim. The center was a puff pastry circle with more whipped cream and ricotta under the most interesting escargot I've ever eaten. I love escargot and will get them often. But I'd never had them with the ever so slight crunch on the edges as these did. They were cooked perfectly and if I didn't know better I'd think that they were flashed in the fryer to give them this crunch. With the whole bite it was wonderful. As you can see the portion size for this tasting menu is more than enough given you will be eating 7 courses of food.

The next course is the Seared Scallop with creamy polenta and tomato puree. This was a beautiful large scallop perfectly seared atop creamy polenta, on top of the scallop was a wonderfully blistered grape tomato with some tomato puree and a shaving of parmesan. This was the best scallop I think I've ever had in my life. It was buttery and tart with the tomato added and just that hint of saltiness of the parmesan. The polenta added the corn flavor that it needed to round out the dish.

The next course was a palate cleanser of Chilled peach soup with verbena sorbet and mint. Verbena is a herb that tastes like lemon and lime and is known to aid in digestion and to increase appetite. This soup was a beautiful break from the heavier flavors of the previous courses. It was smooth and flavorful.

The next course was the main course which is a veal tenderloin duo with French style sweet peas and ricotta. This was a pastry shell filled with a veal mixture, topped with peas and mashed potatoes and then veal tenderloin. The peas were also served as little dots of puree as you can see. The veal of this dish was flavorful, perfectly cooked and tender. The pastry shell had a little more bite to it than I expected but paired perfectly with the inner combination of veal, potatoes and peas.

The next course was the cheese course. You get a choice of three of the six cheeses table side. Since there were two of us we decided one of us would get the first three and one the second three.

The cheese course is served with walnut raisin bread, candied walnuts and raspberry jam.

One plate was all of the mild cheese.

And the other was the sharper cheeses. These were generous servings of cheese. By this time I was getting very full and realized I still had dessert to go. So we had him box up the cheeses and accompaniments and took them home with us. They were perfect the next day for lunch.

The last course is the Dessert course, you have your choice of any of the desserts on the dessert menu.

Hubby chose the La Sphere, a milk chocolate sphere, with chocolate almond cake, praline and chocolate cream, light hazelnut biscuit, with chocolate ice cream and warm chocolate and cognac sauce.

I chose the Le verrine pommme caramel. Caramelized apples, Shortbread Brittany style, vanilla cream, green apple sorbet and warm caramel sauce. These both speak for themselves.

I thought I'd add the video I posted to Instagram that is the reveal experience for this dessert.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Things Very Special (@things_very_special) on Jul 2, 2019 at 6:59pm PDT

All in all it was a wonderful meal, as if it would have been any different. So if you get a chance to check out Monsieur Paul, do so. It's a wonderful experience.

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