Le Pressoir - SaintAve

Excellent dinner with lots of flavors and a very nice service. Bravo! read more Excellent dinner with lots of flavors and a very nice service. Bravo!

Kitchen with a great refinement. top service, very friendly staff read more Kitchen with a great refinement. top service, very friendly staff

Excellent restaurant refined and surprising cuisine! read more Excellent restaurant refined and surprising cuisine!

We booked for lunch, with a child. There are three menus to choose from, and a nice thing was the fact that they have a proper child menu so that the kid can do... read more We booked for lunch, with a child. There are three menus to choose from, and a nice thing was the fact that they have a proper child menu so that the kid can do his selection as well. The meal started with an amazing potato cake (black from the squid ink), stuffed with cream, salmon and caviar. It followed with fish, and meat both perfectly cooked and seasoned. I cannot suggest one dish as we liked then all. The only remark desserts are huge and just too big. After a four course meal, a full plate dessert even if tasty and with fresh fruit is a bit too much.

We have been trying the top end restaurants in this area. Le Pressoir is recommended by one chef in particular and the chef at Tête en l'air trained here he pro... read more We have been trying the top end restaurants in this area. Le Pressoir is recommended by one chef in particular and the chef at Tête en l'air trained here he probably ran away! So, much vaunted and recommended by gourmet friends of ours. Decor is bright but dated. Three waiters in sharp suits and very modern eyewear. Chairs are wicker, too deep, too short and uncomfortable. Cutlery is very nice. Crockery is lamentable the scraping sound of everyone's bowl was like fingernails being dragged down a blackboard. We went for the top end tasting menu with matching wines. First little tasters, 4 in a row, eat right to left, but on a side dish the waiter put a small white object that looked like a mint, with a flourish he poured hot water from a pretty white jug and hey presto, it became a soggy tampon looklalike a towelette never have I seen anything quite so laughable or ridiculous. Next came a brown hockey puck, something to do with salmon and salmon roe very nice but the bowl scraping sound was truly awful. Then came a glass of wine with our empty plates, to go with the next course, obviously. Plates were cleared and we sat and waited 10 minutes with a small glass of Sylvaner; it tasted of nothing and added nothing to the dish, an excellent foie gras in a broth of artichokes and girolle, I think. Next came a nice piece of St Pierre John Dory with a nice Bourgogne Chardonnay, but it didn't match the dish. Another glass of wine, a Pinot Noir from the Savoie !? another 10 minute wait. A broth too heavy with cream, consisting mainly of finely chopped leeks, with a very small piece of lobster, 2 langouistine scampi and 2 small pieces of boudin noir wrapped in a tuille made of squid ink. It left a bitter taste in the mouth and the wine was chosen to match the boudin, not the lighter flavours of the fish, neither did it cut through the over creaminess. The wine had a mechanical smell to it, my wife hit the nail on the head it smells like burned out clutch, and it did. It was OK, nothing more but poorly matched. Then a Croze Hermitage, very nice, to go with the beautifuly cooked two pieces of pigeon breast but oh my god, the two brown pools of fois gras jus looked awful and overpowered everything else. the tiny just one over smoked leg could well have been cooked in the chef's exhaust pipe on his way to work. A potential masterpiece ruined. A sorbet of peaches and cranberries that was simply too frozen in the middle, but it did cleanse the palate. Then the dessert, one of these chocolate balls that the waiter pours some warm raspberry reduction over to reveal the masterpiece, very 1990s but the wine was a sparkling beaujolais from Chenay; think watered down Tizer. It didn't go, it was pretty turgid and was left. Coffee in poncey cups. €350 bucks, bargain! When I stood up to leave I thought my legs had been cut off at the knees. Don't bother, go to Tête de l'Air instead. and save yourself at least a third and have well matched superior wines and discuss the food and wine with less stilted and sharply suited waiters.