Helen (not Hélène) opened in 2012. In 2015, the restaurant received a Michelin star, which it still holds.
It is located on a quiet side street just off the avenue de Friedland in the eighth arrondissement, north of the Champs-Élysées and south of the Parc Monceau, an area where few tourists ever wander. Certainly, there’s little about the restaurant from the street that would attract the attention of a casual stroller.
And yet, inside lies one of the best fish restaurants in all of Paris, at least on the same level as La Table d’Akihiro.
The restaurant consists of three rooms, done in a minimalist style.
On a Tuesday lunch, the clientèle was exclusively well-heeled French diners. I heard nothing other than French spoken, although there were a couple upon leaving that looked as though they might have been American. Suit jackets were virtually mandatory for males (L managed to spot but a single male diner in shirtsleeves); this is more formality than I’ve observed in a Paris restaurant in a very long time.
If you don’t want to eat fish, don’t come here — the only non-fish dishes are cèpes, cheese, and dessert:
As tempting as so many dishes on the carte were, we decided to go with the lunch menu on this visit, and if it proved worthy of another visit (spoiler: it did), we’d come back for dinner and order some of the other dishes.
The wine list is very good, if a bit idiosyncratic. There are no Jura wines and relatively few whites from Alsace and the Loire, and even from Burgundy, there are no Pouilly-Fuissé or other Pouillys. The main portion of the list for whites is taken up by Burgundy, but I wondered in many cases why the restaurant stocked a particular wine. and not another. Nevertheless, no one will have a problem finding a very good bottle to go with the meal in any price range (there are, of course, wines by the glass, too). There are also red wines, should you want some. Markups are reasonable, especially for a one-star restaurant.
We chose a white 2021 Monthélie from the excellent, if under-the-radar, Meursault-based producer Jean-Philippe Fichet:
Monthélie straddles Meursault and Volnay, and the whites can resemble the former while the reds can resemble the latter, but from a less warm climate. This wine showed outstanding minerality with some roundness. It was delicious on its own and also with the food.
We started with an amuse-bouche of a fish spread on an parmesan biscuit:
This was a very good opener, one that primed the palate for what was to come.
For her first course, L took the heart of salmon with horseradish cream served on a potato round:
We both found this dish blander than we expected (more horseradish!). But if you took the salmon away from the potato and added some salt and olive oil (which was already on the table), it came alive, and then adding some olive oil to the excellent potatoes made them interesting on their own, too.
I took the thin slices of black mullet in a Thai marinade:
The contrast with the salmon was enormous. Rather than being on the bland side, this was a dish with plenty of energy, depth, and precision — a real star.
L took the rouget for her main course, a favorite fish of hers:
This was as simple, pure, and excellent as it looks in the picture.
I took the steamed cabillaud (codfish) with a sauce vierge. I was interested in seeing what this restaurant could do with the most common of fish that one finds in French restaurants.
The portion was generous, and the quality of the fish was impeccable — showing cabillaud at its very ideal.
With the main dishes, we had sides of roasted potatoes and carrots:
Both were excellently done, and in fact, the potatoes surpassed expectations of what could be done with them.
The dessert chariot (we came on the late side, so most diners had already chosen their desserts):
L took the fig tart (out of focus here):
I took the lemon custard tart:
Both were intense, balanced, and not overly sweet.
I took an espresso to finish the meal, and with it were excellent mignardises:
A collection of lures on my way to the loo:
And the bill, a remarkable value for a lunch of this quality:
Chef Sébastien Carmona-Porto has created a gem with Helen. As presently constituted, the restaurant will never get more than a single Michelin star because two- and three-star restaurants are the opposite of the noble austerity of his cooking and the room here. So much the better for the restaurant’s afishionados!
Helen
3, rue Berryer, 75008 Paris
Tél: 01 40 76 40 76
website: restauranthelen.com
Tu-Fri lunch and dinner, Sat dinner
Métro: George V (1), Charles de Gaulle/Étoile (1, 2, 6), Ternes (2), St-Philippe du Roule (9)
All images copyright Claude Kolm.
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