Paris: La Cremaillerie (August 2017)


Dine in Their Charming Rear Garden

My spouse and I and another couple visited La Cremaillere 1900 for dinner on a Sunday evening in late August 2017. The restaurant is open daily from 9:00 am until 12:30 am, with continuous service throughout the day. The lunch menu is offered from 12:30 pm, with the dinner menu available from 7:30 pm.
La Cremaillere occupies a building that has stood on the Place du Tertre in Montmartre since 1900, hence the date in the restaurant name. However, it was originally a bookstore and then later a dairy before becoming a restaurant. You can dine outdoors in the main square under cover of awnings that can be rolled back in appropriate weather, or an alternative al fresco option of their private rear garden (enclosed by walls but open to the sky) with cobblestones, street lamps, columns, and a fountain. Indoors, you can dine in their main dining room, which is decorated with Belle Epoque paintings dating back to the 1900s. A semi-open kitchen/service area adjoins the main dining room. Toward the front of the restaurant, you can sit at a few cabaret tables near the piano, where a pianist plays (and sometimes the crowd sings!) from 8:00 pm nightly to accompany your dinner.
La Cremaillere offers traditional French cuisine, which you can order a la carte or as part of a set 3-course menu (ranging from 25 to 40 Euros complete). Three of us ordered the least-expensive prix-fixe menu, choosing onion soup, a hearty salad, and oeufs au saumon fume (eggs with smoked salmon) for our starters, followed by main dishes of beef bourguignon, salmon, and pasta. For dessert, we tried the bavarois a la Framboise (raspberry cake), crème brulee, and Charlotte aux poires et chocolate (trifle with pears and chocolate). The other member of our party ordered the pate and moules (mussels) from the a la carte menu. This restaurant offers some of the largest drinking vessels that we have ever seen! When we ordered a large beer and a large soda, each arrived in an enormous glass mug that was almost too large to lift comfortably – definite cause for a photograph!
We enjoyed our al fresco dinner at La Cremaillere 1900, where the food was tasty, service was good, and the scenery/people-watching was entertaining.













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