Quality French cuisine in the city is famously hard to come by and the places that do offer it are prohibitively expensive. Two weeks ago, Christian, a designer and artist living in the city for the last seven years, opened Café des Arts – a restaurant that drastically undercuts the competition, but does so at the expense both of quality and range.
The restaurant’s unfortunate but temporary signage does little to betray the pleasant, al fresco dining area inside, walls adorned with work by a range of artists including Christian himself. Planning to stage live performances of Bach in the future and with the Velvet Underground playing in the background (a nod to the recent passing of the wonderful Lou Reed), the arts are, as the restaurant’s name suggests, of paramount importance here.
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Sadly, such passion has not made its way onto the café’s menu. While more dishes will be added over time, the current selection relies far too heavily on a mishmash of Nepali snacks and European-esque food of no fixed abode. Indeed, for a restaurant that bills itself as French, there is very little French food on offer at all.
However, the quintessential croque-monsieur (Rs 350) does make an appearance, albeit a tainted one. This humble snack dates back more than 100 years in the cuisine’s history and has simple, but strictly defined characteristics – very few of which are adhered to here. Non-descript ham and cheese came without the required béchamel sauce and grilled cheese topping – surely a cardinal sin to even the casual Francophile.
Furthermore, the sandwich had been cramped into a panini press or similar and was made with mass-produced factory bread, rather than homemade. Perhaps the new kitchen and staff are ill-equipped to make their own bread, but then what about the delicious, fresh options available to caterers from an ever-growing number of great European bakeries?
That aside, we tried the ‘Green Village’ soup (Rs 250), which was not served with the promised toast and, while well spiced, tasted more like a cumin and coriander-heavy curry base than a dish in its own right.
There was a small serving of pork (from fellow Frenchman François’ Tokha farm) with rather overdone, curried vegetables (Rs 600), and a gigantic helping of chicken escalope panée (Rs 600), alongside a side salad and a grainy puree of potato. The escalope was a standout – tender, thin pieces of chicken breadcrumbed and toasted to perfection.
But with so few French options available, we also sampled the Newari buff set (Rs 290), which was passable, but lacked the garlic and ginger kick the combo is known for.
After overdoing it on the mains (and especially the XL portion of chicken), we decided to ditch dessert, which did at least bring with it the promise of French credentials – the menu offered crepes and a flambé – but I think I’d want the chef to nail the croque-monsieur before I’d let him loose with burning brandy.
Christian was chatty to a fault: very interested in our feedback, but rather cavalier with his own point of view, which at times bordered on bigotry. It’s great that there’s a new, cheaper French bistro on the block. But right now, c’est pas le Pérou.
How to get there: entering Thamel from Tridevi Marg, take a right at Narsing Chok and right again a couple of minutes later, immediately after the A1 business complex.