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Bon appétit! We try conveyor-belt French food in Paris

Krista Rogers Feb 11, 2014
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Kaiten-zushi, or conveyor-belt sushi, has got to be one of the most fun styles of restaurant anywhere in the world. Who doesn’t love watching delectable, bite-size portions of sushi that are all yours for the taking spin around right in front of their eyes? Many tourists make it a point to stop by a kaiten-zushi place when they visit Japan. The fact that you can fill up on delicious sushi without breaking your wallet makes the experience even better.

While these kinds of restaurants can be found outside of their original home, the quality of Japan’s kaiten-zushi is so good that, whether right or wrong, many foreigners claim that any place outside of Japan is a fake. However, what if you took the concept of the conveyor-belt serving style and applied it to a different national cuisine? Well, that’s just what one restaurant in France decided to do. Now you can enjoy quality conveyor-belt French cuisine at a restaurant in Paris!

We were so intrigued that we recently send one of our Japanese reporters to check it out.

Conveyor-belt French food, you say?! Did you even know that such a thing even exists? Well, it does at the MEDI TERRA NEA restaurant in Paris. Even though rotating French food may seem a bit out-there, the chef of this particular restaurant was trained under the famous Joël Robuchon, a powerhouse in the world of French gourmet. That alone should make it worth a try.

Before reading the review of our reporter’s visit, see for yourself what rotating French cuisine looks like in the following video:

The interior of the restaurant is at once both extremely stylish and casual. The ample amount of blue ensures a soothing dining atmosphere. It is all in all very cozy, except for the fact that the chairs were a bit high for our reporter. There’s no dress code, so there’s no need to worry about your appearance, just like at a kaiten-zushi restaurant in Japan.

It turns out that hors d’oeuvre and dessert are the only food items that rotate; you have to order main dishes and any hot menu items directly from the staff. Cards displaying the name of the dish and its price are attached to each rotating plate of food, which customers place inside a little pail on the counter after they take a plate. When you’re ready to check out, a staff member will calculate the total bill by adding up the cards in your pail.

After sampling several dishes, our reporter couldn’t believe that you could have such exemplary French cuisine for such a low price! The risotto in particular was spot-on, with each grain bursting with flavor and creaminess. The crispy foods were also very good. His only complaint was that one of the stir-fries seemed a bit tasteless. He recommends the tangy lemon custard for all you ladies out there.

He ordered the steak for his main dish, which happens to be one of the most popular choices among customers. While the meat appeared to be dry at first, its flavor was superbly drawn out when paired with red wine. According to French people, the flavor of French food can be subtly altered with an accompanying drink more so than with any other country’s cuisine. Those words finally make sense now!

So what’s the bottom line? Our reporter went to this restaurant with two different people on two occasions, and it cost about 40-50 euros (US$54-68) for a highly satisfying meal. Japanese tourists going to a French restaurant in Paris that was recommended in a guidebook might easily spend over 100 euros ($136) for a nice meal. So if you think of it that way, doesn’t getting exemplary French cuisine prepared by a top-notch chef served in a fun, rotating manner sound like a great deal?

Restaurant Information
Name: MEDI TERA NEA
Address: 13 rue de Faubourg Montmartre Paris France
Hours: Monday 11:30 AM-3:30 PM / Tuesday & Wednesday 11:30 AM-1 PM / Thursday-Saturday 11:3o AM-2 PM
Closed: Sunday
URL: MEDI TERRA NEA

Original article by Kuzo
Images: RocketNews24
[ Read in Japanese ]