La Grenouillère

62170 LA MADELAINE-SOUS-MONTREUIL
19/20
 Exceptional Restaurant
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© Camille Piovesan
© Camille Piovesan
© Camille Piovesan
11 PHOTOS
Chef
Alexandre Gauthier
Cooking
French | Gastronomic | Signature cuisine
Services
Access for people with disabilities | Garden
Style
Elegant | Romantic
Budget (€)
Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)
195 to 285

Gault&Millau's review 2026

Now more than ever, choosing what to eat has become a militant act, and so has choosing a restaurant. Entering La Grenouillère is like entering religion: a personal choice, a meeting with an independent chef and his world. To say that the experience at Alexandre Gauthier's is a singular one would be an understatement. At the end of 2023, the house where he grew up, his family's 350-year-old inn, was taking on water in the worst sense of the word, devastating the dining room, bedrooms and kitchens. Nothing is forgotten, but the phoenix has risen again, and this year we spent a suspended moment, exquisite and rare, like no other. The highly unique menu is not a list, but a poem, in which men, rivers, forests and fields intertwine. Alexandre's world is vegetal and marine, but above all terribly human. We breathe, we smell, we savor every mouthful, always marked by a gesture, an intention, a message: the nobility of the radish, which equals that of the langoustine, in a majestic trilogy (these strips of sea bass and radish in counterpoint!), the unsuspected pleasure of the gourmet pea in four tableaux, as much crunch as finesse, the fermented broth, the nasturtium in peppery condiment, the mischievous soufflé with langoustine. We've barely recovered from the joys of the first acts - whole milk blini and crab cake (a much better crab pancake) caviar and faisselle, shellfish and ginger hollandaise maritime soda or frog mignonettes with nettle and sorrel coulis - when three magnificent dishes follow in quick succession: red mullet, wild strawberry, rapeseed in indescribable harmonic perfection (marine power, mischievous dance of fruit, sublime vinaigrette on the seeds...); beef leaflet with summer truffle and nasturtium flower (tripe in majesty); pigeon on trunk, gently left to cook, spinach, peach and almond puck, mustard gnocchi... After that, you have to keep your attention for those sweets that are also fragments of the same universe: vanilla cream and rhubarb wood, the "chamboule tout" pimprenelle (on a bavaroise of rhubarb and birch sugar), cotton candy, goat's cheese timbale, strawberries..The young team, who have to serve around forty courses per table over the course of the evening (not forgetting a dozen appetizers for the aperitif, in the garden or in the dining room), carry out their task with zeal, efficiency and naturalness for a clientele that is always varied but knows what they're doing there. The cellar is mainly made up of young winemakers, with a lot of natural wine selected by Rodolphe Pugnat, who is always involved and enthusiastic. Since pairings with such creative power are not self-evident, we tend to prefer the personal choice of a pleasurable bottle from the wine list.
LOCATION

LOCATION

© OpenMapTiles © OpenStreetMap
Address 19 Rue de la Grenouillère
62170 La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil
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Opening hours

OPENING HOURS

  • MON
  • TUE
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People
  • Alexandre Gauthier
    Alexandre Gauthier Chef
    Alexandre Gauthier Alexandre Gauthier Chef
  • Alix Marquant
    Alix Marquant Sous Chef
    Alix Marquant Alix Marquant Sous Chef
  • Alix Marquant
    Alix Marquant Pastry Chef
    Alix Marquant Alix Marquant Pastry Chef
  • Rodolphe Pugnat
    Rodolphe Pugnat Head sommelier
    Rodolphe Pugnat Rodolphe Pugnat Head sommelier