Arborescence

Rating: 16
Author: Gault&Millau

59170 CROIX

16/20
Remarkable Restaurant

BOOK

8 PHOTOS

Chef: Félix Robert
Cooking: French | Fusion | Gastronomic | Healthy cooking | Local | Signature cuisine
Style: Elegant | Romantic

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

110 to 180

Gault&Millau's review 2026

After a few high-flying dishes, there can be no doubt that Félix Robert, a meteor of Northern France gastronomy and already top of the list after three years in the business, has the makings of a four-toque chef. This elegant, superbly decorated (space, wood, jazz...) venue, set in a rehabilitated industrial complex, represents the best of the best and the future for the metropolis, along with some of its young colleagues. However, there are still a few minor shortcomings of youth and fashion, such as the slightly stilted manners, the sometimes naive mise-en-scene, the lack of a menu and of any indication, preventing choice and freedom for the customer. But in the end, the course of a memorable meal wins everyone over. Appetizer after appetizer, including a very convincing sea bass tartare with ikejimé mayo and peanut oil, followed by a hard-hitting starter of oyster caviar, osciètre and chocolate salicorne. Because what we find here, with its biases, its France-Asia associations, which are a little systematic but work very well, its imagination, is indeed one of the riskiest cuisines, but also one of the most successful, a little like that of his mentor of six years, Alexandre Gauthier. We follow voluptuously with spider pesto bear garlic herb brioche, lobster with orange and its "osmazôme", concentrated lobster juice, a lot of work for a very fine result, the excellent red mullet in two ways, flame-cooked on a wasabi tartar and concentrated as a charcuterie with a spicy sauce, and the remarkable sweetbreads, perfectly cooked, on a simply stunning Thai sauce, naturally inspired by Nidta who also looks after the room. During the coup de feu, you can feel the effervescence rising in the open kitchen, but the young, well-trained service team remains focused and efficient, placing the little easel at each plate, as at Yoann Conte's, bearing a word of evocation from the chef rather than an explanation, or a drawing by Nidta. A selective wine cellar, finding good, and sometimes natural, wines from many regions, with a dozen or so choices by the glass.