La Côte Saint-Jacques

89300 JOIGNY
17/20
 Prestige Restaurant
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© Maison Kalos
© Maison Kalos
© DR
12 PHOTOS
Chef
Jean-Michel Lorain
Cooking
French | Gastronomic | Signature cuisine
Services
Access for people with disabilities | Accomodation | Children's Menu | Cooking lessons | Garden | Pets allowed | Private Parking | Takeaway | Valet parking
Style
Elegant | Exceptional setting | Romantic | With family
Price Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)
225 € to 305 €

Gault&Millau's review 2026

Some of the great houses of the 80s have disappeared, others have changed hands, and still others have been so intent on modernization that they've gone astray. La Côte Saint-Jacques is here, in Joigny, on the N6, where it remains. It has benefited from the attentions of the Lorain family, thanks first to Michel, then Jean-Michel, still there with his wife to look after the estate, but who has instilled the values of the house in his nephew Alexandre Bondoux. The young chef seems to have understood everything about the Côte. While retaining his touchingly formal manners, bordering on kitsch without ever going off the rails (the new décor, for example, retains the seventies spirit with noble materials, such as the superb tables made by an Aix designer using local wood), he reconciles what can be summed up as "the charm of the old", with a cuisine that is totally coherent, for its time as well as for the house, with lively dishes, full of freshness, created and prepared with art and taste. The abalone and Thai pomelo appetizer is very well received, as is the Dungeness crab, which plays its fresh, iodized role while being coated in a fine jelly, praline flowers and Japanese plum. The pike-perch under its Colonnata veil is cooked just right, soft and expressive with a gourmet pôchouse sauce, mushroom duxelles and truffle strips, and the venison is splendid, cooked almost rare, with a chestnut-rosehip-cress sauce, tartare, and a chestnut-chanterelle cassolette. Grandfather Michel's flagship dessert has been lightened and well translated by Alexandre and his pastry chef (millefeuille aux trois crèmes, chiboust, au beurre, anglaise) and the service, with a few timid aspects, manages to find a little naturalness. A historically Burgundian cellar, and one that remains very strong on its territory (all the big names, from Chablis to Puligny), but is also very much oriented, through the influence of its head sommelier Thomas Noble, towards natural winegrowers, both confirmed and new, particularly in the Jura, with some regions just being overflown by a few fine labels (Bordeaux, Rhône, Provence in particular).
LOCATION

LOCATION

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Address 14 Faubourg de Paris
89300 Joigny
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Opening hours

OPENING HOURS

  • MON
  • TUE
  • WED
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  • FRI
  • SAT
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People
  • Jean-Michel Lorain
    Jean-Michel Lorain Chef
    Jean-Michel Lorain Jean-Michel Lorain Chef
  • Alexandre Bondoux
    Alexandre Bondoux Chef
    Alexandre Bondoux Alexandre Bondoux Chef
  • Brice Béchard
    Brice Béchard Pastry Chef
    Brice Béchard Brice Béchard Pastry Chef
  • Matthias Lemercier
    Matthias Lemercier Chef de service
    Matthias Lemercier Matthias Lemercier Chef de service
  • Axel Thomas
    Axel Thomas Head sommelier
    Axel Thomas Axel Thomas Head sommelier