Saba

Rating: 13
Author: Gault&Millau

74000 ANNECY

13/20
Chef's Restaurant

BOOK

4 PHOTOS

Chef: Clément Torres

Budget (€)

Indicative price per person (excl. drinks)

55 to 85

Gault&Millau's review 2026

Let's be clear: we're not questioning the know-how or the imagination of chef Clément Torrès, Jeune Talent 2022 and winner of the Gault&Millau Endowment. But let's face it, on our last visit, this ceremony that begins with the "restaurant concept" to evoke the famous imposed surprise menu, with a chef who decides everything for the customer, obliged to follow a meal with, perhaps, a few products he doesn't like, for at least 1 h 30 and a minimum of six courses, the recited word-for-word presentations of each dish, the almost complete lexicon of Japanese cuisine (dashi, kombu, karaage, wasabi, daikon..), all of which struck us as a little old-fashioned, let's put it that way, and very restrictive, at a time when times are not easy for traditional French cuisine, which we should be defending as best we can. Once that's said, we salute the precise work and the right tastes of this sequence, the beautiful oyster with black garlic and chili oil among the appetizers, the liche à cru gel de soupe de poisson de roche mayo dashi pomme de terre fumée et poutargue, the veal and crab sabayon basil fermented, before the beef endive evoking the Caesar salad and a dessert around rice. The ensemble is always worth two fine toques, and we can concede that this hidden menu also allows for a moderate price, at €55 per performance. Next spring, Saba's dedicated young female wait staff will no longer have to climb the spiral staircase twenty times carrying dishes into the small room with its closely-spaced tables, as Saba is moving to the heart of town, on rue Sommeiller. A cellar of fashionable estates (Myrko Tepus and Sant'Armettu in Provence-Corsica, for example) and other surprises, such as Slovenian and Italian wines by the glass.