Racines 2 (CLOSED)

Racine’s little brother is the rebellious one, with its tattooed young chef and Scandinavian-influenced décor from badboy designer Philippe Starck (we particularly like the antler lamps). In the open kitchen, the cooks only work with the best produce: Jambon Ibérico raised in the open air, dry aged beef full of concentrated flavours.

The ingredient-led chalkboard menu is short and to the point. We started with a puff pastry feuilleté with snails, cream of shallots and fresh herbs: generous and flavourful, the sauce far more delicate than the traditional garlic butter. Also, a lovely and unusually well-presented vitello tonnato (cold veal and tuna sauce).

For mains, pork belly with crisp vegetables, which showed that pork can be a gourmet meat, and a reassuring hunk of perfectly rested and cooked beef with herby potato purée and mesclun salad. A slice of lemon tart was served without embellishment, as if to say ‘it’s so good, what else do you want?’ – we could only agree. And while we easily ran up a bill of over €50 per person, with the starters at around €15 and the mains between €25 and €30, this fancy bistro will easily find a clientele in the area who won’t be fazed by the prices.