L’Entree des Artistes Pigalle: Cocktails & Small Plates

Oh, Pigalle. So hip, ever popular. A coming of age story about a red light district that became beautiful in its own edgy way. Pigalle is the red hed in Clueless and in Mean Girls who got sky-rocketed to the cool club, and I’m not going to complain that great food & cocktails decided to sprout up within steps of one another.

L’entrée des Artistes Pigalle, the second restaurant of the same name (without the Pigalle part), is located just around the corner from the Grand Pigalle Hotel, Buvette, Luz Verde, Dirty Dick (least favorite bar name in history) and Glass, to name a few. Downstairs, it’s dark and moody; upstairs there’s a beautiful space with tables and ceiling-high windows.

They offer a varied selection of creative craft cocktails and small plates to share. One drink had a bacon strip on top.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

Bacon infused whiskey and vanilla bourbon; Apricot gin & tonic; Cucumber, tequila, cilantro, & spicy agave syrup

I can’t pass up a spicy cucumber drink. I can’t and I won’t.

On with the small plates:

This was the prettiest and probably my favorite plate of the night, asparagus tic-tac-toe with yuzu creme.

Stuffed pimento peppers. Stuffed with what, you say? My guess was crab, as it was not indicated on the menu.

Artichokes, zucchini, and olives

Octopus carpaccio

It’s getting dark. Pictures are getting ugly and grainy. This is pollack (a type of fish) ravioli in spider crab bouillon (in French, this is the same word as spider, so it looks like spider bouillon. Mm.)

Iberico pork, with smoked egglplant puree and leeks

There’s just no making this pretty at this point. Darkness and iPhone photos do no marry well together. This pork cheek confit and zucchini is the last photo I will take, for obvious reasons. It was rich and tender, as nearly all meat cheeks are.

My roommate and I have a weekly girls’ dinner, usually on Thursday night, and it has been ongoing for two and a half years now. Every week, we pick a place on the ever-growing list of restaurants to try, reserve a table for 4-6 people, and send out last minute invitations (usually the day of) to see who can join. So we never know who will be joining us, and it makes for a great time with a rotating cast.

Incidentally, I also have added a weekly Sunday brunch club to my repertoire of eating organizations. And I can’t figure out why I’m gaining weight.

We, Girls’ Dinner, Inc., absolutely could have been upsold a cheese plate, as we never say no to cheese. It’s a rule in our bylaws. And in my heart. But when asked what kind of cheese was on the plate, we were told, “Not sure, let me check.” Then, after coming back: “A sheep’s cheese, a blue, and a goat’s cheese.” World’s most generic description.

“What is the soup du jour?”

“It’s the soup of the day.”

“Mmmmm, that sounds good. I’ll have that.”

If you’re going to offer a cheese plate, know your cheeses. We broke our own cardinal rule and passed on the cheese, since we were offended by its anonymity. It felt like an insult to the cheese for it to be so poorly described, and I couldn’t support such tomfoolery.

Going straight to dessert, there were two options, and we chose the second: Apricot, rosemary mousseline, and a Breton butter cookie. It was too dark at this point to even hope for any sort of photo, and I refuse to use a flash in a restaurant; I’m not an animal, so no visual here, but it’s possibly better that way.

I was imagining a huge butter cookie topped with rosemary mousse and some apricots about the plate. Instead, it was primarily thick mousseline piped in a circle, apricots that were supposed to be fresh but still managed to taste dried, and one small, thin cookie, slightly larger than a euro. I am such a dessert lover that it’s hard to disappoint me, but I was disappointed in this. Keep your euro cookie.

Everything that came out was pretty to look at, and it was all enjoyable. Overall, it lacked a certain wow factor, but Paris has ruined me for life because I expect my eyes to roll into the back of my head every other bite. I love the atmosphere and cocktails, and it’s worth going to, but two points deducted from Gryffindor for not knowing the cheeses and that ho-hum dessert.

Am I being overly judgmental over the cheese thing? Maybe. But a lackluster dessert is unacceptable, and I shall not stand for it.

I’ll definitely return for cocktails, and maybe for another round of small plates to see what they do next time. It’s not my new favorite restaurant, but craft cocktails they do right, and there’s no reason to miss out on a fruity gin cocktail, spicy cucumber goodness, or any drink with bacon strewn across it.

L’Entree des Artistes Pigalle
30-32 rue Victor Massé – 75009 Paris
Tue – Thurs 7pm-2am, Fri & Sat 7pm-4am
Closed Sun/Mon
Reservations can be made here
01 45 23 11 93