Sourire Tapas Françaises -- Restaurant Review

 

27 rue Galande, 75005 Paris
Tel: +33 1 42 01 06 43
Website: https://www.sourire-restaurant.com/
Metro: Line 10, Maubert - Mutualité

Rating Standards: 5-Stars = Extraordinary; 4-Stars = Excellent; 3-Stars = Average; 2-Stars = Fair; 1-Star = Poor

€ = Inexpensive: 30€ and under; €€ = Moderate: 31€-49€; €€€ = Expensive: €50 -75; €€€€ = Very Expensive: more than €76 (prices based on minimum 2-courses)

1-Bell = Pleasantly quiet (less than 65 decibels); 2-Bells = Can talk easily (65-70); 3-Bells = Talking normally gets difficult (70-80); 4-Bells = Can talk only in raised voices (75-90); BOMB = Too noisy for normal conversation (90+)

3 - Stars....................................................€........................................................ 3.5 - Bell

I've been to this "tapas" restaurant before many years ago. It's in the heart of the tourist area of the 5eme, but surprisingly its patrons were more than 90% french. It's a young hip group, like us 😜.

This differs from a Spanish tapas place in that you're not sitting at a bar and nor is there a display of dishes you can choose that's already been prepared. It's order as you go. Also, they tout that their dishes are "french" so you won't see Iberico ham. 

This will be a departure from a normal restaurant review that I've done. Since it is a tapas place, we had so many dishes, it was difficult for me to keep track of the flavor profiles, so I will provide you what our favorites were and our least favorite. 

MENU

This was the menu. As you can see it's quite a varied menu. Hmm, hamburger? how very french. 

TAPAS

These were some of the dishes we had. We had two orders of a mix of potato and sweet potato fries. They were tasty, but could've been crispier. An easy fix to this could've been a double fry.

As I mentioned in an earlier review, peas are in season in France. So we did get a shredded lamb dish with a pea purée with whole peas. It was good. 

Our favorite dishes was the carpaccio and the burrata. The carpaccio was very french and garnished with not only olive oil and greens but also roasted hazelnuts. The burrata was soft and creamy, perfect consistency.

Our least favorite was the stuffed chicken breast. The chicken was very dry and bland.

All-in-all there's enough variety for everyone's taste.

WINE

La Croix du pin Sauvignon 2021 -- I liked this wine a lot. Very smooth and refreshing. Some say it has notes of fruitcake, dark fruit and/or honeysuckle. I didn't find that at all. For lack of a better explanation, I found it "wet" and fruity dry. Almost like grapefruit juice

SUMMARY

This restaurant has been around a long time. Based on what we saw last night, it looks like where hipsters go for a meal. The prices are not bad and you had a nice variety of food. If you're looking for fine dining, then turn around. It is not a destination for fine dining nor a place to go for a romantic dinner. It's a place you want to go if you like to nosh with friends and share wine and small dishes. It's a very, very casual place.

They had 1-wait person for the whole restaurant and one "bartender" who occasionally helped with the service. I was so impressed how quick and fast they moved. We got our first couple of dishes within 5-10 minutes? So kudos to them for being very attentive. I did peruse the kitchen and it looked like the chefs were just creating dishes with no ticket orders as you see in most restaurants, hence, the quick readiness of dishes.

As for the food, some of the dishes were hits and some were misses. You have to do a trial and error. It's a fun place, but it is quite noisy and was oftentimes hard to hear. The food was good, none were by any means anything outstanding, exceptional or mind-blogging. 

We did have 2-bottles of wine, an apple cider and I couldn't keep track of how many dishes we had, but for 6-people we paid 150€ or 25€ per person, and we did not leave hungry. The prices were extremely reasonable.

So, if you want to go and have a casual meal and not sure what you want for dinner, this is a good place to go with friends and nosh and drink to your heart's content.