Dinner at Temple & Chapon, Where the Marais Feels a Little Like New York

An evening at Temple & Chapon, the chophouse-inspired restaurant and American bar at Hotel Experimental Marais in Paris.

I knew it was Temple & Chapon before I'd read the sign. It was the chairs. They're the classic woven bistro chairs you see on café terraces all over Paris, except these were navy blue, and I honestly can't remember the last time I saw them in that colour. Round tables with white tablecloths stood under a navy awning, and a small gold sign next to the door said Temple & Chapon, American Bar. We were in the right place.

Inside, you walk straight into the bar. On your right is where, as far as I could tell, every cocktail gets made, and on your left there's a long sofa where people sit with a drink and something small to eat. Ahead of you a staircase leads down, and from the top you can already see the lights below, a lot of them, in a space that feels more like a loft than a restaurant. We went down, were welcomed at the bottom, and got our table.

The dining room makes you look up. Round chandeliers of frosted glass hang over the staircase, there are arched mirrors along the walls and a ceiling hung with draped white fabric, and by the time we sat down the candles were lit. The interiors are by Tristan Auer, who nodded to the Marais's church history with high ceilings and neo-Gothic shapes, and the artist Clovis Retif added a trail of small clues left behind by an imaginary traveller. You don't need to know any of that to enjoy the room, but it explains why it's full of little details. The tables around us were a proper mix, locals and visitors, and a few groups having a big dinner, which makes sense in this part of the Marais.

Our waiter knew the menu properly. He helped us choose, told us about the dish of the day, and could say where the products came from. Once we'd ordered, warm bread arrived with an Italian olive oil, and he explained it's a well-known loaf that has won a few prizes.

The kitchen belongs to chef Mélanie Serre, who grew up in the Ardèche and has cooked at Eden Rock in St Barths, under Joël Robuchon and at Brasserie du Bassin. The menu takes its cue from the American chophouses of the 1950s, big cuts of meat, lobster, plates made for sharing, and the French side comes in through the technique. The lobster roll, one of the house classics, is the clearest example. The lobster was sweet and there was plenty of it, packed into a brioche that was soft and light inside with a thin, crisp edge, finished with honey mustard and a little avocado. If someone asked me what to order first, that would be my answer.

For my main I went for the dish of the day, a fish with crisp skin in a curry sauce, with courgettes and pickles around it. I couldn't tell the courgette from the pickle by looking at them, but one bite sorted that out. It sounds like a strange combination and it works: the fish is delicate, and the pickles bring the acidity and a bit of snap, so every forkful was sharp and soft at the same time. You could taste the quality of what was on the plate without anyone having to tell you.

My plus-one started with a carpaccio lifted by grapefruit and went classic for the main, the filet de bœuf with black pepper sauce, exactly what the chophouse tradition is built on. For dessert she had the coconut sorbet with passion fruit, served in the coconut shell, and I stayed on the apple side with the tatin, apples cooked down in caramel until they were deep amber, glossy and soft all the way through.

There was a DJ on the night we went, but more as an ambience than a performance, and the music follows you around the whole place. The way to the restrooms takes you down a corridor past the kitchen, so you catch a glimpse of a very busy team at work while the same soundtrack carries on overhead. Small details like that tell you somebody thought about the whole evening and not just the plates.

After dessert we went back up to the bar for a drink, which turned out to be a very good decision. Most of the cocktails on the list are the house's own signatures, and the waiter at the bar told us the dry martini is the famous one, partly because so many of their customers come from the US. You could hear plenty of French around us too, and next to us a few people were having their drinks with the lobster roll, which in hindsight looked like a very good idea. There's a big sofa where you can settle in and talk for as long as you like, seats along the side with a view down to the lights and the tables below, and the terrace with the blue chairs if you'd rather be outside. It felt like New York in the Marais, with the French side very much still in the room.

It's a really good restaurant. I loved it, and not in a polite way. The lobster roll alone would have done it, but then there was the room, and the bar, and a waiter who actually knew his stuff.

We went down the stairs for dinner and came back up for the drinks, and it was just a lovely night.

Temple & Chapon in Paris: address, hours and booking

Temple & Chapon is inside the Hotel Experimental Marais, at 116 rue du Temple, 75003 Paris. The restaurant is open every day from noon to 3pm and from 7pm to 1am, with dinner served from 7pm until 10:30pm Sunday to Thursday and until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays. There's a weekend brunch too, and the lobster roll makes that menu as well. On the dinner menu, most mains sit between €25 and €50. You can book on their website.

We were invited to dine at Temple & Chapon as guests of the restaurant. All opinions are our own.

Photo: Mr. Tripper / courtesy of Experimental