L'Embellie

Frankly, this was one of the most pretentious and poor-value meals we have ever had the misfortune to experience. The portions were absurdly mean and the prices were exorbitant. For us, this was a typical example of a chef whose supposed talents had gone to his (or her) head. I had the local speciality - Bourg-en-Bresse Chicken, the one with the blue legs which is supposedly the only bird in the world to have its own designation as a government-certified appellation. All I got was a scrawny leg with a metal ring around it to certify its provenance; the amount of meat on the thigh was minimal and, I thought, of poor quality. The leg sat balanced on a blob of mashed potato, surrounded by half a dozen or so miniscule cubes of vegetables, for the staggering price of 33 Euros. My wife had Perch, which she pronounced delicious, but this also came on a mere blob of mashed potato and with specks of nano-vegetables. All in all a huge disappointed, and yet the place was packed for Sunday lunch and I can only think that the other diners were desperate for somewhere to go when everything else locally was closed. Sadly, dining in France is not what it used to be.