Pureté – Lille, France (1*)

Visited Pureté in Lille, France in early May 2023. They received their first star in this year’s Michelin Guide and had a 730 reservation on a Wednesday night. Made that reservation about 3 weeks in advance.

This is a small restaurant with a capacity of maybe 30 people. There is basically no entrance and you enter basically into the dining room. The kitchen is located at the end of the dining room with the pass and bar+service area directly open to the dining room. Overall atmosphere is on the more casual side, but not as casual as say Septime. Three people do all of the FoH service, including making drinks.

I had a 6 course menu, while the rest of the table had a 5 course menu.

The amuses were quite good, with the highlight being the croquette – it was quite good, warm, and had bits of some type of shellfish that had the right amount of chew to it.

First course was really good, with a nice mix of textures and flavors. I was immediately impressed and looked forward to the coming meal. The wooden spoon was a nice touch.

Second course was outstanding. It is a beef tartar with smoked eel that wasn’t overpowering. The red disc was frozen and added brightness to the dish.

Abalone dish was probably the best of the night. Intense abalone/seafood flavored sauce that played well with the garnishments. Abalone was tender and cooked nicely.

Monkfish dish could have been very good, but the brown sauce was a bit too salty. The peas were very good, and the fish itself was nicely done.

Pork dish: Unfortunately the main course was honestly a letdown and by far the weakest of the night. It wasn’t bad, but after everything we’d had so far it was very one note. The green wild garlic sauce was the only thing that was interesting about the dish, adding some brightness do something with the one note pork jus. Asparagus was slightly stringy and I much preferred the asparagus that we had the previous day at Septime. Pork itself wasn’t particularly flavorful or tender.

Pre dessert was fine, I’m not a huge cheese person and couldn’t begin to describe it other than saying it was strong for me and I was glad that the sorbet was also present.

Dessert was really good. Grapefruit in multiple ways, with soft, popping, and crunchy textures. Definitely helped erase the memory of the pork dish.

Petit fours were unmemorable.

From courses 1-3, I was thinking that the food might be at a 2* level, but with the so-so monkfish and the lackluster pork dish just aren’t good enough. Overall, the food was still quite good and was a good value at 95€ for 6 courses. Worthy of 1* IMO.

Now, I must mention that the service wasn’t really good. Three people for the FoH just isn’t enough as the staff is always either running around or loading and unloading the bar dishwasher, right in front of the guests. The kitchen was also quite slow. To illustrate:
730 arrive
745 mock tail is served
751 first amuse
759 second amuse
811 first course
824 second course
857 third
953(!) fourth course
1038(!) fifth course – my dining companions on the 5 course menu haven’t been presented with anything for over 1.5 hours now!
1102 pre dessert
1112 dessert
1127 petit fours

Sometime between 1040 and 11, the kitchen staff were already exiting via the front door.

Bottom line: definitely enjoyed dinner and felt like a good value but I would have liked to be out of there in 3 hours instead of 4.

by GoSh4rks