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Even the Iberian Bellota pork sprouted a flower at Villa Victoria. Photo © ParisUpdate.com |
Villa Victoria (formerly Velly), located near the Eglise Notre Dame de Lorette, has long been a favorite of residents of the ninth arrondissement. After a change of …
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Even the Iberian Bellota pork sprouted a flower at Villa Victoria. Photo © ParisUpdate.com |
Villa Victoria (formerly Velly), located near the Eglise Notre Dame de Lorette, has long been a favorite of residents of the ninth arrondissement. After a change of ownership and name a few years ago, the restaurant held on to much of its clientele, but now a new chef has been installed, so we paid another visit to find out whether it was still worth frequenting. The answer is yes.
To begin with, the restaurant still serves the same delicious homemade country-style bread – the kind of bread that tastes so good that it could easily serve as a meal itself rather than just as an accompaniment. An American visitor in our group of six proclaimed it the best she had ever tasted.
In a concession to modern trends, each course was served on interestingly shaped dishes, but everything came in generous portions and was hearty, tasty and thoroughly satisfying. A pretty pansy flower on top of a big hunk of pork or an enormous veal chop does not make it nouvelle cuisine, and this is about as far as you can get from that now (often unfairly) denigrated concept. Big isn’t necessarily better, but at Villa Victoria it is very, very good.
Craving some garlic and melted butter (so good with that bread!), I ordered the escargots. They came boiling hot and sans shells in four square white dishes of different heights placed inside two other square white dishes. The snails were big, plump and succulent, and appropriately garlicky, but the best thing (as always with escargots) was the butter sauce, which contained an unexpected ingredient: ground almonds. This inspired touch added texture and rounded off the sharpness of the garlic.
Four of the group ordered the eggplant and feta millefeuille with red pepper sauce, which one of them described as a deconstructed ratatouille, as a starter. It was a big hit, as was the salmon tartare with a ginger vinaigrette.
For the main courses, the meat dishes won more acclaim than the fish. My veal chop, cooked just right, came with a generous helping of creamy truffled polenta. The Iberian Bellota pork, served with grilled red peppers, was flavorful and moist.
Everyone claimed to be too full for dessert, but we ended up ordering a few to share anyway. The favorites were the surprisingly delicious salad of lightly sautéed exotic fruits served with litchi ice cream, and the tiramisu with red berries, accompanied by an amazing eau de rose ice cream.
Villa Victoria does not have much in the way of decor – the tiled walls are almost entirely covered with blackboard menus – but the restaurant has a comfortable, unpretentious feel, and the service is competent and pleasant, comme il faut. We enjoyed a nice bottle of near-organic (the estate is in the process of switching over to organic production) Côtes du Roussillon from Clos de l’Origine called “Soif de Plaisir.” As a dessert wine, the waiter suggested a natural (near-organic again) Muscat, delightfully fruity, cloudy in the glass but clear on the palate, and not too sweet.
Villa Victoria: 52, rue Lamartine, 75009 Paris. Métro: Notre Dame de Lorette. Tel: 01 48 78 60 05. Open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner. Fixed-priced lunch menu: €25 (two courses) and €35 (three courses). A la carte: around €45.
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