It was a wise decision of Joël Robuchon to establish his signature restaurant at Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo. It might be considered provocative to start up just a few hundred metres from Alain Ducasse’s Le Louis XV at Hôtel de Paris, but it is probably not so, for food lovers is it a paradise to have so many fantastic restaurants so close to each other as you can find in Monte-Carlo.

Executive Chef Christophe Cussac had worked for several years with Joël Robuchon before he became the Executive Chef of Hotel Metropole Monte-Carlo with restaurant Joël Robuchon Monte-Carlo and Yoshi. Christophe Cussac is in charge of both the restaurants at the hotel, but you will mainly find him at the haute cuisine restaurant. Around once a month the menu at Joël Robuchon Monte-Carlo is looked over by Christophe Cussac and Joël Robuchon to make sure that the offered classical dishes combined with contemporary flavours always offer the best possible Mediterranean cuisine. Christophe Cussac is a true expert in the Mediterranean and Provence cuisine and spent six years as the Executive Chef for La Réserve de Beaulieu before he returned to work with Joël Robuchon whom he had worked with for many years in Paris as well.

The mostly Mediterranean cuisine is of the best quality and both flavours and texture make your taste buds very happy when you sit in the lavish dining room and feast on delicacies such as the sardine with green asparagus and lemon confit from Menton or the squids Mediterranean à la plancha with Romesco sauce. Of course the signature quail with potato pure and truffle is always a safe bet, but the eggplant with crunchy young vegetables tastes fantastic with its impeccable vegetables quality and the foie gras of duck served hot with cherry confit and fresh almonds is excellent as well.

Joël Robuchon plays safe with his Monte-Carlo installation with no big surprises and innovations and absolutely no molecular gastronomy or anything like that, but that is exactly what you expect when you arrive to any of his upscale restaurants and there is nothing wrong with that. A restaurant visit always comes down to how good the food actually tastes and everything about flavours and texture is almost perfect when it comes to Joël Robuchon Monte-Carlo.

Written by Andy