(Bloomberg) -- As soon as we booked the Eurostar from London to Paris, my two friends and I began scouting the most important element of our trip: where to eat.
The place we were especially interested in is an incredibly popular spot that serves classic French food, with a twist. Unlike many Parisian restaurants, it takes few walk-ins because demand is so high. In fact, two months out, every seat was already fully booked for dinner; the only reservation we could get was for a weekday lunch.
Was this a hot new opening featuring a viral pastry? Perhaps a legendary place with a Michelin star or two?
No. It’s Bistrot Chez Rémy, in Disneyland Paris, and it’s an homage to Ratatouille, Pixar’s hit 2007 animated film that follows the adventures of a rat who can cook.
The restaurant’s setting is Place de Rémy, in Disneyland’s Parc Walt Disney Studios, on the outskirts of Paris in Marne-la-Vallée. The micro neighborhood is composed of a bistro, a gift shop and a ride called l’Aventure Totalement Toquée de Rémy (roughly: Rémy’s Totally Wild Adventure). It was built in 2014 after the success of the movie, which took in more than $600 million at the box office.
Chez Rémy’s location is one of the least fantastical areas in the resort: a cobbled square designed to look like a Parisian one, ringed with Haussmann buildings. We’d seen countless iterations of it in our wanderings around the actual city. (Those can be seen for free; to access this square, and the restaurant, you must buy a ticket to the park, starting at £47 [$59] which also gives you access to the rides.) Around the corner from the Toy Story-themed area decorated with giant character replicas and a toy-soldier-themed ride, it’s a break from the hyper energy of Disney.
The Paris bistro theme intensifies when you step into the restaurant’s foyer, where the walls are adorned with portraits of the film’s main characters and awards for the fictional chef Auguste Gusteau.
Down a short corridor, the magic of Disney commences. The floor tiles suddenly switch from fist-size to plate-size, and the wallpaper’s pattern grows wider and taller. In an instant it felt like we’d shrunk to the size of Ratatouille’s rats.
The dining room is cleverly designed to aid the illusion. Some tables are booths, separated by giant plates to make diners think they’re hiding in a drying rack. Other tables are round, made to look like lids for jars of mustard or jam. The chairs are particularly delightful, molded to look as if you’re sitting on a muselet (the round metal cage that secures the cork on a bottle of Champagne). Some tables have giant cocktail umbrellas, and everyone eats under a ceiling studded with foot-long fairy lights.
The restaurant serves a set two- or three-course menu for €40 or €55, respectively, with a handful of choices for each, including vegetarian options. My starter—a salad of pear, blue cheese and nuts—was a classic combination that would have worked well without the cold, and unnecessary, poached egg on top. We also ordered a simple, creamy and very good green bean soup which came with a surprise: Instead of cream swirled into the top, each bowl included a triangle of Laughing Cow soft cheese, a delightful touch of childhood.
And that emphasizes the highly ironic reality of the place: You’re dining in a novelty French-themed restaurant when you’re already in France, with dozens of genuine French restaurants surrounding the park, and the world’s best ones just 45 minutes away in Paris. But there are benefits to the theme being fake-but-real, of being a make-believe fantasy of France set in France. The wine is decent and not too expensive, and the waiters’ accents are authentically French, even if Disneyland means they’re substantially cheerier than the typical Parisian server.
Options for the main course include steak, roast chicken or a vegetable stew, but there was only one thing I wanted to order: the cod. It comes with crushed potatoes, beurre blanc sauce and … the eponymous ratatouille. If you’ve seen the film, you’ll know the importance of this dish to the plot, the food that wins over the hard-to-please food critic Anton Ego by transporting him to his childhood. Overall, it’s a nice hunk of roasted fish with fancy mashed potatoes and cream sauce.
The ratatouille was good, too; the eggplant, squash and tomato were finely diced and cooked with herbs, all tender and falling apart. If we’d eaten it at any other restaurant, we would’ve been happy. But on the night we had it, Bistrot Chez Rémy wasn’t faithfully re-creating the film’s dish—with the vegetables sliced wafer-thin, then stacked into a delicate tower and drizzled with sauce—and, for Ratatouille buffs like myself, it was a disappointing miss. (The restaurant’s images portray a dish comprised of sliced vegetables that’s more faithful to the film.)
Desserts are selected from a counter shaped like a giant tin of sugar. The chocolate mousse was expertly done, richly flavored with a fluffy, light texture. We also grabbed an éclair—classic except for rat patterns decorating the chocolate glaze (it’s cuter than it sounds). Unfortunately, the choux was thick and dry; one bite was enough. Our last dessert was cheesecake, engagingly shaped like a wedge of Swiss cheese. But the dish was strangely flavorless, with a wet spongecake base instead of a nice textural biscuit crust.
Is a trip to Bistrot Chez Rémy worth it? The meal for three came to around €220 including wine. Given the high demand for tables and the captive audience of parkgoers, we thought this was reasonable, just slightly more expensive than eating at a middle-of-the-road brasserie in central Paris.
And is the experience worth the hassle of getting a table? For food alone, probably not. But no one goes to Disneyland for the food. The point of the place is for adults and children to engage in a temporary world of wonder and magic. Which we did. Chez Rémy’s ability to delight a table of three grown-ups was impressive indeed, its own feat of enchantment.
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