Are the 1* Michelin restaurants adults-only? Certainly not in France! Lunch time is totally kid-friendly and very budget friendly with an average of 40 euros for adults menus, including appetizer+entrée+dessert. Our Teuko kids did the experimentation with us last summer and we brought back few ideas to jazz up your next lunch boxes!
La Table Saint Crescent, Narbonne (France)
La Table Saint Crescent is a gastronomic restaurant nested in an old oratoire from the Middle-Age, and where the tradition goes hand in hand with modern design. Chef Lionel Giraud explicitly invites families in his restaurant as he has a “New Generation” menu, dedicated to 12yo and under, that includes a main course, a dessert, and a drink.
As there was a welcome starter for the whole family, the kids finally had a complete menu! This welcome appetizer was a tomato salad under a creamy burrata, the whole topped with olives, croutons, and drops of olive oil. Then, for the main course, the kids had a supreme of chicken and “fries of corn”, which are, actually, sticks of polenta, and with a bowl with potato purée as a side. And last, as they have a sweet tooth, they chose a chocolate soup topped with a cookie and cream! For the drink, as it was a special occasion, they had one glass of apple juice, and then, plain water 🙂
La Réserve Rimbaud, Montpellier (France)
La Réserve Rimbaud is a hidden oasis in the heart of Montpellier. Chef Charles Fontès works with foods from its region and adds a touch of modernity in his dishes. While it’s indicated nowhere that kids are welcome in his restaurant, once we got in La Réserve Rimbaud, our Teuko kids were offered a kids menu… and when we say that they were offered, we had the very pleasant surprise that the chef actually did offer, for free, the kids menus!
Before taking our orders, everyone in the family got offered (yes, again!) a welcome appetizer that included cantaloupe soup, artichoke cold purée, pizza sticks and green olives. While the chef did not revealed his secrets, here our observations for recreating this yumminess in our lunch boxes.
The cantaloupe soup had very tiny cubes of cantaloupe and the “soup” had the savor of cantaloupe with ginger. We can notice few drops of olive oil and finely cut mint that completed this first dish that the kids liked. The artichoke cold purée is an artichoke dip that was topped with croutons, black olives and tiny pieces of chive. We would recreate the pizza sticks, a very lunchbox-friendly idea, by mixing the pizza dough with tomato sauce or a puréed tomato and adding oregano and thyme in the dough, before cutting it in sticks and baking it in the oven.
The rest of the menu was very classic for a kids menu: tomato salad and its tiny hard-boiled quail eggs for the appetizer, steak and fries for the entrée, and one scoop of vanilla ice cream for dessert. But it was so well presented, the steak was so well cooked… that our Teuko kids ate everything and enjoyed the whole meal very much!
Your “1* Lunchbox”
What inspired you the most? The two different tomato salads? The artichoke dip? The pizza sticks? Would you rather try a chicken supreme or a beef sliced in your lunchbox? Would you recreate the chocolate soup dessert? After all, these are 1* Michelin ideas 😉
Here is our take below. Bon appétit!
Teuko Blog 