Le Bordeaux

GC: EAT

Le Bordeaux Restaurant

278 Agia Andreou, 3035. Limassol

The week before Christmas I was invited to discuss a new project which will no doubt will revolutionize the internet as we know it, improve our lives immeasurably and after quite possibly realign the universe. However, to achieve this I had to eat in a French restaurant, and I will be straight with you I have never been to a French restaurant in my long existence. French always seemed to be way down on my list as it never seemed like a home delivery dish. Moreover, how many French people had I met in Limassol. Not too many, hence my reticence in it being a perhaps a bad interpretation of French cuisine.

Don’t get me wrong, I have eaten a lot of cutting edge French food such as a bacon and fried egg baguette, Croissant (plain and/or chocolate filling) and when I was a mere slip of a lad I used to enjoy drinking the small bottles of Kronenbourg beer achieving a status that I am reliably informed the French call Le Hardcore. So based on my extensive French food resume, you can see that I am well versed in the finer foods that Paris can offer, and was a blank canvas waiting to be painted like a Matisse masterpiece.

The front of the restaurant is incredibly well designed incorporating its traditional old style Cypriot façade, along with the interior being classic French minimalism. It was really nice to be in a place where I am not visually bombarded, with what you can normally expect consisting of faux French black and white images, road signs telling the distance to Paris, and an old bicycle precariously screwed to the wall. What is it with international French / Benelux eateries. Has this been secretly agreed in Gitane filled rooms to represent the official French speaking world. Maybe the clientele are full of people who are lost and need to ride an old bike all the way to La Rochelle...who knows.

The service was first rate with plenty of space between tables to eat, along with a great ambience to the venue. Thankfully we were given a menu that was not intimidating in the slightest. I think what also held me back previously was that I had always envisioned a French restaurant menu to be a complex beast. One where I struggle to translate and end up eating a wheel of cheese for my main course, and pretending this is what i wanted.

We chose the beef bourguignon and oil feed chicken breast for main, along with goat cheese and pear salad. The salad sounds like a peculiar mix, however it works very well on the palate. We accompanied this with a fantastic glass of red each, which is kind of unusual for me as I am not a big wine drinker. I didn’t accept the second glass (as fantastic as the first was), for fear of embracing the true spirit of vive la difference, and adopting the care free lifestyle to that of a Satre or Montesquieu. With this in mind I decided to bring back my English uptight attitude as I drew a line in the metaphorical sand ,making a silent agreement with myself that I would not become one of them peculiar English people who suddenly start to over compensate in their actions when they have experienced a new foreign restaurant / experience.

For some peculiar reason, as a species we become first class graduates of the Steve Maclaren language school (type into you tube Steve McLaren’s Dutch accent if you don’t know) which I think is as a result of

years of emotional repression and only eating sliced white bread. By the time the desert menu comes out, we begin to act in a way that is counter to our normal actions, developing extravagant French hand gestures and affectations, along with seeing why it is quite reasonable to go on strike in the workplace... all because of my new found love for camembert. Who would have thought.

The food was perfectly arranged on the plate, and really was spectacular to taste. It didn’t come served with the feared side dish of Parisian arrogance, just two very well executed dishes that will definitely deserve a return trip in the near future. Also the price which you think would match eating in a tourist location on the Champs Elysée, far from it. Considerably under 80 EUR for two people, which for its quality of food and drink along with the great service and venue really is c’est magnifique!

You might want to also give this place a shot in the summer as it has a fantastic courtyard, and from what I could see was a small Tapas bar which looks very relaxed. No doubt we will revue that in a future edition.

Le Bordeaux....tres bonne!