Final takedown of the trip. This did not even come close of rising to the level of David Toutain or L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon but instead was just disappointing. It is interesting that our three disappointments this trip were places we had been to in the past.
Huitrerie Régis is a tiny oyster place in the 6th that I first read about in the New York Times almost ten years ago. We are, to put it mildly, oyster obsessed. We live in Boston and have unbelievable access to amazing oysters (those from Duxbury are our absolute favorites) so a restaurant dedicated to the bivalve seemed like a no brainer.
A few years ago we tried Huitrerie Régis out on our first day in Paris and spent the rest of our trip violently ill. It was awful – we did not leave the apartment for five days. I actually lost weight in Paris. I can’t for sure tell you that it was the oysters and/or the sea urchin we had there but the association was pretty bad for quite some time.
This trip we decided to give it another try. Best thing I can say — we did not get violently ill.
We tried to order the Belons but they were not available. We ended up with a dozen Speciales de Claires (Nº2), six Speciales de Claires (Nº3) and six Fines de Claires (Nº2).
The oysters were large and briny like a good oyster should be but the overall taste was a bit murky. Not bad but not sparkling, briny awesomeness.
Couple of things we observed also put us off this place. The waitress had a really bad cold -and how does one say this delicately – was “ramasser le nez.” Sounds better in (maybe) French, non? There was no evidence of hand washing going on.
Also, the shucker was reusing the seaweed. I’ve never seen that one before.
With wine, the total damage was 89€. And although I did not get violently ill I did come down with a really bad cold the next day. Just saying.
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