Paris' most famous steak-and-fries concept comes to Singapore.

L'Entrecôte is one of the few French establishments still serving what it used to serve before cuisine became the culinary melting pot mixed with the politics of modern food and ideas from celebrity chefs inclined to fuse. Steak, french fries, butter sauce, accompanied by a glass of red and the guarantee that this, like all the other ten thousand times you've eaten here, is going to be that same good, old steak frites meal are what have been giving L'Entrecôte its eighty-year-old cult status.

In Paris, or any of the cities the restaurant has branched out to, there is no eating at L'Entrecôte without relishing its butter sauce and the story of how it came about. It is said that in the 1930s, when avant-garde energies were surging through capital city and affecting everyone from painters in the art studios to chefs in the kitchens, a certain Monsieur Boubier thought up the recipe standing before his stove. It was all good to have a secret sauce formula that stands out in the nation's glorious buffet of fine cuisine, but it was really Boubier's daughter who was the pioneering restaurateur. Upon inheriting the recipe from her father, Mademoiselle Boubier pronounced that she would serve steak frites with the sauce - and only steak frites with the sauce - in the café. Her plan was to make it so delicious and satisfying that patrons would want nothing else. The dish did inspire some unusual phenomena, such as having Parisians actually queue, and most recently, two Frenchmen to bring the concept ten thousand kilometres from Paris to Singapore.

Olivier Bendel and Loic Martenot wanted to recreate the original French experience out of a shophouse unit in Singapore's Duxton Hill. So not only did they stick to the butter sauce recipe, they followed the entire L'Entrecôte formula: At L'Entrecôte - The Steak & Fries Bistro the plat du jour remains the same all day, every day. And in true L'Entrecôte tradition, the dish is served up in two hearty servings, one after the other to keep the food warm. If you had the chance to speak to the restaurateurs, they would proudly tell you that even paper table cover is imported from France. What they won't tell though, is what is in the legendary sauce - although one shouldn't think of considering it fait accompli just after the steak. The dessert list (and it is a list) featuring French classics such as Ile Flottante and Crème Brûlée is the real finale.



lentrecote.sg

Text by Yvonne Xu
Images courtesy of L'Entrecôte