Anona – The Strangest Michelin Starred Dinner Ever

Anona is a One Michelin starred restaurant based in Paris. The chef’s bio looked amazing on paper. He worked at George V, which houses the restaurant of one of my most memorable meals in Paris – Le Cinq. I was excited about eating at Anona, but it turned out to be a very very strange experience. It all started with the reservation. As is standard practice, I was asked to confirm the RSVP the day before which I did via email. However, on the day of the dinner, just a couple hours prior to our RSVP time, I received an email saying the RSVP had been cancelled. I called the restaurant and they blamed a glitch in their system. No big deal. Anyway, we arrived and were seated. The chef came out to explain the menu. There was a 6 and 8 course option. We were told the difference was that the 8 had two meat dishes. Pork and Pigeon. We went with the 8 courses. The meal started with an amuse. A tart and falafel. The falafel was really good with the kitchen bringing out a lot of flavor in the frying process.

Then they brought out some bread which was just OK. I still haven’t figured out why some places bring butter and some don’t, which is a shame as French butter is some of the best in the world.

The first dish was leek and chocolate crisp. It was an interesting combo and worked well. The flavors were subtle.

Next was corn. The dish had a lot of acidity and good use of contrasting temperatures with some cold elements. Good use of texture too. However, they could of extracted more corn flavors and the dish needed more umami.

At this point, the meal started to take a turn for the worst. First, there was a huge wait in between each dish. This is a sign of a disorganized kitchen. The next three out of four dishes were also very weak. Not up to the standard of a Michelin starred kitchen. The first weak dish was this red pepper with red pepper “ketchup”. Anyone could of made this dish. It takes zero talent to prepare a thin slice of pepper, puree some pepper and then plate it dressed up with some garnish. Very very weak. The dish also came with a shrimp which WAS good.

The next dish was mussels which was ok.

There was then a 25 minute delay in bringing out the next dish, which was a sorry looking carrot. Its as if someone pulled a carrot from a stew and then garnished it and then pureed some of it as sauce. Zero thought and very poor dish. I have had many one ingredient dishes before in a restaurant but they are using the most amazing products. Like a one strawberry dessert from Japanese imported strawberry. In this case, there was nothing special about the carrot.

The next dish was an oyster mushroom. Flavors were boring. Mushroom has tons of umami by nature, but this restaurant didn’t know how to get those flavors to shine. On top of that, I have NEVER, in over 100 Michelin starred meals, EVER, had to ask for a fork or any other utensil. This is a complete lack of detail in service which is inexcusable in a Michelin starred restaurant. The servers were also very cold and seemed uninterested in their job.

The next dish, was the best of the night – squab with truffle Bernaise sauce. The leg was especially delicious. The pigeon was cooked well and the sauce was good.

The cheese course was interesting and just ok:

Finally, the dessert was a joke. It was basically their interpretation of a tzatziki sauce. Very very weak dish. If they wanted to do a savory dessert, like this, they could of played with the yogurt and made a quenelle and then incorporate the other elements of a tzatziki. Instead, this look like a lazy way to do things.

Just before the petit fours came out, I told the manager some of my issues with the meal. They comp’d our drinks as a result.

The last thing which bothered me about the dinner was that the chef told us we would get everything on the menu including squab and pork. When I asked about the pork, the server said it was a choice and the chef explained wrong. We never got the choice! I then wondered what the difference between a 6 and 8 course meal was and he made some explanation which I still don’t understand. I saw tables get food that we did not get, and was told that they had allergies and could not eat what we ate. Anyway, I walked away from this meal feeling very confused, and irritated. I would not go back obviously and would never recommend this to anyone.