Chateaubriand, Paris

There is an attractive, pared-back dining space, chalkboard menus, dark furnishings unencumbered by tablecloths, and a charming young staff that all speak very good English. The menu is modern but accessible, taking cues from all over the world, with fresh ingredients cooked to a high degree of skill and colourfully presented on a variety of interesting tableware. It cost around €80 a head and we enjoyed ourselves very much indeed.

No, you haven't accidentally re-read the Septime post. I probably could have gone for a bit more variety in my Paris restaurant picks, but I was determined to steer clear of anywhere with a Michelin star, and wasn't brave enough to risk an evening queuing for one of the excellent no-reservations Japanese or Vietnamese places I keep hearing about. So Chateaubriand it was, and I have no regrets, you'll just have to ignore the faint sense of déjà vu.

Whilst at Septime you could choose between 3 and 5 courses, at Chateaubriand (for dinner at least) you just get asked if there's anything you can't cope with and they sort out the rest. With the Pescatarian on board, and given experiences at lunch the previous day, I was half expecting another awkward moment, but there were no plates of ham to share, and no hidden bacon in any of her courses, so well done them.

Gougère ("cheesy puffs" our waiter explained, cutely pre-empting our query) were a fantastic way to start the meal, soft and warm with a gently moist filling and a lovely colour. These were, in fact, better than the ones I'd had at 3 Michelin Star Alaine Ducasse in the Dorchester. I'm never going to tire of using that phrase.

Another amuse, little metal bowls of sea bass ceviche, impressed as well, the mixture not too bitter or too sweet, and (although you can't see them from the photo) with plenty of chunky fish.

The next sharing plate, of deep-fried prawns, were fantastic. I have no idea how they've managed to deep-fry these to get a super-crunchy coating on the outside while still keeping the flesh moist and meaty, but they were, and the citrus powder of some sort they rested on did the work of a squeeze of lemon without making them soggy. Very, very clever stuff.

Beneath the spinach and slices of radish on this plate are hiding a handful of huge, juicy cockles, with a flavour - think sea spray and rock pools - that brought gasps all around the table. I don't think I've ever had better cockles.

A mini bowl of bouillabaisse was next, and packed with rich, seafood flavour. By this point we were barely past halfway, and enjoying every second of it.

The next course was interesting - squid (large chunks, perfectly cooked and seasoned), with cep mushrooms, only some were braised and some left raw. The flavour from both kinds of mushrooms was great, and added into the mix was a pile of chopped sorrel, adding an earthy/bitter dimension.

Monkfish with green chillies next, notable for great big chunks of delicately cooked monkfish paired with some pomelo (or grapefruit) cells and chunks of powerful chilli. It was remarkably spicy, in fact, considering the style of what had come before, but they deserve all credit for not wimping out on the chilli as it added an good sweet burn to counter the bitter citrus.

Last of the savoury courses was this remarkable pile of black trumpet mushrooms, under which hid some very good seared beef and a few chunks of bone marrow. You can't really go wrong with beef and mushroom, but the intense flavour of these fried trompette de la mort was really something. The Pescatarian had something that looked similar but didn't have any beef in. Probably fish. I can't remember. But there was no meat in it, that's the main thing.

So far so bloody excellent, then, which makes the dessert courses all that more difficult to explain. First was a small piece of dry shortbread topped with a caramelised egg yolk. I'm guessing they were so pleased with themselves for perfecting this sugar-encased-yolk technique that they forgot to make it edible, as the yolk was entirely untreated and jarred horribly as an element in a dessert, like the deconstructed ingredients of an unbaked spongecake. No thanks.

And the second dessert, whilst not inedible, was nonetheless fairly unimaginative - a dark chocolate mousse with mint sorbet. Fine, but the kind of thing I've had many times before - though maybe that says more about the amount of times I eat out than whether anyone else would enjoy it.

Some fresh figs served as petits fours, and with that we were done. The crying shame, of course is that up until desserts Chateaubriand was heading for a 9 or a 10 score, and only the drastic derailing over the sweet courses prevented that from happening. Everything else - the savoury food, the amuses and between-course treats, the service, the atmosphere, the sheer pleasure of being a part of this slick operation, is worth the (actually very reasonable) bill and then some. So I can still say, with only some slight hesitation, that Chateaubriand is worth your while. A largely hugely enjoyable meal, with only one or two glaring errors to watch out for. Déjà vu.

8/10

Septime, Paris

There's a certain cruel pleasure for a Londoner to report on the fact that Paris, for so many years the international icon of gastronomy and trailblazer of culinary invention, now seems to be taking some of its more popular cues from across the Channel. Both Septime and Chateaubriand are unofficial members of the "Bistronomy" movement, which aims to do for the traditional Parisian bistro what the gastropub did for the British boozer - namely great food at affordable prices.

Of course, this being Paris, "affordable" is a relative concept. At the Eagle in Farringdon, the original gastropub, you can pop in for a pint and a smoked haddock chowder and be out of the door for under £15. Lunch at Septime comes in two varieties - €28 for three courses or €55 for five, but in a city where Alain Ducasse is charging €140 for a single starter, you can see why Parisians have the place booked up months in advance.

Front of house staff were all male, beardy, friendly, spoke very good English, and, in the words of the female members of our party, were "smoking hot". There was a tangible youthfulness and energy about the whole operation, boosted by the busy open kitchen and lack of soft furnishings to soak up the chatter, and with the artfully distressed tables nicely spaced apart it really was a lovely spot to spend a couple of hours.

The setting and general attitude, in fact, made up for some minor (and one major) niggles with what arrived on the table. I thought it was a bit mean of them, for example, to not offer a pescatarian alternative to the salami snack (for we were With Pescatarian) but the house bread (a sourdough) and butter were so good it didn't seem to matter too much.

We certainly started on a high. Stone bass was a triumph, the gently ceviché-d fish paired with chunks of soft pear soaked in red wine, and - a real stroke of genius - shaved white cabbage that looked like parmesan before you took a bite and realised what was going on. We were all still talking about this dish for the rest of the trip - one of those moments that defines a holiday.

That's not to say the rest of the meal tailed off too much, it just didn't really hit those heights again. Braised octopus with "tomato water (eau de tomate)" and lardo had seafood with just the right amount of bite and a good strong flavour, but our pescatarian had to pick out the pig fat from her dish, the French having still not quite got the hang of the whole pig-is-not-a-vegetable thing. I realise France is never going to be the most accommodating place for non meat-eaters, but the Royle Family attitude to vegetarianism ("Can't she just have some wafer thin ham, Barbara?") was still a surprise in a restaurant so otherwise forward-looking.

A teeny in-between course of baked oyster with toasted nuts went down very well, tasting fresh out of the sea and nicely autumnal.

Monkfish, the next dish, was similarly hard to fault. The fish itself was very cleverly cooked so that a gentle char on the outside hadn't been allowed to spoil a soft, translucent flesh beneath. A tidy pile of rolled spinach was perfectly seasoned, a black sesame and squid ink sauce packed a wonderful seafood flavour, and a giant leaf of god-knows-what (that's it on the right - any ideas?) tasted of sort of a cross between nasturtium leaf and sorrel, only it was way too big and the wrong shape to be either. Tasted great, though.

The meaty main was a tranche of duck breast so massive I am considering avoiding the French countryside near Landes in case I am set upon by one of the many 10ft-tall ducks that are clearly being bred there. It was vast, but also - and more importantly - lovely and pink and mosit and served with a mini turnip and a mini radish, both incredibly good. Our Pescatarian Friend had, at least, not been asked to eat red meat ("'ees like fish, but 'ee walks") but had her own arrangement of John Dory (crispy skin, perfect flaky flesh) with baby carrots which she seemed very happy with after checking underneath just in case they hadn't sneaked some bacon in or something.

Desserts were simple, but satisfying. Solliès (near Toulon) fig with physalis and white peach ice cream came with some toasty shortbread and was very easy to enjoy, and vanilla ice cream surrounded with a sort of corn mousse didn't do much for me but everyone else thought it was great so I'll leave it there.

It's my "job" (such as it is) to nitpick and criticise on these pages so that occasionally the faults with a meal seem to outweigh the successes. Therefore, despite the occasional mis-step, the important thing to remember about Septime is that it is a very accomplished operation and we enjoyed our lunch very much. Yes, the pig fat in the "vegetarian" course was pretty unforgivable, but otherwise the top-notch ingredients and pared-back cooking style were a delight to experience, and we left very happy. For the same money (£71 a head with 2 bottles of wine) I'd still rather go to the Clove Club. But let's not open that can of worms just yet.

8/10

Camélia, Paris (by Badoit)

There are advantages and disadvantages in unshakeable self-belief. The certainty that you are the best in a particular field surely (I wouldn't know, but I'm guessing) gives you the confidence to push further and in more radical directions than others not blessed with such convictions. For chefs, not normally a group of people known for their insecurities, self-belief allows greater levels of experimentation and risk-taking, but crucially also the ability to convince others along for the ride with you, particularly important if you're leading a large kitchen team and can't realise your vision on your own.

But there's often a fine line between confidence and self-delusion. I wonder whether the same drive and determination that allowed Marco Pierre White to win two Michelin stars in a poky restaurant on Wandsworth Common in the mid 90s, also led him to believe that endorsing a mass-market stock cube would be a positive step forward for his career, and not (as it turns out) an embarrassing blot on the CV of a once-great chef. Or whether the ego and energy that comes with the intergalactic talent of some young chefs in London is also the reason they all-too-easily get the hump and abandon ship when they feel their genius isn't adequately rewarded.

Thierry Marx is an extremely talented chef. There's little doubt of that, or of his CV, which glitters with Michelin stars as far back as 1988. He is currently head chef at not one but two restaurants in the Mandarin Oriental in Paris, the 2-star tasting-menu-only Sur Mesure par Thierry Marx and the "more informal" (these things are all relative) Camélia next door, to which I was very kindly invited along with a couple of other bloggers and journalists earlier this week. We were there as the guests of Badoit sparkling water, a brand well-known on the continent but which is just now making tentative inroads into the UK.

Objectively, and I'm not just saying this because they've just bought me lunch in Paris, Badoit is a very nice product. Naturally carbonated (astonishing as it seems, it actually emerges from the ground already fizzy), not as overwhelmingly bubbly as Perrier or as medicinally-mineralised as Vichy Catalan, it has everything you'd want from a table water, and I can see it doing very well over here. What was more interesting however, to me at least, was how Marx was pushing it as an indispensable kitchen ingredient, with magical properties to speed up the cooking of vegetables while retaining flavour and colour. Lunch at Camélia would prove whether he was on to something.

I don't think, in all my years flouncing around posh restaurants at home and abroad, I've ever seen a more exquisitely presented set of dishes than the starters at Camélia. Try, if you can, to look past my useless food photography skills and imagine how much more impressive they would have been up close. There's the crab in daikon wrap, a cylinder of utter geometric precision, topped with spheres and stalks of pickles like an Ascot ladies' hat. There's a fan of salmon tataki, measured so as to match up in a perfect circle, expertly mimicking the Mandarin hotel's logo. There's an oblong of paté de foie gras, edges and corners sharp enough to have been forged from iron, topped and tailed by shocking red gelée of Garriguette strawberries so correctly cut it resembled something from a fine Parisian patisserie. And there was my lobster dish, with vegetables turned and tweaked and arranged on the plate like some magical miniature forest. Gasps and coos spilled around the table as they arrived, each dish more spectacular than the next.

And then we started eating, and silence slowly descended like a yuzu-infused fog. It wasn't that any of the food was inedible, or even particularly unpleasant, it's just that the taste of any of it couldn't hope to live up to the standards set by the presentation even if it had been near perfect, and near-perfect it most definitely wasn't. The vegetables in my lobster dish were fridge-cold, and brought down the extravagantly-poured bisque to their temperature before I'd taken a second bite. The immaculate-looking gelée under the crab, too, was chilly, and infused with that kind of unpleasant jumble of organic odours spent from too long sat absorbing other members of cold storage.

More generally, though, the complaints were about underseasoning. A foie gras could have been less like window putty with just a touch more salt, ditto a sea bream tartar, ditto the crab, ditto a couple of bright green sticks of asparagus. The lobster, I should say, and despite its faults, was seasoned perfectly, and there was elsewhere enough to enjoy not to make the whole course a waste of time, but it's fair to say we expected more.

Mains, interestingly, flashed more frequently with genius despite having generally a much more subdued presentation. My own pigeon and foie gras was, in all regards, a triumph, each element singing in harmony, from the pink bird to the ethereally-light foie to the stalks of charred white asparagus beneath. And a very sloppy-looking turbot dish was even more impressive, a better bit of fish I doubt I've ever had before in my life, offered Japanese-style with the powerfully-flavoured fin-edge meat separately to marvel at.

But a tranche of "Farmer's" chicken breast was underseasoned, and its relative lack of flavour made the strange gel-like substance it was wrapped in that much more challenging to plough through, despite the confit leg meat being very good indeed. And a huge risotto-stuffed squid body was dense and samey and incredibly hard work, presented with a tentacle that was so stubbornly unyielding (overcooked? Undercooked?) it couldn't even be swallowed.

Later that afternoon, Thierry Marx proudly demonstrated how he cooked the vegetable starter using no seasoning other than Badoit's natural mineral salts. Blanched in the sparkling water for half the amount of time (we were told) that it would normally take to do such things, he then spoke about how the spent asparagus water could be used in other dishes and how as little as possible was wasted. "I give each of my chefs just two bottles each to last them all service" he said, pre-empting anyone who was about to wonder out loud if cooking asparagus in premium sparkling mineral water was why they felt they could charge €34 for two sticks of them.

But you know what those asparagus could have done with? A bit more salt. As could many of the dishes we tried at Camélia, and I can't help wondering whether cooking vegetables in Badoit is really the best use of the product, or just the result of a big-name chef with a sponsorship deal letting his imagination run away with him and nobody having the nerve to tell him that actually, salted tapwater might work better. Still, he seemed happy enough with the result so who am I to judge.

Back in Blighty, and the Badoit bandwagon rolls up to Soho Square next Thursday (13th) lunchtime, where as part of the awareness campaign, M. Marx has designed a menu for a "picnic restaurant" called Badoit Express. Fred Sirieix of Galvin @ Windows is arranging the service, so for that reason alone it's bound to be an enjoyable afternoon, and I look forward to tucking into a nice cold glass of Badoit in the Soho sun (fingers crossed). As for the food, perhaps the more informal environs of a picnic will showcase his talents better than the prim, plain and polished demands of a Michelin-gazing Parisian 5-star hotel restaurant, or perhaps even I'll have some kind of conversion to the benefits of Badoir-bathed asparagus. Just in case though, and I mean no offence to anybody, I may smuggle in a salt shaker.

6/10

Lunch at Camélia, plus Eurostar there and back, kindly provided by Badoit & We Are Social