Aux Anysetiers du Roy

one of the best places we ate on a trip to Paris. the food was excellent and the service impeccablle. a must while in Paris.

I wasn’t sure what we’d find after we walked in, and what we found was a wonderful small restaurant where the server is also the chef! Lovely menu, with great choices, cassoulet, rump steak, chicken Provençal. I was thinking of pizza myself that night but the group wanted french so I found the closest thing to it on the menu, lasagna! Delicious! Just the flavors I wanted. The cassoulet was great, but the rump steak wasn’t as tender as the one my husband had had earlier in the week at a different spot.
There are a lot of restaurants, on the Ile de St Louis, and LOTS of ice cream spots. Apparently, the best brand is Bertillon, and that is made on the island. And it IS worth a trip here!

I would highly recommend this restaurant for a great dinner while in Paris. My only criticism is that the restaurant was extremely warm. The meal is worth it though.

There needs to be a massive correction of the reviews on this restaurant. It is CREEPY, dark and has not been updated in forever. All we wanted was onion soup, which is done excellently everywhere. What we got was watered down — almost entirely flavorless, with stale bread (not toasted fresh bread into croutons) and some totally tasteless industrial grated white cheese. When I signaled the chef/​owner/​reluctant waitress that we wished to have our check and go, she INSISTED on knowing why we would not eat the soup. I attempted to duck out of the conversation, since it was clear that we did not like it. She pushed and insisted and argued that I did not know what I had ordered and that no one else had EVER complained. And then charged us full price.
So: Food — insultingly horrible, ambiance — dirty (she never bothered to clear all the trash on the other empty tables), service — argumentative and greedy.
My advice is to steer VERY VERY clear of this place and hopefully, it will go out of business to be replaced with something better.

Excellent boeuf bourningnon and cassoulet! The service was great and everything tastes wonderful. For two people with a bottle of wine, 2 entrees, 1 dessert and 2 coffees the bill was 89 €. The only problem was the table filled with octogenarian Tea Partiers on Medicare bitching to each other about how the Affordable Care Act is socialism and the US is basically going to hell and Nancy Pelosi is a stupid bitch (actual quote), throughout our meal, but of course that is not the fault of the restaurant.

We have been eating at this restaurant since 2000 and have never been disappointed. Yesterday we went there for lunch fearing that Madame would be closed like so many places in Paris in August. What joy when our taxi drove up and it was open! I had the cassoulet and it was very tasty. Sometimes it can be disappointing at some places but not here. My friend had the onion soup which is a meal in itself and it was very satisfying.
Madame was her usual friendly self and made everyone feel comfortable, no matter the language gap or not. If you want a place that serves simple French food at reasonable prices and welcomes everyone, this is the place.

Un choix pas très heureux !
Arrivé à 22h, le menu à 17,50 € me fut refusé. J’ai pris une fricassée de poulet aux morilles. Le poulet baignait dans une sauce grasse. Les morilles étaient rares. L’accompagnement (haricots verts et carottes) rare, le poulet aussi. Le paiement de 18,90 € par carte bleue me fut refusé (décidément la patronne dit beaucoup non). La patronne était peu aimable.

Great tiny café on the island Saint Louis.

We ended up here mainly because we were looking for cassoulet but really really really wanted to have the (extraordinary!) ice cream at Berthillon the same night. (Yes, in case you were wondering, ice cream before dinner is a perfectly acceptable choice).
The food was… fine. The atmosphere was… disturbing. This place is a simulacrum — it is the old tyme «French restaurant» of the disneyfied imagination of American tourists (like me). I walked in and it was immediately familiar — a place out of a thousand images I hadn’t even realized had been imprinted on my brain. I could not shake the eerie sense of eating inside a simulacrum of an imagined French past, existing solely in the minds of tourists coming to seek it, more real than reality.
In any event, I wouldn’t really recommend coming here unless you’re really really into Baudrillard et al.

Inside this ancient temple of food, glowing faces hovered over bowls of Provençal broths, stews and meat. It was if I were a parent looking in from a bedroom doorway onto a sleeping child. Their faces so content. Everyone at peace. At that moment, dreams were a reality to each of the entranced food seekers.
Aux Anysetiers du Roy, a medieval building in the charming Ile St.-Louis had plenty of dark wood, stained glass windows and ancient paintings on the walls– all of which spoke of a different time. History Americans would struggle to relate to as our country is so new. In the same dining room was one older woman. A motherly figure who by herself cooked for the entire room. Watching her work the line was like watching a ballet. Every move synchronized, effortless and in rhythm. It was if she was born for this. So focused, yet when she would allow herself to look up from the stove, a warm glow to her face when she saw the delight shared with everyone who ate her food.
At our table, all of the traditional dishes were consumed; French Onion soup, Escargot, Cassoulet Maison, Boeuf Bourguignon and Crème Brûlée. We even washed the dinner down with a bottle of Bourdeaux. It just seemed right. Here we were, at a traditional French haven of food. A non touristy one at that. Eating traditional french comfort dishes that were executed flawlessly.
Sometimes food can be too complicated. Chefs experiment. Focus is lost. What isn’t lost are timeless classics such as traditional French cuisine served the same way that it’s been done since the beginning of time and availability of adequate cooking devices. At this restaurant, focus is not lost. This type of food will never be out of touch. It speaks from the soul and is perfect in aiding the gap between all cultures, backgrounds and ways of life. Comfort food is a connector. And during this dinner, our family shared a moment. Just a few days after exchanging wedding vows with my wife in the most romantic of all cities, this was when it all slowed down. Over a meal of stewed sausage, pork, duck and beans. In both flavor and context, memories were shared, made and about the future– dreamed about.

I adore this part of paris. this beautiful spot in on l’ile saint-​louis, and it’s a great alternative to the madness and winding streets of the nearby marais (which are charming, unless you’re super-​hungry and have little time to waste) and the prices are so-​so. I dropped by twice during my last visit.
First, the beef bourguignon was perfect and served with veggies (and not only cheap-​ass frites like some places), followed by a lackluster apple tart (hence 4 stars). I also tried the duck, which was a fresh take on confit de canard with just enough sweetness against the crispness of the perfectly cooked bird. My friend’s salmon looked thoughtfully delicious. Whatever was in the crème brûlée this second visit (chocolate blanc, vanilla?) hit the spot and made me smile.
I likely returned because the building is so rustic and romantic. It definitely beats a lot of the nearby newer buildings and cafes, per ambiance. I believe the french onion soup here, which my parisian friend ordered, was served deconstructed (not a good thing, unless you’re on some dumb diet) but he said it was great. The servers were also charming as hell, so I’d definitely recommend this place to french-​lacking tourists.

So having spent the day outside of Paris on a gorgeous sunny day exploring castle ruins in Normandy and Monet’s house and garden in Giverny (reviewed separately of course), as we drove back into the heart of the city along the Seine, our hostess for the day, a woman named Claude Alice, insisted we take further advantage of the gorgeous evening and go out to dinner on Ile St. Louis. «Just go there and find a restaurant, you don’t need any recommendation from me,» she told us. Personally I was more than a bit tired and would have been happy not to go out for a fabulous dinner and just grab some of the seductively roasting rotisserie chicken at this shop between us and the metro. Fortunately my partner was so enchanted with our day thus far that he insisted we keep the magic alive and do as recommended by the wise Parisian lady.
How right they both were! And props to me for digging deep and going along with someone else’s agenda, which can really be a challenge for a control freak like moi, with my maps and checklists and such! So after some light snacks at home (more cheese anyone?), we set out for Ile St. Louis on the metro, sans map even. We arrived famished but followed our rule of checking out three different places before deciding on Aux Anysetiers. (Sidebar: every other person we passed was enjoying an ice cream cone so I knew I’d skip dessert wherever we ate in favor of having an ice cream and walking along the Seine.) We walked into Anysetiers 10 minutes past the end of service hours and noticed just one other table finishing up in the rustic dining room with tiny and blocky oak tables and chairs. The hostess was about to tell us «sorry we’re done for the evening» but then Madame Chef de Cuisine greeted us and we were seated tout suite!
The menu here was beyond your typical French fare but also featured a couple of classics. Brian went for our first boeuf bourguignon in France and I chose the poulet a la provencal. Both were superb but only mine came with a side of steamed haricot vert. My first course was a vegetable soup that was served after I’d been brought the crispy croutons, leaving my partner wondering, «is that all there is?» I was happy to get more veggies in my diet besides salad to counter all the cheese and pâté I’ve been enjoying, believe me! The soup was good even though a bit underseasoned. It was the first time I found myself adding salt more than once to a dish while here, but soup has to be cooked with salt not added at the end otherwise one might end up overcompensating. His app of tomatoes and mozzarella with olive oil and basil was top notch as well. No bland tomatoes this night.
My other mark of distinction for Anysetiers was the bread. I’ve been unimpressed with the pieces of baguette we’ve been served with our meals because it’s very obviously been cut up earlier in the day and then stored in some bag or container for serving throughout the day. This may be efficient for the kitchen, but the bread loses its crispy exterior that defines a good baguette and who wants a rubbery baguette? However, I saw our waitress pull out a whole baguette and cut it into pieces right before serving us. What a difference!
Finally, no French meal is complete without coffee – what I would call espresso – which I would have ordered but then Madame Chef airily suggested some calvados perhaps? When pouring she mooned over how delicious its aroma was and looked as if she’d be enjoying a bit herself after closing. I am not a brandy drinker at all, but having spent part of the day in Normandy, reputedly the only part of France not known for wine but rather its apples, I was taken in by the suggestion and enjoyed a very warming snifter of the vaporous calvados as my digestif. Parfait!

Très bien
Nous y sommes entrés par hasard mais ce fut une très bonne surprise ! Un accueil discret et avenant. Une nourriture très fraîche préparée à la commande mais des portions un peu justes en quantité malgré tout ! Le décor est médiéval et on y passé une très agréable soirée, un cadre intime où on peu discuter au calme. Restaurant de qualité, je le recommande.

Great, cozy restaurant with a LOT of personality and history, in fact, so much history that, depending on the version, this place may possibly be the oldest standing restaurant in Paris, older in its original location than «La Tour d’Argent». We stumbled upon this place accidently while strolling on ile St Louis. The chef agreed to serve us around 3pm, even though it was the «between» hours. She was quite friendly and gave us some history about the place. The food is typical French cuisine and was fairly good but not amazing. Prices are respectable. Can’t comment about the atmosphere since we were the only ones there at that odd hour. The décor is fantastic, and make sure you check out the wash sink outside the bathroom on the first floor. Quite a piece of history itself too. Note that if you are allergic to cats, watch out for the 2 friendly felines walking around.