Monsieur Paul Review

One of our favorite activities in Disney World is trying out all the various dining establishments, and on that list was Monsieur Paul in Epcot. Now, we had been to Monsieur Paul in the past, however it was many years ago when they had the a la carte menu, so we were excited to try the prix fixe menu.

Monsieur Paul is the signature dining restaurant in the France pavilion in Epcot. It is on the second floor above Chefs de France.

We booked reservations for 6:50 in the evening with hopes of being able to see the fireworks from our table. So when we were brought upstairs to our table I was a bit upset that we didn’t get a table by the windows. Oh well, at least we were in for some amazing food!

As mentioned earlier, Monsieur Paul is currently a prix fixe menu, with a slightly eye watering price tag of $195/person. This does of course include a very delicious multicourse menu, which in the end was 100% worth the price.

The menu this evening was 8 courses. We also decided to get the wine pairing to go with it, there were two wine pairings, we opted for the slightly more expensive one which came with 5 drinks instead of the 4 in the less expensive pairing.

For most courses we had a choice of food, which for most was a very hard decision to make! I do think we both did a fantastic job, and we didn’t always get the same thing so we got to try more. The only thing I didn’t really like is we had to select our dessert right at the beginning. I was hoping we could pick it closer to the end of the meal to gauge how full we were, but oh well, not the end of the world!

The meal started with an amuse-bouche and some champagne. The champagne is part of the regular meal rather than part of the wine pairing, so even if you don’t get the wine pairing you get the champagne.

For the amuse-bouche we got three small dishes: a salmon, a chilled butternut squash soup, and a bread with some fruit and nuts. This was all delicious, although I think I would have preferred the soup warm rather than chilled.

While not on the menu, before our next course, we were brought the bread service. We could pick our breads, I believe there were three. I got the cheese bread and my mom got the olive bread. I’m shocked to say I preferred the olive bread! It was amazing, and I usually don’t really like olives. I need to find a recipe to make this at home.

Our next course was the appetizer. For this we both ordered the lobster (Maine Lobster salad with passion fruite vinaigrette). The other options were escargot, and a saffron mussels soup.

This was paired with a white wine, that was actually from our servers hometown!

This was really good, the sauces on the plate were phenomenal, I could just eat a tub of those sauces! This was served cold though, and I think I would have preferred it warm, but then again I don’t think the sauces would have worked well warm so I get why it was served chilled.

The next course was the fish course. Here my mom and I ordered different items. I ended up getting the snapper in potato scales with rosemary sauce, while my mom got the seared scallops with maple butternut squash velouté.

This was paired with another white wine, which I absolutely loved.

I think my mom won this round, while I loved the snapper, the maple butternut squash puree with her scallops was so ridiculously good. Mine was tasty, but the rosemary sauce just wasn’t quite as amazing as the squash sauce.

While we were waiting for our next course, the manager came over to us and asked if we would like to be moved to a window seat. Of course we accepted! This is just what I was hoping for, I really wanted to see the fireworks from there! They moved everything over for us, so we didn’t have to worry about carrying our drinks across the restaurant. We ended up at great table right up against a window.

After settling into our new table, the next course was the trou normand, which was a pear brandy with vanilla ice cream. This was super decadent, and very strong!

Before the next main course was brought out, we got another bread course!

This time I selected the olive bread, and mom got the French baguette.

Olive Bread

Next up was the meat course, and once again my mom and I got different items. She got the lamb (rack of lamb roasted in a cocotte, curly green cabbage, stuffed with mushrooms and chestnuts, fresh thyme juices), while I got the beef (center cut beef tenderloin roasted, porcini fricassee, mashed potatoes mousseline, Bordelaise sauce).

This was paired with an amazing red wine.

Center Cut Beef Tenderloin

Rack of Lamb

My steak came with mashed potatoes, which the waitress noted was 50% butter. I mean it was good, but wow, that’s a lot of butter!

Mom’s lamb was good, it was served, and frankly tasted like, corned beef and cabbage! Mom loved it. I loved my steak. It was cooked perfectly!

Our next course was the cheese course, but we got a little extra surprise here. They were apparently testing a new menu item, so decided to bring one of those out and one of the cheese plates, which was really awesome! My mom and I ended splitting them, and it was all so good. The new dish they were trying out was basically a baked goat cheese salad, which was soooo good, although super heavy. The cheese plate was much lighter, and also really good. There wasn’t a lot on the cheese plate, however at that point in the meal we were struggling to fit more food in, so there really didn’t need to be a lot there!

Finally it was time for the dessert course. I believe at some point around the dessert course the fireworks went off. It was cool seeing them from there, but definitely not the best view!

For dessert we both opted for the chocolate sphere (chocolate almond cake, chocolate cream, hazelnut biscuit, chocolate ice cream, warm chocolate cognac sauce), which my goodness, this was so amazing. When they bring it out, they pour hot chocolate cognac sauce over it which makes the sphere break, so not only a cool presentation, but also really delicious!

We had another wine pairing with the dessert, it was more of a dessert wine, our grand marnier was also brought out during this course.

You would think we were done then right? But nope! We had more coming!

The final course were macaroons, with a port wine.

This was amazing, but way too much food. We decided to get the macaroons to go, and just sip the wine while watching people clearing out the park below.

Finally, a bit over 45 minutes after the park closed, we slowly made our way out. This is one thing I really appreciated, we never once felt rushed. So even though the park had been closed for nearly an hour, we were able to take our time enjoying the wine and atmosphere, and avoid the crowds exiting below.

This was such an amazing experience, I would 100% do it again. It was a ridiculous amount of food though, we basically had to waddle home.

We were a bit worried about the amount of alcohol we’d be drinking this evening, but we didn’t feel too bad, it was a lot, but over such a long time, we never felt like we were getting drunk. Plus we drank a ton of water throughout.

So if you’re on the fence about going here, I definitely recommend. It was such a great experience!