Astara, the restaurant devoted to seafood

Seafood fans, we have found a fantastic spot. It is in Paris 1st arrondissement that Astara opened in spring 2019 its first restaurant doubling up as a super-complete sea delicatessen. On the menu, taramasalata, caviar and even smoked salmon.

A sea table has opened in Paris over a year ago, and we owe it to Astara.
Astara has been specialized in seafood for almost 40 years. The opening of the eponymous restaurant was the next step to treat even more people!

Let’s head to Paris 1^st arrondissement, between the Opera and the Palais-Royal, to discover this new place set on rue des Petits Champs. In the kitchen and on the iodic menu, revisited sea classics and dishes from elsewhere rub shoulders.

In a refined, elegant and clean setting, Astara delights everyone as soon as appetizers are served, including cocktails based on vodka - another specialty of the house - like this vodka cherry mix with apple/hibiscus juice. A very tasty and not too strong beverage, perfect for lunch, for instance. A drink paired with truffled cashews. It is crazy. We should have thought about that!

As a starter, in addition to the blini Astara style (€13), like a tart topped with DPO crème d'Isigny, Norwegian smoked salmond, yellow and red beetroots, red onion pickles, trout egg taht delighted us last year, the chef also came up with sea boards to sahre.

The "Joli comme un coeur" board (€24) enables us to taste more specialties of the house, without having to choose.
They include sprats (fish looking like sardine), a fantastic and delicate Norwegian smoked salmon fillet, trout eggs, very nice because not too salty, and two taramasalatas. A classic and very tasty white taramasalata, and the other one, even better and subtle, with truffle. Dishes to be enjoyed with blinis made to order and served lukewarm.

Moving on to mains, Astara also provides you with king shrimp and -hot-smoked trout risotto served with shitake mushrooms (€23). A dish meeting our expectations from previous tastings. You also have lemon tagliatelle with bottarga and Baeri caviar twisted with vodka (€21). An original recipe we enjoyed a lot.

Also available as main: a salad, smoked salmon and the timeless croque-monsieur is turned into a croque-caviar (€18).

As for the sweet offering, the chef brillantly revisits the classic rum baba with vodka (€9), or the exquisite pistachio crème brûlée (€8) topped with toasted hazelnuts!

Please note that sourcing at Astara is super thorough and promoted: Astara caviars mainly come from the Giaveri farm set in Italy and where sturgeons are fed with organic food.

And the same care is taken for wines that are here organic and biodynamic!

Finally, for those who would like to leave with a little something, Astara restaurant features a beautiful delicatessen providing a selection of smoked salmon, as well as sprats, sea urchin coral, taramasalata, salmon and trout eggs, blinis...

In other words, you get it, this is THE new spot to enjoy what the best of seafood!

Practical information