Au Crocodile

In the centre of Strasbourg, just off Place Kleber, this restaurant has two rooms in the traditional French style, with the larger room dominated by a huge 19th Century oil painting. The wine list was particularly strong on Alsace wines, with two densely packed pages of Riesling alone, some going back to the 1940s. Nibbles were a fish terrine with mackerel, pickled cucumber in a creamy aspic (18/20) and a perfect chicken risotto (19/20). White bread rolls were the only bread (18/20). 

To start with we had langoustines on a bed of olive oil mash alternating with crisps of potato and garnished with cucumber and a lemon and lobster sauce (I had this as a starter, and my wife tried it as a main course). This was 19/20 level. My wife's starter was turbot salad on a bed of lettuce in a wonderful vinaigrette, topped with finely chopped vegetables and a set of deep fried vegetables, with slices of tomato and herbs including dill (19/20). I had a magnificent poussin, filleted and flattened at the table, with a mixed herb crust. The breast was served first, followed by the legs, with baby onions and green ravioli stuffed with vegetable puree. This was accompanied just by a simple but excellent jus of the cooking juices (20/20). 

For cheese we tried chive chevre, Munster, Epoisses, Livarot, Reblochon, Camembert, a champagne cheese and a creamy cheese, served with hot brown rolls with poppy seeds (18/20). Pineapple in Gewurtztraminer with fresh mint was offered as a pre-dessert (16/20). The desserts in earnest were white and dark chocolate mousse with fresh mint and vanilla ice cream (18/20). The other was strawberry sorbet topped with wild cherries  and vanilla ice cream in a cream sauce (19/20).  

Coffee was superb (20/20). The petit fours were a macaroon (17/20), raspberry barquette (19/20), a tart with raspberry, kiwi fruit and blackberry (19/20), a lacy almond tuile (19/20), a Chinese gooseberry dipped in chocolate (17/20), pistachio and almond mousse (19/20), white chocolate biscuits (16/20), vanilla heart biscuit (19/20), choux bun (16/20), and chocolate truffles with orange (19/20). A fantastic set of petit fours to round off one of the very best meals of my trip around France in the summer of 1996.   

For wine we had Madame Faller Domaine Weinbach Cuvee Theo Riesling at FF 360, and a Gewurtzraminer vendange tardives from Dopff. The total bill was FF 1770. Service was friendly and competent. The cooking was remarkably polished and consistent, a restaurant at the peak of its powers. A few years after this meal it lost its third star, so perhaps we were there at its peak.