Roy’s Pub Restaurant

Un endroit sympa pour se retrouver entre potes, autour d’un match et d’une pinte de bière. Le vrai plus: l’accueil sympa et la possibilité de privatiser la salle du sous-​sol avec le service d’un barman et la musique de votre choix.
Côté plats, cela reste de la nourriture de pub. Né vous attendez pas à retrouver les burgers de Big Fernand ou le cheesecake de Rachel’s. Les plats sont corrects, sans plus.

I can’t believe I’m reviewing a burger place in Paris, but it is entirely deserving of endorsement. After a week of delicious French fare, we were hankering for a «Cheeseburger in Paradise» and we weren’t disappointed! Many American joints could take a lesson: thick, juicy, just short of medium so the flavor of real beef shines through, and a glossy fresh bun. Beer selection, pub atmosphere just adds extra points for this reviewer. Definitely gets a thumbs up.

I cannot say enough about this place. Delightful, quaint and cozy. I found it because I was searching for the best dark beer on the planet: Koenig Ludwig Dunkel. Very hard to find. And it is on tap, well poured. Fabrice is the owner. Davide is the bartender. He is young, slim and good-​looking, and has no butt. Davide’s father, Silvano, is the chef. He seeks out quality ingredients and has put together a delightful menu. The bar itself is copper from the 1860s. Aside from the fact that it is one block away from the Moulin Rouge, the neighborhood is very down to earth. Some would say scary, but I love it! Artists, amazing cheese shops, off the beaten trail markets.. Overflow goes downstairs or even out to the corner. Yes, fellow Americans, you may drink outside the bar in an unenclosed area. Go.

Les pubs à Paris, c’est toujours un peu poisseux, un peu fake, un peu décevant en comparaison avec ‘the real thing’ outré-​manche.
Du coup, ce pub qui né fait pas semblant d’être un pub pur jus-​cottage anglais décoré par mamie-​repaire d’ouvriers sortis tout droit du Full Monty, finalement s’approche plus de l’esprit.
D’abord on y diffuse les matchs de foot, de rugby. C’est la base.
Ensuite on y sert de la bière, des pintes à un prix défiant toute concurrence: 3,50 € en happy hour.
On y mange aussi: formule pinte-​nachos 8,50 € en happy hour, c’est franchement une bonne affaire. Si vous avez faim pour de vrai, les burgers ont l’air top: double steak, buns bien rebondis, je n’ai pas goûté mais c’est alléchant. Ils ont même une version veggie. Et sinon, il y a des planches aussi.
Le service est sympa, rapide, souriant et l’ambiance est bon enfant, comme dans un vrai pub. Et on y rencontre pas mal d’anglais, écossais, bref des gens qui s’y connaissent en pub.
Tout ça pour dire, dans le quartier, c’est une très bonne option!
Et on peut aussi privatiser le sous-​sol avec possibilité de mettre sa propre musique, projecteur pour passer votre super PowerPoint de photos gênantes, bar avec serveur à disposition…

Who goes to a place called Roy’s Pub in Paris, you might ask? Well, the answer is «two starving Americans fleeing the Louvre and waiting for their Montmartre tour to start.» In all seriousness, I don’t know why we picked this place, other than, again, we were starving and didn’t want to wander too far from the meeting point for our tour and kinda wanted to see what a French sports bar was all about. Also, their menu sounded good. And it was!
Overall: Well, it calls itself a sports bar, but it was pretty much like every other restaurant we went to in Paris, décor wise. They did have some TVs, if I recall correctly.
Food: Great for lunch. My husband got the blanquette de veau and I went with the cheese and charcuterie board. These were more items on our list of foods we wanted to make sure we got at some point in Paris.
The board is definitely meant to be shared, so I’m sure the waiter thought I was nuts when I ordered it for myself, but dammit, all I wanted was meat and cheese and bread! Anyway, it arrived and it was HUGE and oh so delicious. The meats consisted of VERY good salami, delicious country pâté (my first! And it will not be the last), and the best prosciutto I’ve ever had. Normally I don’t really get what all the fuss is about regarding prosciutto, but this was incredible. It wasn’t as salty as the prosciutto I’ve tried back home.
The cheeses included Comte, Camembert and Roquefort. The Comte was perfectly sharp and the Camembert was delicious and creamy. The Roquefort was a bit more stinky than I normally like, but my goal in Paris was to eat ALL the cheese, so I just kept trying different combos with the meat until I found one I liked. The board also came with cornichons (LOVE) and butter. Add bread and you have a perfect midday meal! I washed it all down with a carafe of Sauvignon Blanc.
Blanquette de veau is one of my father-in-law’s specialties, so my husband was very excited to try it in France. This was a good dish, but ultimately his dad’s is the winner. And unfortunately veal covered with cream sauce isn’t exactly a showstopper when it comes to presentation either. To drink, he had a couple of beers.
We finished our meal with coffee, which was excellent. When we complimented our server on the coffee, he explained that he’s from Italy, so when he makes coffee he tries to make it the same way he would back home.
Service: Good. Once again, no problems communicating with our servers. Everybody who helped us was really nice and when we requested more bread we got it right away.