Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud is home to a new restaurant that's sure to bring some sunshine into your life: Oté - an interjection in Reunionese Creole that warmly expresses surprise and amazement. As you can see, this is a Reunionese street-food restaurant that awaits you!
Behind the address are Rodrigue Barcilon, Clément Fraisse and Justin Arnal, three accomplices who fell in love with the island's rich culinary culture, influenced by Asia, the Indian Ocean and Africa. A sunny, intense and spicy cuisine, too little known in Paris. The three friends set out to introduce these specialties through street food, without distorting them.
To achieve this, the restaurant offers its recipes in two formats: sandwich versions, in breads made by the Miettes bakery, or tray versions, like those available to take away from all the island's boui-bouis. In terms of price, the restaurant is veryaffordable, offering a lunch menu at €16.50 for a sandwich, a side dish and a drink, or a tray and a drink - no side dish is required for the latter option, as the trays are already made with rice and lentils.
Oté puts the emphasis on homemade from A to Z, from the arranged rums that wait patiently to macerate above the counter (passion/vanilla, pineapple/vanilla, ginger, banana flambé; €3) to the homemade letchonnade (€4.50) and the sriracha sauce and chili paste that have nothing to do with the industrials.
OnOté's menu, of course, is the famous rougail saucisse (€16), a stew of smoked sausage in a multi-spiced tomato-based sauce, made here with IGP Montbéliard sausages (the closest thing to the traditional smoked sausage) accompanied by white rice and lentils.
The chicken-vanilla sandwich (14.50€) is also on the menu, a roll bun topped withvegetable achard (carrot, cabbage, red onion, garlic, ginger, chili, turmeric, lemon zest, combava ; all freshness) and a shredded chicken cooked with IGP Reunion frosted vanilla and generously drizzled with mayonnaise and mango rougail - a spicy condiment made from mango, garlic, red pepper and ginger.
Another must-try dish on Réunion Island is bouchons (€6.50), generously stuffed, steamed ravioli that can be eaten at any time of day. Made by hand, these ravioli are filled with chicken seasoned with combava, massalé, garlic and ginger, and served with siave sauce, the Réunionese Creole word for soya.
Oté also offers bonbons piment (€6.50), Cape pea fritters that are, in fact, spicy in name only. As one of the owners is keen to point out, contrary to popular belief, Réunionese cuisine is spicier than it is spicy!
Reunionese desserts, meanwhile, will take travellers back to memories of vacations in the sun, like this fromage blanc, mango coulis and lime zest (5€) and this indecent gato choco dakat (6€), a chocolate fondant with dakatine cream and praline peanuts reminiscent of chouchous crunched on the beach!
Location
Oté
46 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud
75011 Paris 11
Official website
ote-restaurant.com
