New Michelin-starred restaurant: Maison Avoise, the excellent gourmet restaurant in Issy-les-Moulineaux

This is the nugget to discover. Maison Avoise is the relaxed, gourmet restaurant with top-flight cuisine created by Alexis Voisenet and his team in Issy-les-Moulineaux. Spoiler Alert: the address is well worth a visit.

In the alcoves of a former powder magazine, a vestige of the Fort d'Issy-les-Moulineaux, you'll find a restaurant that has captured the hearts of gourmets from near and far. Here you are in the lair of chef Alexis Voisenet, the realization of a long-dreamed-of, long-thought-of and now realized project. Maison Avoise is a convivial address that breaks the mould. For those of you who think that gourmet restaurants are synonymous with cliché, stuffy atmospheres, this spot is here to dispel that preconceived notion. You'll discover a place that invites you to savor top-flight gastronomy without taking itself too seriously, and with excellent value for money.

In the dining room, in the kitchen and even behind the bar, over the years Alexishas gathered together his league of restaurant Avengers, who together create the spirit of the Maison Avoise. Upon entering the premises, you're quickly won over by the elegant setting and relaxed atmosphere. At the front of the restaurant, an outdoor terrace is sure to tempt you in fine weather. In the dining room, a bright, covered terrace serves as a refuge. On the roof, the restaurant has its own vegetable garden, which is put to good use both in the kitchen and at the bar.

We recommend arriving early, so you can stop off at the counter at the entrance to enjoy an aperitif (with or without alcohol), including cocktails made to order by Charles from hand-picked spirits and products. To see for yourself, simply take a seat at the counter and take a look at the bottles on display: you'll see labels you're not used to seeing.

Speaking of fine labels, opposite the bar you'll find a wine cellar, which tells you that oenophiles will find just as much pleasure here as mixology enthusiasts. And for those with a sweet tooth, aperitif time is also the perfect opportunity to nibble on a few gourmet tapas, including an astonishing pork-free pâté, made with guinea fowl, veal, foie gras and vegetable glycerine, or an extremely melt-in-the-mouth foie gras with armagnac (which can be pre-ordered for the festive season!).

In transition from the bar to the dining room, a large open kitchen provides a view of the brigade in action. The confident, organized team sets the pace, and plates flow smoothly from the kitchen to the dining room, where diners chat warmly with their hosts, who present the various dishes with simplicity and passion. We pass through these scenes of life as we are guided to our table. There, a childhood souvenir awaits us: an origami in the shape of a pouêt-pouêt, containing the menu.

Prices here are relatively affordable for an address of this level: expect to pay €64 for a 4-course menu, €89 for a 6-course menu, and a starter-course-dessert lunch menu for €45 on weekdays. Enough to suit different budgets and democratize thegastronomic experience.

In the course of our tasting, we'll discover a highly technical, daring cuisine, the fruit of the team's experience and know-how, without lapsing into show-off or distorting good produce. The devil is in the detail, both on and off the plate, as everything has an anecdote. If the presentation of the dishes is sober and inspired, going more to the essentials than to the details, it's all the better to surprise us at the moment of tasting.

We start with a little appetizer that illustrates the chef's and his team's trick: an inspiration from the pre-fou vendéen, made from the previous day's bread, dried in the oven to make a new flour, topped with a leek fondue seasoned with a homemade vinaigrette infused with blackberries from the kitchen garden. With its tangy pep, this introduction awakens the taste buds. This is followed by an amuse-bouche that introduces us to carrots in all their forms, with an orange carrot worked into a purée, molded to serve as a bulwark for blood-red carrot pickles. At the first stroke of the fork, the dam gives way, releasing a juice of carrot tops. This sets the tone: in the kitchens of Maison Avoise, we use everything, and in our tasting, we know we're going to have fun.

We've spoiled you with a cuisine that reworks good produce with great technical skill without denaturing it. For starters, the Madrague is an excellent example. It's one of the biggest hits with gourmets who've had the chance to try it, and will delight seafood aficionados. Conceived as a maritime version of a headcheese, it reveals a shellfish pâté composed of bouchot mussels and razor clams, topped with a ravigote sauce for added freshness and surrounded by an emulsion of the shellfish juices, enhanced by the presence of saffron, whose texture evokes a delicious foam. No wonder it's one of the stars of the menu.

On the main course, another headliner awaits us, and there was no way we were going to miss it. Maison Avoise's signature dish is the one that, in the chef's eyes, embodies his achievements and his career. This autobiographical dish is sweetbreads. It's a dish of comfort and generosity. This noble product, worked in the Alexis Voisenet style, is presented to us whole, preserved in butter and smoked to soak up the aromatic herbs from the vegetable garden.

Once again, we don't camouflage the product, we sublimate it, and we love the soft texture and respect for authenticity that this dish, which the chef considers his heritage, represents. And because we're all about follow-through in the kitchen, the sweetbreads are accompanied by a creamy onion sauce and a coulis of the same herbs used in the smokehouse, as well as onion confit stuffed with herbed sweetbread kefta, which adds a note of sweetness to the plate. The whole dish is drizzled with a veal jus pearled with the fat from cooking.

For those who aren't keen on offal, we'll take you to the sea. That day, sole meunière was on the menu. Maison Avoise has once again found a way to elevate this specialty to gastronomic status, while preserving what makes it such a favorite among aficionados of this great classic. We discover sole fillets spirally rolled into the shape of Bernards l'Ermine, nestled on a bed of buttery spinach and covered with a lemon-juice glaze. The sauce is created by exploiting the natural collagen present in the fish, with a crispy tuile made from the skin. Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed - Lavoisier's law also applies to cooking.

To accompany the dishes, Alexis Voisenet pays tribute to his grandmother with a specialty that marked his childhood, Jacqueline apples, a touching touch that contributes to the personality of the place. Plate after plate, the Maison Avoise delivers on its promise and accustoms us to a certain level of creativity and technicality with an experiential dimension. There's still the dessert test: how does the restaurant manage to deliver the final bouquet?

For chocoholics, it's a chance to be surprised by the combination of capers, olives and cocoa, which enhances the chocolate notes, softened by a milk chocolate sorbet and accompanied by a cassolette featuring a chocolate-rich eating sauce, again with fresh capers and olive oil. At this point, you can trust us with your eyes closed, and rightly so if you're a fan of the chocolate and salt twist.

On an elegant scoop, probably echoing the rooftop garden, we are first presented with a madeleine covered in hazelnut praline to "line the palate with a light layer of fat" to soften the acidity of the fruity dessert. This is followed by a cigar of chestnut tulle wrapping a blood orange sorbet and faisselle siphon, which continues the transition to the main plate, featuring citrus fruits such as Buddha's hand, white bergamot lemon, limoncello juice, candied citrus and torriefed hazelnuts, as well as hints of tangy emulsion. With this plate, we end our tasting as we began it, reminding us of the carrot we enjoyed at the start of the meal. We've come full circle, and we've fallen in love.