Paradoxe Restaurant Francais

9.5 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  10     

Very nice place. Nice menu for 49$! I'm from France. The chef Michel is very nice. I love this restaurant and I hope I'll come back.

Jan 07, 2012 

9.3 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  9      Service  9      Value  10     

I am astonished by the negative reviews for Paradoxe. We went here last night for a birthday celebration and it proved to be a great dining experience. The restaurant is small but intimate cosy. The service was wonderful, friendly and attentive.

Seeing the menu of 4 courses for $49 dollars I have to admit I was skeptical but could not fault any of the dishes that we picked but if you do end up going here, do yourself a favor and get the fillet of beef. Amazing.!

Dec 20, 2011 

9 Highly Recommended

Food  9      Ambience  8      Service  10      Value  9     

We went to Paradoxe for the third time. The service and the food are excellent. Great value, a perfect French experience.

Dec 14, 2011 

6.5 Recommended

Food  6      Ambience  6      Service  7      Value  7     

We drive past this place regularly and finally decided to pop in. They have four courses for $49 and BYO (no corkage!). The food was a bit hit and miss - the snails, pate and asparagus were all delicious entrees (although the sea scallops looked like a better bet!). The quail salad was pretty average, sounded good but was tough bits of bird on lettuce with tonnes of sauce.

However, the steak tenderloin with bearnaise sauce was possibly the best I've ever had. The steak was cooked perfectly and there was a generous amount of bearnaise (also perfect!). Desserts were fine but nothing amazing. The service was friendly. All up I think it offers good value for money if you stick to the classics (snails, scallops, steak, etc) and steer clear of anything too avant garde.

Nov 17, 2011 

3.8 Below Average

Food  4      Ambience  4      Service  3      Value  4     

The food lacked flavor. The prawns and scallops were both cold and overcooked. The duck was dry. The creme brûlée was 5mm deep, the texture was wrong and the sugar on top still granulated. Still it was ok until they double charged my credit card and did not know how to reverse it. We then spent literally an hour with them on the phone to Westpac to no avail. We ultimately left, my partners birthday ruined, and they had the audacity to suggest that after I cancelled the transaction I would not come back the next day to pay. Extremely disappointing.

Oct 21, 2011 

4 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  3      Service  5      Value  5     

When a friend suggested Paradoxe for a French meal, I was a bit leery, and should have gone with my gut and suggested another restaurant instead. A group of us went for dinner during their 20th anniversary celebration so 3 courses for $39, which seemed like great value. However, the only decent course was the mains of beef fillets and which came with some veggies with a garlicky butter sauce (arguably the highlight of the entire meal).

The starters were generally poor as were the desserts (unfresh and bland tasting ceviche, bizarre "scallops",and the worst creme brulee ever, both with strange consistency and flavour as others mention below). They are BYO with no corkage which is nice, but the tap water tastes funny and they had no soft drinks for those who don't drink wine. We were underwhelmed all around in the food department.

Service was fine overall, though they didn't bring the water we asked for towards the end of the evening while looking at us like please hurry and leave. However, the ambience was worse than the food. The dining and bathroom areas look like they haven't been touched in more than 20 years and where it could have had a cozy feel like a small cottage, it instead felt dated, grotty and there were too many tables crammed together. Several people from the table next to us had to get out of their chairs and move from the area to enable my friend to exit her chair to go to the bathroom.

Overall the food and ambience/cleanliness negate the otherwise good value and would prevent me from returning.

Jul 24, 2011 

10 Highly Recommended

Food  10      Ambience  10      Service  10      Value  10     

Our 3rd Bastille Day at Paradox great atmosphere, another fantastic evening,.

Jul 20, 2011 

2.5 Not Recommended

Food  1      Ambience  3      Service  5      Value  1     

Was taken here, and found out later from foodie friends (to their great amusement) that this place is notoriously awful. They're right.

We had a set menu, which was worryingly cheap, the reasons for which became clear. The scallops were verging on unrecognisable as scallops, obviously frozen or bulk and served on re-used scallop shells. The kangaroo was ridiculously rare (which I normally like), but somehow stale. The creme brulee was little more than commercial custard which wasn't so much brulee as slightly singed.

The decor is grim and the service is fine, but neither those matter at all when the food is bad enough that I would be embarrassed to serve it myself. Am genuinely astonished by some of the more positive reviews below. It's like we went to a different restaurant.

Jul 10, 2011 

8 Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  7      Service  8      Value  9     

I came here for lunch in a large group organised by a French friend on Sunday 26 June. The lunch was a buffet with many small courses: soup, salad, pate, then some hot dishes: grilled chicken hearts with smoky flavoured bacon on a skewer, a chicken wing casserole, tripe - I just can't remember everything.

All the food was delicious and tremendous value at $40 per head. I would like to come for the regular menu and try the veal knuckle next time. The restaurant is BYO and no corkage was charged. The service was very friendly. A lovely experience and highly recommended.

Jun 27, 2011 

4 Below Average

Food  3      Ambience  4      Service  6      Value  3     

Had the $49 'special' menu. My main course (duck) was fine but the starter and the dessert were really bad, so, overall, what seemed like good value ended up being one very expensive main course. The scallops neither looked nor tasted like scallops (were they bits of prawn disguised in a sauce?) and the creme brulee was tasteless and really horrible consistency. Heaven knows how it was made. Wouldn't dream of returning.

Jun 23, 2011