- Le Facebook du Paris Club
“It smells like a barn in here.”
That’s what my pal said the moment we took our seats in the vast dining room at Paris Club, the second restaurant from Lettuce Entertain You’s R.J. and Jerrod Melman, a radical remake of the more classically oriented Brasserie Jo. It hit me too, a strong, slightly sweet funk anyone who’s ever spent time on a farm might describe as . . . bovine.
I thought perhaps it had something to do with the gas problems the restaurant suffered on their second night in business, and I made a note to take some investigative whiffs on subsequent visits. That’s why most professional food critics eat at restaurants more than once before they write about them—to determine whether problems are incidental or consistent. If the smell persisted I’d guess that would be a serious problem for the heirs to Empire Lettuce.