Le Bouillon Bel Air

Rating: 2

We ate dinner here in July 2025.

French sausage in brioche pastry with pistachio mayonnaise
Butternut millefeuille
Roast celeriac with truffle peppercorn sauce
Beef and root vegetable stew
Cinnamon blondie with rhubarb, meringe, mousseline, and berry sorbet
Sticky date pudding with coconut sorbet

Five weeks ago we attempted to walk into the Bel Air and were turned away as they were full. This happens less frequently than you might think, and it always piques our interest. Tonight when we showed up to our reservation they were full again, even on a stormy winters night. We were shown to a lovely table on the balcony, and the person who booked us over a month ago remembered who we were, which was well above the level of service that you see basically anywhere. It’s fair to say our hopes were high.

Then the bread showed up. We love free bread, but this was some haggard ass baguette and was none too fresh. It was giving big Pak’n’Save energy. It also arrived late, but they were generous in giving us a second basket of bread when we finished the first.

We decided to order from the 3 course seasonal menu, which was $74 per person. Le Bouillon Bel Air makes three bold statements on its front signage: Affordable, French, Traditions. $74 for three courses isn’t expensive, and would indeed be affordable for fine dining, but fine dining this is not. Although we’re not sure the Bel Air would agree, they were attempting to bring an upmarket atmosphere including waiters with bow ties and crisp white shirts. It felt like a thin veneer of fanciness over something that was actually pretty cheap. This was best personified by the white linen table cloths … covered in a piece of white paper. Just don’t bother even doing the table cloths, we’d rather eat off the bare table than off a piece of paper, what were you thinking.

In fact we would have rather eaten the paper than the awful beef stew. We haven’t had meat this bad in a long time, it was almost comically dry. The broth was totally flavourless, and the sad boiled vegetables made the dish feel decidedly wartime overall. The other main, the roast celeriac, was actually alright, and it was certainly a lot more interesting, had a tasty flavour, and an enjoyable mix of textures. Plus the truffled peppercorn sauce really helped liven up their godawful bread.

Rewinding back a moment, the entrees were quite different which we appreciated. The butternut squash millefeuille came fridge-cold which is always a bit unpleasant, but it was very butternutty. “French sausage roll” was the descriptor for the other entree, which we’d say was misleading. It was more like a brioche muffin with a pocket of mince on the inside. Now that’s not a bad thing, but it’s not a sausage roll either. It came with a puddle of broth that was exceptionally beefy - where was that when we needed it for the stew?

Let’s talk sticky date pudding. It should be sticky, and it should be a pudding, and it should be date. Le Boullion Bel Air got one out of three. Their dry traybake did indeed have a date flavour, but the texture was cakey and a drizzle of sauce does not sticky make. It could have used more of the sorbet, which was not noticeably coconut in flavour.

The rhubarb thing was interesting, and had a fine dining flair which we frankly weren’t expecting at that point. But it came as a pleasant last minute surprise made up of many components in contrasting textures and flavours, arranged elegantly. Perhaps it didn’t all go together in perfect harmony, but it was easily the best dish of the night.

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