Mc Duck

This restaurant made me do a double take. First of all, I wasn’t sure from the sign whether it was McDuck, à la McDo, or MC Duck, like a rapping duck Muppet from the wrong side of Sesame Street — I loved it no matter. The place is a slick, gleaming, boldly coloured punch of twenty-​first century built around bigger-​than-​life rubber ducky iconography and an artfully ironic tip of the hat to McDonald’s by skilled restaurateur. Whether it’s McDuck or MC Duck, make no mistake that it should be called ‘Hipster Burger’ and that a vain moustache, ill-​fitting clothing, and a preposterous bicycle will probably qualify you for a discount.
‘There is probably a reason why duck burgers do not, to my knowledge, exist’, I remember thinking as I looked hungrily at the menu, but we had gotten there at opening, so we had no visual reference to go by. My companion – ‘Picky Princess’ – looked sceptical. We sit at a hyper clean and modern raised table, and I remember seeing the artful burger cartons on the wall and thinking, ‘Oh, that’s /​so/​clever! All these references to the industrial uniformity, sterility and waste of a fast food chain in a place with 15 € artisinal burgers that will come out on octagonal ceramic plates with a reduction of some extinct root vegetable spread like a bold virgule from sumptuous hand-​cut and truffled fries… so clever!‘
Yeah, no, actually the lady comes out carrying two shitty black plastic trays with cardboard cartons, napkins, and other cheep desideratum strewn haphazardly across them. ‘There you go’, she says, the look in her eyes telling us ‘something VERY special is about to happen here, people, and I will be over there if you need to talk about it later on’. ‘Thank you’, says Picky Princess, the look in /​her/​eyes saying ‘Are you f*in’ serious with this hipster bullsh*?’ I laugh nervously, this was my choice. ‘Are you f*in’s serious with this hipster bullsh*?’ she asks me aloud. ‘Meh, let’s try it… I think the presentation is ironic’.
The fries were good, but super greasy. Half a fry in, Picky Princess sneered and moved her carton to my tray with two delicate fingers. We open the burger cartons, it looks promising. But then… the hand-​made buns were so overcooked that they were crunchy, which is really, really wrong for a burger. The duck inside was good, but one bite in from the edge we discovered that the meat was completely raw inside – raw and cold in the way that only carelessly defrosted meat can be. Being France, the polite response to ‘excuse me, but you seem to have served us completely raw meat’ is not, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the kitchen just got started and we clearly made a mistake, let us replace this for you’, instead it is ‘That is impossible; out of complete distrust, allow me to inspect the alleged meat. Oh, yes, there is your problem, you see, us sophisticated restaurateurs eat it like that – everyone does really – but if you have special needs, you should have really communicated them with us while ordering’. So we went through that rigamarole, comme d’hab, and she went to the kitchen to confirm that the people there do indeed eat raw meat on scorched buns. Having confidently proven us wrong and solicited a confession from us like a Chinese police inspector, we were then offered to have our burgers replaced for free with ones made to our crazy specifications — in other words, the service is excellent by French standards.
By some magic, the replacement burgers made to our crazy Parisian foodie specifications turned out to be excellent. When cooked (im)properly, the duck breast exhibits a complex variety of textures and cooking, with good Maillard-​reaction browing on the exterior, and juicy and tender all the way to the interior. The effect was extremely pleasing, and I had to honestly reflect upon how they achieved it. I think the trick is that they tenderize the breast so violently that the muscle fibres have turned into hamburger-​like pulp while the integrity of the breast is maintained. (Im)properly cooked, the bread was excellent and worked together with the duck, sauce, and salad to create a very excellent burger.
Giving this restaurant the benefit of the doubt, all in all, you’re paying what you would pay for a pretty good restaurant somewhere else to eat a good and innovative burger (and mediocre fries) out of a cardboard box for whose disposal you are responsible. You’re paying twice what you’d pay at McDonald’s, a portion of which pays for quality and a portion of which pays for irony.

Un endroit sympathique qui laisse supposer une cuisine atypique. Un burger au canard? Je demandais à voir …
Le monsieur devant moi avait commandé pt téléphone (ça c’est cool) seulement en arrivant il préférais prendre une formule aves boisson et frite. Il n avait pas payé mais le serveur a refusé, avec un ton tres peu commerçant, que c’était impossible et que si ça né lui allait pas il pouvait aller ailleurs …
Pour ma part nous avons été servis (15min d’attente) par une serveuse charmante.
Le burger baignait dans l’huile et les frites aussi. Je n’ai pas du tout aimé le canard dans le burger … Trop gras d’une part et le mélange né m’a pas convaincue. Je suis pourtant une fan de canard en tant que bonne Périgourdine mais là malgré l’audace de la recette, non ça né nous a pas plu (nous étions deux) :-).

Ce burger est incomparable !
Chaque recette sublime un canard extra frais, même servi en tartare…
Le pain a été élaboré par un artisan boulanger d’exception avec le Chef, Antony Barcelona, qui marie les saveurs autour de ce met exigeant avec talent, innovation et esprit ludique. Des vins de qualité et des frites fraîches, cuites minute, viennent parfaire cette expérience gustative unique.