Le Charenton

This was our first time… new to the area and my son’s birthday so thought we would give it a try. Wasn’t sure what to expect as the reviews were so disparate. It was in an odd location for a seemingly upscale restaurant, but cozy and cute. There were some other reviewers who felt the waiter’s accent was strange and changes (it is and it does) but not a reason to deduct points, even if he talks a bit loud. Maybe he will read this and tone down just a bit.
For starters we had the filo wrapped brie… it was delish. I am not a huge brie fan, but this one was quite good. We each ordered a different entrée. I had the Filet a la Rossini (filet topped with seared foie gras — -don’t judge me!). It was one of the most flavorful filets that I have had recently and practically fork tender, especially for quite a thick piece, and cooked just as I ordered. The foie gras was seared just right and was heavenly. It was served with roasted fingerlings along with carrots. The carrots were great but the potatoes were a tad over roasted, not too browned but a bit tough, but who cared about the potatoes at that point,
My husband had the cassoulet and loved it. I will say it looked like one of the better cassoulets I have seen. The only down was my son’s order of rack of lamb. He said the flavor was great but a bit tough and bereft of much meat. Sometimes rack of lamb is an iffy order.
I I apologize for not getting the names of the desserts, but they were scrumptious. Some type of chocolate mousse with crunchy white and chocolate balls on top was mine and my son ordered a fruit charlotte? They took the time to write Happy Birthday in chocolate on his plate.
I always ask myself if I would go back where I just ate, and I definitely would.

My husband I wanted to dine here when it was owned by Daniel DuPont, as we used to stand in line at his soup and sandwich shop downtown. We never managed to get there, until it reopened as Le Charenton. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner here over Christmas, and the service was wonderful, and fun! I had the roasted baby beet salad, and my husband had butternut squash soup, both A+. I had Chicken Ballotine, he had a steak, again both A+. Whatever you do, get the table side prepared Bananas Foster, very few places know how to prepare these.

Had dinner with friends. The food was great, but the atmosphere is not up to the high prices. They are in the process of expanding. The table across from the bathroom shouldn’t be. I hope they move the hostess stand there.

The food at Le Charenton is superb and the wine selection is top notch! We really enjoy the ambiance and the table-​sided preparation of some dishes. From romantic meals, to dinner with friends to a company outing, the team at Le Charenton has proved again and again they are up to the challenge of fine dining. They also are willing to modify things where allergies are concerned which is much appreciated when we’re dining out! We love supporting businesses that give back to the community and we’ve seen Le Charenton out at multiple events already. Our new favorite spot in Folsom!

Hidden Gem in Folsom! Wow, what a treat! My friends and I went out to celebrate special occasion and decided to give this place a try. I am so glad we did. It is a quiet restaurant with seven tables and a an AMAZING staff. We were seated in the corner and promptly greeted by Alain! He reviewed the menu with us and made some excellent suggestions. For an appetizer, we ordered two orders of the the crab cakes. Yum!
For dinner, our party ordered two Steak Diane’s and two of the New York Steaks. The Steak Diane’s were served table side and were absolutely fabulous. It was fun to watch Alain cook at the table! The flavor was out of this world and it was cooked to perfection! Th New York Steaks also had an abundance of flavor and were cooked to perfection.
After two bottles of French wine and a delicious dinner, we all decided to order dessert. We ordered a variety of different desserts. Each one was beautifully plated and tasted decandent!
At the end of our meal, the chef, Steven Long, came out to chat with us. What a special treat! If you are looking for a great restaurant, superior food, and excellent service… come to this hidden gem in Folsom.

My husband and I are always looking for dining experiences where we can readily say that we would never be able to even come close to preparing the dishes we order ourselves. Le Charenton exceeded our expectations.
My husband ordered the Duck a’la Menage and I had the Salmon Roulade. The duck was cooked to perfection and the plating was very generous, and the heirloom tomato sauce on the salmon dish was to die for. We also enjoyed a crab cake appetizer with a unique seafood mouse topping, and desserts of Crème Brulee and Chocolate mouse.
We were treated exceptionally by the staff as we enjoyed a wonderful evening in this romantic little restaurant. The chef/​owner Steve Long even gave us a glimpse of the kitchen. We look forward to returning soon for the table side service.

Dear Tammy and Lily,
Please let me start by telling you that tonight was my first night at Le Charenton and I am in no way a friend of the owners or anyone else associated with the restaurant. I am not usually an avid Unilocal reviewer, however your ignorant reviews piqued my usual laziness.
I’ve travelled to over 15 countries, and France its self 4 times. Let me be the first to burst your bubble here, Europe is small –especially its restaurants– because the FOOD is the attraction. And the food here, it’s phenomenal. The service is just the absolute cherry on top of the perfect experience.
So if you are looking for a locally owned restaurant with heart, skip land and ocean and head down the road to sit with Alin!!!

Loved it. Food was fresh, service was professional and friendly, portions large. Very good. Can’t wait to go back.

Short version: Avoid.
I wanted to take my wife someplace new for her birthday. As someone who has not had much French cooking, I figured this would be nice. It seemed like a cozy place from reviews online. In hindsight, I wish I had gone elsewhere.
We were greeted by a polite young lady, who seated us right away. We could see that the restaurant was rather small, and only a couple of other parties were seated. Sadly, we were next to the bathroom, and figured the foul smell was from there and not the kitchen. Something I will not be back to determine, but if I had to wager it was the kitchen.
We decided to skip the appetizers, as none of them really looked appealing. My wife decided to go with a salad, and I a Caesar. At least, that is what they called it. There was some Caesar inspired dressing found on a single leaf at the bottom of the salad. The rest was covered in olive oil and cheese. So, I ate my lettuce and watched as my wife tried to work through her «fresh» salad. It was about as fresh as my greens were a Caesar. At some point I saw something fly out of her tomatoes, and figured it was a trick of the light until she told me about it later. There were flies in there. Sometime between the salads arriving and being eaten, I had this suspicion we should just go. I had read a lot of reviews about how good the food was, so I figured we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
While we were eating our salads and waiting for the main course, the wait staff seemed to be waiting for us to being getting into a conversation. At such a point, someone would rush over and talk over us. They would ask how things are, or if we needed anything. Not a polite «excuse me, but can I offer you…» but an instant interruption and barging in. If we were silent or had a question, they would ignore us. That is until we started to have a conversation. It was interesting to observe them doing the same to the other tables as well. As one group was getting ready to leave, they asked to have their food boxed. The waiter picked up one used customer’s butter knife and stuck it into another customer’s food as they were clearing dirty dishes and the food to be boxed. That’s right, dirty utensils from random people were placed in the food items of random people. And of course this whole process was loud and distracting.
Next came the main course. I decided to go with the «fresh» salmon. As it was put before me, I kept noting how often our rude waiter would insist that everything was «fresh». Almost as if it would magically become fresh if he kept stating it. The first thing that came to mind is that the fish looked rather dry for sitting in a lake of liquid. That liquid was cooking wine and oil. The plate was warm, yet the food was very cold. The fish was rolled into a puck about half the size of a proper filet mignon. It looked like it had been baked, and by the heat of it, some time ago. It was dry, and a bit under cooked. It smelled and tasted like old fish on top of it. I love fish, and eat a lot of it. This was close to going bad, if not already. It was foul and turned my stomach almost immediately. That being said, my dog loved it when I got home, so at least someone got to enjoy the meal.
Finally, when we asked to have our food boxed, the staff seemed very put out. We could even hear them in the kitchen complaining that we did not finish our food. My wife and I are not ones to waste food, do we were planning on doctoring up what we could at home or giving what we could not stomach to our dogs. However, the full portions of what went back to the kitchen to be boxed did not come in the boxes. I suppose that is a mixed blessing, as I was not looking forward to leftovers. Finally, we got the bill. We were charged $ 6 for a bottle of water that sales for $ 2 in the supermarket. Each salad was $ 10, and each dish was around $ 30. After tax, we got out for just under $ 80. Had we gone to just about any other restaurant in town, we could have gotten twice the food at much higher quality for the same price.
Of one final note, I’m not sure where the waiter was from. While offering things from the menu, he had an over the top French accent. When talking to the hostess, the accent was gone. At times, it seemed like he slipped into an Austrian accent. The man was rude, unhelpful, and seemed to have little knowledge of the menu or what was in stock. Add in the horrible elevator music that sounded like it was computer generated in the 80’s, and you have a night to forget. Sadly, my stomach is reminding me about it today.
We will not be going back again. In fact, I’m going to look up how to lodge a complaint with the state next.

Wow. Just wow. I’m with Tammy on the high hopes, but this was just a massive disappointment. My husband took me here for my birthday dinner this evening. We walked in and immediately where bombarded by a peppy seating hostess in this dark little room. She was nice enough, if not a little over enthusiastic. We were sat in the same place as Tammy, right next to the door; and I mean, RIGHT next to the door. If you have two feet of clearance there I would be amazed. It sat across from some odd bathroom. I was surprised they sat us there since the place was empty. The music was annoying. Some odd modern jazz stuff that was playing way too loud and just did not fit the restaurant style at all.
We were shortly greeted by a man who I guess was one of the chefs? He was special… rude, very into himself, pushy, had an ever changing accent depending on who he was loudly speaking with in this tiny converted office space. Every time my husband and I would start to speak to one another he would rush up and start talking over us. (He did this all forty minutes we were in there.) He would over pronounce the French titles of the dishes, portentously, like no one knew what they were. (Which I later found funny, because there is NOTHING French about this food.) He was throwing around plates and knives and was, in general, obnoxious. There were only two other couples in this tiny space so it’s not like he was crazy busy or something…
My husband and I both got a very distinct flight syndrome, but thought we should stick it out based on the reviews online. We opted to skip the wine, knowing from experience with most their offered vintners that the pricing was outrageously high… Oh, Boy. Big mistake.
For starters, this place is very clearly being ran for profit and profit only. The pricing verses the quality of the food is outrageously mismatched. We are talking soy bean based butters, Sysco breads and food products, poorly cooked food, an inaccurate menu and nothing available at 6:00?! Plus an interesting insistence about the ‘freshness’ of the products. Which were anything but…
I too had the odd popcorn tomato salad, which had fruit flies coming out of it. The tomatoes which I was told for no good reason several times ‘where fresh’… where quite mushy and a week old at least. The salad was crazy large like they were trying to get rid of everything in one shot, had no dressing and the base was basically mixed greens, not arugula as advertised.
My entrée was an acorn… thing… that was just drenched in some nasty oil and severely undercooked, along with the rice. It was truly foul, but it looked pretty! Which I think is how they are running this place. Using their name, and a good presentation to lure people in. But they are not providing the quality they claim. I can cook better. And it cost over $ 20.00!!! It was just ridiculous. We could not wait to get out of there. I’m not even going to go into the salmon my husband had… suffice to say: Hands down the second most rotten fish I have ever put in my mouth. (Yes, there was one worse time.)
The thing that really got me, was when we politely asked to have it boxed up so we could move along quietly, the staff went into the kitchen and started complaining about us!!! Really loudly! And one of the other patrons was looking really embarrassed. The head chef, I guess, came out and asked my husband something unintelligible and then started to try to shake my hand! Very insistently?! Which I refused and looked down at the table. I thought if I didn’t make eye contact he would stop trying to touch me. It was just creepy and my tactic didn’t work. He just kept standing there! Seriously, just save yourself the trouble and a huge bill. Skip this one folks.
Addendum: I just found out these are the same people who used to run Chez Daniel. The place that wouldn’t take reservations… and then closed for business.

My husband and I enjoyed a date night at Le Charenton. The food was really good and the small quaint environment was nice. It sounds like they are doing some serious renovations in the near future and we are excited to go back and check it out. I would agree with one of the previous reviewers that there were elements that seemed dated. The small venue is great though for a quiet and romantic dinner!
The service that we received was fantastic and the food was really yummy. We will be heading back to Le Charenton for our next date night!

We were big fans of Chez Daniel and when it closed we decided we give Le Charenton a try. What a great decision! We love the intimacy of this restaurant, where you can actually have a conversation without feeling like you have to shout. We were happy to see the matre di who worked there when it was Chez Daniel. He is so professional and friendly. We went on a Tuesday when all the wine just happens to be 50% off the regular price! We started with smoked salmon, crème fraishe, and caviar on a blini. We also shared an arugula salad with heritage tomatoes. My husband had an excellently cooked rib eye steak and I had lamb chops and couscous with minted peas. Both entrees came with various vegetables. Our dessert was heavenly! As you can tell by this review we enjoyed our evening at Le Charenton and we look forward to visiting it again.

We came here on a Saturday night with some seriously high hopes — a new French /​NorCal cuisine restaurant in Folsom with all five star reviews — who wouldn’t?! Well, I’m here to tell you that all those five star reviews? I’m convinced that they’re friends or employees doing the owner a favor. This was a solid three star experience, at best.
The venue is in a strip mall and the restaurant itself is small. There are bent mini blinds on the entry door, mis-​matched ceiling tiles and hokey motel-​like art on the walls. We were immediately greeted by two friendly staff — the hostess and our server. Our table was RIGHT next to the door and across from the bathroom — which was «hidden» behind some sort of a drape.
We had two bottle of wine, two apps to share, four salads and four entrees. The bill was just shy of $ 300 — $ 298 and some change — before tip.
Their wine selection is fine — def on the higher price range, but we found a couple of $ 50 bottles (that’s the low end of the price range) that were enjoyed. The problem I had with the wine was not the wine, but the vessel in which I drank it in. It was crusty on the outside, all along the stem, base and the outside of the bottom of the glass. It just wasn’t washed well enough — gross.
Appetizers: we got the brie baked in phyllo with toasted bread and some preserves — it was fine. We also got the crab cake with some sort of a seafood mousse on top — the crab cake was good but the mousse was weird.
Salads: two of us got the heirloom salad, which consisted of a bunch of tomatoes, a bunch of greens, a VERY small amount of dressing and… popcorn. Yep, popcorn. It was weird and didn’t add anything to the salad and the amount of dressing was significantly inadequate. One of the people who ordered the heirloom said that it was the worst tomato salad that she had ever had. It needed the bite of some shaved parm or something. The highlight of the entire meal for ALL of us was the beet salad — roasted multi colored beets with a delicious creamy & rich goat cheese with a balsamic reduction. It was amazing and I seriously wish that I would have stopped there and called it a night.
Entrees: Two of us got steak, one got halibut and one got seared ahi. The ahi was not seared evenly — it was about 1/​8′ on one side and then ¼″ on the other… it was good. The halibut was mediocre, at best — it was quite dry. The steaks were fine — not overly flavorful but they were cooked as ordered, which is nice. The portion sizes were good.
The service was fine — they weren’t all over us and we did wait for a bit longer than I would have expected to order and for water refills, but it was fine.
Notice how many times I said the word «fine»? Yeah, me too. If I’m going to a restaurant with all five star reviews and am going to end the night with a $ 300 bill, I don’t want fine, I want amazing, I want fantastic, attentive service, I want clean dishes, I want NO bent mini blinds, mis-​matched ceiling tiles or crappy art, I want well dressed salads, evenly seared ahi, moist halibut and melt-​in-​your-​mouth incredible steak. But it was fine.
Here’s our idea: the owner of this place needs to overthrow the ridiculous management at Sudwerk — which has an amazing venue but AWFUL food and service — and THEN Le Charenton will be a solid four star establishment. But until then, stick to Land Ocean or Sutter Street Steakhouse for a legitimately five star experience.

My wife and I visited Le Charenton for the first time, and it was a wonderful experience.
We shared a crab cake appetizer (which had an intriguing seafood mousse on top), a beet salad (with balsamic), and we each had a filet mignon.
The steaks were heavenly, obviously a very carefully chosen cut, and cooked perfectly, and with a pâté topping. These were as good as any steaks we’ve ever had.
The vegetable sides were sauteed perfectly (I wish I could do it this well at home) as well.
The beet salad was delightful.
I very much enjoyed the crab cake, although my wife thought it was ‘not very crabby’.
Our waiter (I forgot to ask his name) is the same outstanding waiter who worked at Chez Daniel and, as in the past, he was welcoming, knowledgeable about the food and the restaurant operation, professional, and attentive.
We’ll definitely return.

We introduced some good friends to this awesome establishment last night And they were delighted! The service was impeccable, the chef created the most awesome menu and took the time to check in himself to inquire if all was OK. The personal touch is what spoke volumes but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the food & wine options were excellent! We hope they are around a long time for an elegant & intimate Folsom dining option!

I meant to try this place when it was at one time Chez Daniel and never forgot the location so I still stopped by for dinner. I ordered the pear, pecan glazed salad and a 21 day aged steak for dinner. Wow, just wow as I was very impressed! The steak melted in my mouth with such great flavors. Dessert is a must. I tried the crème brûlée and left none behind. I’m returning with friends next weekend and excited once the place is expanded and done renovated.

Small, quaint, high end Foodie quality dining. Chez Daniel retired and sold the restaurant to an experienced and kind gentleman who was a professor at Cordon Bleu.
The quality of the food is the best we’ve experienced in Folsom. We reserved a table for ten and everyone ordered almost everything on the menu.
Everyone gave an exuberant two thumbs up to everything ordered. The service was prompt and they stayed on top of making sure everything was in order. Never once did we need to request a water refill or any other detail to be addressed.
Price point? Above average but to be expected for fine quality dining. The chef came out and personally thanked each of us.
After this experience, we’ll gladly return and help support this fine locally owned business.
Le Charenton has raised the bar for dining in Folsom — it’s about time!

Small quaint California French restaurant. Charming w white table clothes. Excellent service. Pear blue cheese salad amazing as well as everything else we tried. Good portion size. Crème brûlée was to die for! Can’t wait to go back!