Le Sot L’y Laisse
1B Route de Colmar
68040 Ingersheim
Alsace, France
Tel. +33 3 89271443
The dishes
Escargots Alsatian-style with garlic butter
Shelled Prawn Skewer
Steak Tartare
Deer Civet Stew with Mushrooms, Red Cabbage and Spaetzelés (Civet de Chevreuil et Champignons, Choux Rouge et Spaetzelés)
Iced Kougelhopf with Gewurztraminer Marc (Kougelhopf glacé au Marc de Gewurztraminer)
Banana Split
Founded in 2003 by Fabien Lehmann et Pascal Sittler-Schmitt, who are still present every night in the dining room, Le Sot l’y Laisse is one of those restaurants that thrives on comfort. As in comfortable surroundings, comfortable food, and a comfortable time. It really is a place from where you get up well-rested and relaxed and that’s more than can be said for many other dining establishments of today. The interior dining rooms I quiet, elegantly appointed with linen on the tables and a super-comfortable (what else?) and nice to look at covered terrace where it’s super-enjoyable to have lunch or dinner with nice weather. It’s also the perfect place to go to when you want a good steak tartare, arguably one of the best in Alsace. The steak is really cut by hand and ground yup in the restaurant’s refrigerated kitchen area, so it is not one of these so-called cut-by-hand tartares that are anything but (most of the time you are being served something that was industrially prepared and sold in 180 gram containers for everybody to serve straight out of the box). At Le Sot l’y Laisse the steak tartare is served in one of three different sizes (250, 350 and 500 grams), so your choice will depend on how hungry you’ll be when you get to the restaurant. Once your choice is made, one of the two restaurant owners will be right over and prepare it for you table-side just how you want it to be. It is the restaurant’s signature dish, and is wildly popular: more than 3000 tartares are served there a year. My last time at the restaurant it served in the shape of a heart (“because it’s prepared with love” smiles Sittler-Schmitt) which I don’t recall being the case when I first had it about ten years, ago, but no matter, my memory is probably failing me. The restaurant has another signature dish, its ultra-famous (and atypical, given the cylindrical shape) cordon bleu made with a secret recipe (the identity of two of the three cheeses used for the stuffing inside of the rolled veal has never been divulged). I didn’t have this time around, but I whole-heartedly recommend it. The snails and prawns I tried on this recent evening were perfectly fine too and also worth getting.
