Julia Sedefdjian

In Nicoise dialect, a ‘baieta’ is a little kiss. In Paris, Baieta is brilliant young chef Julia Sedefdjian’s new restaurant in the Latin Quarter and a place where any meal has the poignancy of receiving a succession of little kisses. This is because Sedefdjian’s personal riff on the cooking of Nice, her hometown, and Provence is so sincere, succulent, sunny, shyly sensual and stunning in its technical perfection. And all this is from a chef who is only 23 years old and who won her first Michelin star while cooking at Les Fables de la Fontaine when she was 21 (she started at the restaurant when she was 17 and became its chef at 20).

Sedefdjian created her restaurant with Sébastien Jean-Joseph and Grégory Anelka, two colleagues she met while working at Les Fables de la Fontaine. Jean-Joseph is her sous-chef, while the charming and very friendly Anelka runs the dining room. She calls them “my brothers,” and the three of them are depicted in a drawing by their favorite tattoo artist on the dining room wall.

While you read the menu at Baieta, several little hors d’oeuvres are served to pique your appetite. Sedefdjian’s take on pissaladiere, the sautéed onion, black olive and anchovy tart of Nice–something I love, was excellent on a focaccia like base.

The menu was very tempting, too, especially for someone like me, who loves the food of Nice and southern France, all those wonderful dishes that are found in one of my favorite cookbooks, La Cuisiniere Provencale by J.B. Reboul.

When he came to take our order, Grégory Anelka told us that the two signature dishes here are the “Jaune d’oeuf croustillante,” a starter, and the “Bouillabaieta,” Sedefdjian’s version of bouillabaisse. We decided we’d try them both, and also the caramelised pork belly with celery rave puree, peanuts and an herby green sauce and cod with cockles on a bed of Sardinian fregola pasta with artichokes and olives under a cloud of preserved garlic. The one dish that I’d been hoping to find on the menu, Sedefdjian’s superb version of a classic aioli–cod with vegetables and potatoes with garlic mayonnaise, wasn’t an option, but I’m hoping it will appear on a future menu, since I’ve never forgotten how good it was since I had it at La Table de la Fontaine when she was cooking there.

While we waited over a glass of white wine, both of us noticed something else very special about this restaurant, which is that it has a noticeably happy, relaxed ambience. This is a welcome new trend in Paris, where serious food is increasingly being freed of a conventional corset of formality and stilted pleasure-wilting self-importance.

The egg yolk in a crunchy sphere showed off just the fact that Sedefdjian is an inventive, hard-working and very talented chef with a huge future. When it arrived at the table, my first reaction was to admire it, but I wondered if it would all come together on the palate. It did. Served on a bed of smoked and raw haddock, the yolk spilled out on to the fish, poached leeks and seaweed vinaigrette when the sphere was pierced and bound this homey and deeply satisfying dish together.

The caramelised pork belly was a beautiful plate of food, too, with tender chunks of pork glossed in a beautiful jus, celery rave prepared three ways–as chips, in seared cubes and as a puree, and the green puree of ramps (l’ail des ours, garlic of the bears) was a perfect foil for the wonderfully fatty meat.

“Both of these dishes could be served in a haute-cuisine restaurant,” Bruno observed, and he was absolutely right. Happily, however, they’re available at a charming place without the stratospheric prices associated with that most exalted and so rarely experienced level of French cooking.

Our main courses were stunning. The ‘Bouillabaieta” was an especially good dish, since Sedefjdian had recomposed it, cooking the fish and shellfish separately and then combining it with a potato-puree thickened fish stock that was accented by little toasts with rouille served on the side. What made this so excellent is that the fish didn’t lose their natural flavors to the single ruddy stew, as is usually the case, but remained firm and bright with flavor.

The cod was outstanding, too–a thick perfectly cooked slice of impeccably fresh fish on a bed of al dente fregola with steamed cockles and razor-shell clams, artichokes and slivered olives under a veil of garlic. Here the flavors complimented each other rather than melding together, another example of Sedefjdian’s respect for the produce she works with.

What also impressed about this meal was the excellence of its rhythm. On a very busy night–many tables turned twice, the timing–both in terms of cooking and serving, was flawless. In fact, the only thing about this meal that I found unimportantly wanting was the wine list–to wit, I’d have loved to eat this food with a nice bottle of Bellet, the wine from Nice, but none was to be found on the list.

Our desserts were excellent, too. I loved my delicate fennel spiked sable topped with dots of lemon cream and meringue, while Bruno tucked into a cheeky poached pear with a tuile that stuck its tongue out at him and was garnished with a pool of chestnut ice and chestnut coulis.

Sedefdjian is one of the best young chefs in a new generation who are revisiting the regional roots of French cooking to renew the luster of Paris as the Old World’s pre-eminent dining destination, and I am certain that she will become a chef on par with predecessors like Paul Bocuse and Joel Robuchon–she’s just that good. So go now to catch a rising star and have a really lovely meal without a wound to your wallet.

The view from the loo

5 rue de Pontoise, 5th Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01-42-02-59-19. Metro: Maubert-Mutualite. Open for lunch and dinner Tuesday to Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday. Average 45 Euros. www.restaurant-baieta-paris.fr

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Chef Tomy Gousett @Pierre Lucet Penato

Savoury pancake with guanciale, Peconio, arugula @ Alexander Lobrano

Chef Tomy Gousset’s friendly new restaurant Hugo & Co is exactly the the type of place the Latin Quarter in Paris has been wanting for a longtime, because it’s such a delicious reflection of the neighborhood itself. To wit, this lively little place serves up a cosmopolitan menu of affordably priced small-plates comfort food that are made for sharing, service is young and good-natured, and there’s a great wine list. So it was no surprise then that it was packed with a mixture of academics, creative professionals, students and travelers when I went for dinner the other night. “We already have lots of clients who come several times a week,” our smart and outgoing waiter told us once we’d settled in at one of the tables that faces the caramel-colored leather banquette which lines one wall of the room and ordered a glass of wine.

It had been a while since I’d come to this part of town, the 5th Arrondissement, for a meal, too, since as the neighborhood has gentrified, it’s become too expensive for most students. Today, the 11th and 10th Arrondissements have become the youngest and liveliest districts of the city. The reason for this is their more affordable rents, both for apartments and commercial spaces, which explains why these arrondissements are also now where most young chefs going out on their own set up shop.

My first apartment in Paris was on the rue de la Sorbonne in the 5th Arrondissement, and back in those days several decades ago, the neighborhood brimmed with great inexpensive foreign tables like Au Coin des Gourmets, a reliable Vietnamese place in the rue Dante; a couple of good bistros– the late lamented Moissonier and Au Moulin a Vent, for example; and, for meals with visiting friends from out of town, the Brasserie Balzar, which had decent food, great people watching and a charming atmosphere created by its natty tweedy professorial clientele, long-serving waiters, cantilevered mirrors that encouraged flirting, and the wonderfully ugly art-nouveau vase of flowers on the bar (N.B. I stopped going to the Balzar ages ago, since the food has declined and the atmosphere had been dented during a period of corporate, penny-pinching ownership; now, though, it has a new owner, so I’m hoping for a renaissance at this long-running Left Bank address, a place for which I once had so much affection).

Crostini with avocado, red radish and Parmesan @ Pierre Lucet Penato

With the exception of the Balzar, though, which inexplicably became popular with fashion people in the eighties and early nineties, the 5th Arrondissement was, with the exception of La Tour d’Argent, never a destination arrondissement for seriously gastronomic eating.

Looking at the menu at Hugo & Co, however, my first thought was that this might change, since what’s on offer is so alluring while avoiding the dulling cliches of la bistronomie, or modern French cooking. We decided to share three starters–a savoury pancake with guanciale, Pecorino and arugula; marinated salmon with passionfruit sauce, hashed beets and toasted rice; and some strachiatella with ramps, gomasio, and black olives. If all of them were excellent, the pancake was the real stand out, since it was exactly the kind of dish you known you’ll end up permanently craving, a nicely crusted pancake topped with crispy curls of guanciale, grated Pecorino and a scattering of arugula leaves. The strachiatella was delicious scooped up with the good bread served here, and though quieter and less original, the salmon was pleasant, too. What we really liked in all three of these dishes was the way they skated across a variety of different cultures and palates to create something original that had a flawlessly appetising logic.

Over dinner, I told Bruno about my first apartment, a one-bedroom that had padded coral-fabric covered walls, a ratty little kitchen with a double hot plate, and a bathroom with bubble-gum pink fixtures. Suffice it to say that it was the best I could come up with during a one-day hunt with a lupine real-estate agent. I rented it furnished, and it only became just slightly habitable after I’d put all of the lady dermatologist owner’s china figurines and dusty plastic flowers in a coat closet and hung a couple of paper globe lamps that I bought for a few francs from a Chinese notions store nearby. But it was right across the street from La Sorbonne, and it used to fascinate me to peer into the class rooms across the street and see the professors lecturing to orderly rows of students sitting upright at their desks. And even in a bower afflicted by such dubious taste, it was thrilling to slowly but surely hatch a new life for myself in Paris. Little did I know at the time that the roots of this fledgling attachment to my new city would grow so deep that I would end up living here for over half of my life. I’m very lucky.

Next, I tucked into a Tonkatsu style breaded pork cutlet topped with a fried egg in a pool of hoisin sauce with a garnish of pickled red cabbage and black rice, and Bruno enjoyed braised beef cheeks with grilled asparagus and panisses (fried chickpea-flour bars). While we were eating, chef Tomy Gousset did a round in the dining room, stopping to chat amiably at almost every table.

I’ve known the Cambodian born Gousset’s superb cooking every since he returned to France after a stint cooking at Daniel Boulud’s restaurant Restaurant Daniel in New York City and took over the kitchen at Pirouette in Les Halles. I’ve also admired his food at his eponymous table Tomy, which he opened in the 7th Arrondissement when he left Pirouette, but I didn’t know that he’d gone to the Ecole Ferrandi and then cooked with Alain Solivérès at Taillevent and Yannick Alleno at the Hotel Meurice.

“New York was so important for me. I really loved it, the kitchens of so many different countries intersecting, the whole idea of the laid-back no-limits urban bistro. I learned so much there,” Gousset told us, adding, “Hugo & Co is all about having a good time.” That’s a pretty perfect way of summing this place up, too.

We finished off our excellent bottle of white Dao while sharing an order of warm madeleines with lemon zest and a light lemon custard dipping sauce, a charming dessert, and stepped out into a rainy Spring night knowing we’d come back here again soon, too.

48 Rue Monge, 5th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 09-53-92-62-77, Metro: Cardinal Le Moine or Place Monge. Open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Average 35 Euros. www.tomygousset.com

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With a menu of artisanally made pastas napped with vibrant Asian inspired sauces and a sidewalk terrace on the quieter end of Boulevard Saint Germain in the 5th Arrondissement, chef William Ledeuil’s restaurant Kitchen Ter(re) is the best new restaurant in Paris this summer. Ledeuil, one of the most consistently amiable and innovative chefs in Paris, already has two excellent Left Bank tables–Ze Kitchen Galerie, his first one, and KGB (Kitchen Galerie Bis), Ze Kitchen’s Galerie’s more casual and less expensive little brother, both of which are on the rue des Grands Augustins in Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

Coquillette pasta with green curry and basil

Ledeuil’s new place was born from a chance meeting arranged through one of his suppliers, Michel Bachès. Bachès, whose farm is located in Eus near Perpignan, supplies Ledeuil with the citrus fruits that are a key ingredient in his cooking, and he was the one who introduced him to Roland Feuillas, a miller and baker in Cucugnan in twenty miles northwest of Perpignan. “I was immediately fascinated by Roland’s work,” says Ledeuil. “He makes his own flour from heirloom grains that he grows himself and then he grinds them with an old stone millstone. The quality of the flour is exceptional, but it was when I tried his pasta (Dentelles de Cucugnan) that I had the idea of creating a new Paris table that would serve Feuillas’s original pasta and some new ones that we invented together.” What drew Ledeuil to Feuillas’s pasta is that it’s made without eggs, just stone-ground flour from ancient grain varieties and water, and so has an exceptional capacity to absorb the flavors of the bouillons and sauces that have made his reputation. “It has an exceptional texture when cooked and a suave nutty taste,” the chef added.

Ledeuil has long been intrigued by Asian herbs and cooking techniques, especially those of Thailand, and they’ve come to define his inventive, bright, flavorful cooking ever since he left his post at Les Bouqinistes and opened his own restaurant next door in 2001. Among his favorite ingredients are galangal, basil, ginger, Japanese seaweed, lemongrass, coconut milk, and coriander, and he also uses a variety of typically southeast Asian cooking techniques, including steaming, bouillons, marinades and juxtapositions of raw and cooked ingredients in the same dish to create a contrast of textures. Long before the now rather worn out term ‘fusion’ began to be batted around, Ledeuil was deeply involved in inventing his own hybrid kitchen, and the surprise is that his cooking is still as intriguingly vivid and refreshing as it was when I first tasted it nearly twenty years ago.

The menu at Kitchen Ter(re) is short, seasonal and exceptionally vegetarian friendly. Executed by chef Bruno Laporte, it’s also piquantly cosmopolitan, because Ledeuil’s culinary imagination and very personal gastronomic logic roves the world in search of inspiration. Spain, Morocco and Korea have all inspired dishes at Kitchen Ter(re).

Some dishes involve new spices, herbs and products, largely from Asia; some feature different and unexpected juxtapositions of products, textures and preparations –raw and cooked, for example, and and some involve different cooking techniques, including steaming, poaching in aromatic bouillons, and marinades. But all of them reflect Ledeuil’s savvy gastronomic logic in creating intriguing new dishes for the 21st century.   

Stopping by for dinner with Bruno on a breezy summer night, the windows of the enclosed terrace were open and tables had been set out on the sidewalk. Aside from his superb cooking, I was immediately reminded of two other reasons I’ve always liked his restaurants–service is exceptionally friendly and well-trained, and the dining room was light, clean and modern, with well-spaced terrazzo topped tables with steel chairs, good lighting and a stylish but low-key decor that takes its cues from local art galleries.

Since both of us were eager for a lighter starter that night, we chose the gaspacho and the steak tartare as our starters. Both are wonderful dishes, but only Ledeuil could have produced a gaspacho with such a deep vibrant depth of flavor, since this lush poppy-colored soup had ringing tones of varying acidity and was brilliantly revivifying on a warm night. The steak tartare was excellent quality hand-chopped beef with a dressing of mostarda, or Italian mustard syrup, dabs of soft Pimenton spiked Sobressada, a soft pork sausage from Mallorca. It came under a thatch of fresh herbs that included shiso, Thai basil, and Italian basil, plus a scattering of chopped green onion and crushed hazelnuts. All of these garnishes flattered the beef, and this dish was so good I later suggested to Ledeuil that he also offer it as a main course.

Among the five pastas, all of which are identified according to the grain they were made from, I had my eyes on the Dentrelle de Cucugnan with cuttlefish, tomato and Galanga, while Bruno was eye-balling the Coquillette with green curry and basil. My frilled pasta came with tender pieces of cuttlefish, Nori, and a tangy sauce that probably included piquillo peppers, tomatoes and pickled lemon. Ultimately, it was Ledeuil’s very own mash on the fact that pasta is loved and eaten in many different cultures around the world in different shapes and with different garnishes, and it was excellent. Bruno’s coquilllettes had been cooked in Thai bouillon and also had a fascinating depth of flavor. What both of us liked was the ‘mache,’ or toothsomeness of this pasta, which was cooked al dente and had a quiet but appealing taste of the grain from which it was made.

A really good dessert always does that best of things, which makes you glad you ordered it in spite of a certain diffidence about eating too much and calories. And this is exactly what Ledeuil’s sublime summer concoction of Strawberry and kefir ice cream with melon and white peaches in verbena broth accomplished for me. To wit, I didn’t thinkI wanted it, but was hugely glad I’d caved after it came to the table, since the mixture of fruity tastes and textures backdropped by the verbena was one of the best summertime desserts I’ve had in a longtime. What I loved about it is that it was simple–with resonances of those fruits I loved best during childhood summers, but complex and racy at the same time.

Bruno loved his pandanus-flavoured coconut milk soup with raspberry coulis, too. Pandanus had nothing to do with my childhood summers, or Bruno’s either for that matter, since he’s from Valenciennes on the Franco-Belgian border. Instead this curiously flavored fruit that has a taste that’s at once resinous and then softened by notes of banana and strawberry is is native to Malasia, eastern Australia, and the Pacific Islands. The raspberry coulis cut the base notes of sweetness in this dish with a welcome acidity and also made familiar.

“Pandanus! Goodness! Sounds like something from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (the short story from The Jungle Book from Rudyard Kipling) might have eaten,” said my mother in New England, when I got home and returned the three messages that she’d left while we were out for dinner. Well, yes, and that’s just the point. They’re almost no boundaries in the kitchen anymore thanks to chefs like William Ledeuil, and this makes the beginning of the 21st century in Paris a particularly exciting place to eat.

26 boulevard Saint Germain, 5th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-42-39-47-48. Metro: Maubert-Mutualite. Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday and Monday. Average 50 Euros. www.zekitchengalerie.fr

https://www.facebook.com/Kitchen-Terre-254725888344694/ 

N.B. As of this writing, Kitchen Ter(re) will be open almost all summer long, closing only from August 15-19.

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A room with a view

Reinventing a restaurant as famous as La Tour d’Argent was always going to be fraught with problems. Why Well, if some clients might welcome the changes, perhaps even muttering under their breath, ‘Thank goodness, it’s about time!,’ others would denounce even the most reverent tinkering with the experience of a meal here as heresy. “They’ve absolutely ruined the place!” these sanctimonious self-appointed guardians of tradition would fume.

Unfortunately, in Paris, in 2016, the culture of the city is generally more in sympathy with a static status quo than innovation. In almost every realm, the past is reflexively judged to be more perfect than the present, which leads to the city’s bizarre officially sanctioned cantankerous determination to become a sort of genteel open-air museum. It also explains the existence of certain restaurants that are fussy, fretful gastronomic mausoleums that commemorate culinary traditions and a stuffy service style few people enjoy anymore, if they ever did.

But change had to come at La Tour d’Argent, which has been rather rudderless for a longtime. Since the death in 2006 of Claude Terrail, the natty gravely voiced boulevardier whose charm was the axis on which this perched table turned for over sixty years, this restaurant has been on an earnest but occasionally fumbling quest to renew its raison d’etre. The old formula of gallantly pandering to a self-satisfied international beau-monde that kept its reservation book full just wasn’t working anymore. In fact, the framed photos and autographs of the socialites, royals, and other celebrities who adored this place in its post-war hay day from 1950 to 1975 are decidedly momento mori now, and in any event, the general public is less impressed by such pedigrees in the age of the selfie and—woe is me– the Kardashians.

Langouste, soupe froide, cucumber

So leaving the visual possibility of an alarming overly ambitious facelift happily to one side, the kitchen had to be the place for any serious relaunch of this legend, and happily, that’s exactly where it’s happened. But first, for anyone who prefers a short-take, here it is: Now run by Andre Terrail, son of Claude, the Tour d’Argent has a brilliant new chef who has made the restaurant a serious gastronomic contender in Paris again.

With the arrival of the superbly talented Philippe Labbé, it looks like this grande dame of Gallic gastronomy has finally been granted a deeply delicious new lease on life. This means it’s a place you not only can go to again but one you should prioritize if you want an impeccably cooked meal of exquisite classical French cooking in a romantic setting with magnificent views.

I knew nothing about this, of course, when I somewhat ruefully headed here for lunch the other day, having received an invitation from Penelope, aka “Penny,” a second cousin from Philadelphia whom I hadn’t seen in at least a good twenty, maybe twenty-five, years. This is why my first response to her note—the invitation came on a heavy cream-colored monogrammed notecard, was a phone call to try to delicately suggest that maybe we might eat at another classic Parisian table of her choice, one where the food was likely to be better. But she stuck to her guns, saying she wanted to see the view again after so many years, and that she was sure the food would be “just fine.”

Arriving a little early, I lingered on the banks of the Seine across the street from the restaurant, and peering down at the dark moss green waters of the river, I hoped she’d be right and recalled the first time I ever ate there, which was also a good twenty years ago when I was writing a restaurant column in English for the pages that Time Out, the London arts-and-listings magazine, then published in the back of Pariscope. It was an incompatible marriage because the Paris weekly never quite achieved the quality level of the ten-page supplement the British publication edited. To wit, Time Out prided itself on a certain critical acuity and occasionally biting wit, while Pariscope never dared bite any hand that might feed it.

In any event, I had suggested to the editor of Time Out Paris that we might do an eating guide to Paris that reprised my weekly columns and add other new material, and so we did, with the help of many other talented local English-speaking reviewers, including the lovely Rosa Jackson, who eventually became editor of the guide and who now runs a superb cooking school, Les Petits Farcis, in Nice.

In the context of the severely straightened circumstances of editorial budgets in 2016, it now seems astonishing, but Time Out actually paid for every meal that was reviewed in its pages. They were good for a median priced meal for two, plus the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu, with any other extras being at the charge of the reviewer. Since La Tour d’Argent was a big fish, I asked Lemisse, one of the other editors on the guide, if she wanted to join me, and so we met in a café nearby for a Dutch courage glass of wine before we rather improbably cast ourselves into a tableau of la vie en rose that neither of us could have otherwise afforded short of escort work, winning the lottery or an inheritance.

Stepping through the doors, we found we’d unwittingly entered a steeplechase of courtesies that brought us to our table exhausted by the exertions of graciously acknowledging a good dozen or more ‘Bonsoirs’ of varying degrees of warmth and sincerity. Miraculously, though, we had a window table. To be sure it was at the far end of the dog’s leg dining room, and so with a partial view, but it was a window table nonetheless.

When our solemn waiter arrived with menus, he paused first and slowly eyeballed us. His verdict expressed by raised eyebrows and his nose wrinkled into a clenched pink knot like a rabbit was so gloriously theatrical that we had trouble not immediately dissolving into gales of laughter. Because this was exactly what we’d expected. To wit, we’d signed up for that most bizarre of gastronomic coinages, the gourmet meal that was meant to be politely and humbly endured rather than enjoyed.

Chef Philippe Labbé

So we were studying the menu with no small degree of financial trepidation, when someone delivered a testosterone riddled boom of a tableside greeting, “Bonsoir, Madame, Bonsoir, Monsieur!”

We looked up. A handsome older man with steel gray hair was half bowed tableside, and neither of us had a clue as to who he was or what response was expected from us. “Bonsoir,” I finally mumbled back.

“Is this the first time you’ve dined at La Tour d’Argent?” the man inquired. We nodded. “Is it a honeymoon?” We vigorously shook our heads. “I see…” He stroked his chin. “May I advise you then?”

“If you’d like,” I said noncommittally, since I was seeking to head off a serious wound to my wallet with my rent due just three days later. And then, when I noticed the bachelor’s button in  his lapel, I realized with a blood-chilled chagrin that I’d been speaking to none other than Claude Terrail himself.

We ended up with starters of scallops with truffle shavings and artichoke stuffed with crabmeat—nice food, if not memorable, and then we tucked into the Canard de l’An 2000 (Duck of the year 2000), which entitled us to the numbered postcards that are the great souvenir of a meal here—every duck served is numbered, but otherwise disappointed. Instead of tableside service, we were served two juicy ducks breasts in red wine sauce and duck thighs with a vinegary salad on the side. All told, a pleasant if unremarkable meal with a sad and particularly penurious half-bottle of Chinon.

Treating ourselves to a needed night-cap after dinner, Lemisse and I agreed that neither of us would ever need to repeat that particularly experience again, and so this is where I’d left off with La Tour d’Argent. Occasionally, friends visiting Paris did go, however, and their post-prandial comments were generally middling to wilted, with the view usually being mentioned as the highlight of the experience.

And so finally I crossed the street and met my second cousin in the reception area of the restaurant. She was wearing a dress of pistachio-colored linen, a cameo and Victorian style red coral jewelry that I’m sure her mother had bought on a trip to Sorrento around 1880. The retired headmistress of a prestigious girl’s school on the Main Line, she still had an imposing aura about her despite the girlishness evoked by the coral- colored velvet Alice band that held her oat-colored hair back.

The waiters seemed to understand that this was a woman not to be trifled with either, and we were promptly escorted to a table with a spectacular full-on view over Paris that took my breath away. On an intermittently overcast day, the city was heart-breakingly beautiful in its summer-stunned majesty, with the gardens behind Notre Dame sticking into the Seine like a green trident and sea gulls mixing with pigeons against a backdrop of pewter gray roofs punctuated by notable domes and spires.

When the great surprise of Philippe Labbé’s arrival was unveiled while we were having a glass of Champagne, the day suddenly became infinitely festive. Oh, I knew my second cousin, a classicist, would bring up the fact that I had been a terrible Latin student in high school and also ask me why I wasn’t married, but I wasn’t going to let these arrows dim my pleasure in a good meal. And with the passage of time, it occurred to me that however well-aimed her remarks might be, their effect was now more likely to be briefly startling, like pricking your finger on a needle, than wounding, since I no longer sought after or much cared about her ‘good’ opinion of me.

“Isn’t this lovely,” she said when she started reading the menu. “Please throw all cares to the winds, Alec. It’s my treat, of course, and another old relative popped off recently and left me some loot, so let’s spend some of it, shall we?” Emboldened, I ordered the Breton langouste (145 Euros) as my starter, and the beautiful copper-and-calico-colored crustacean was brought to the table live for my inspection before reappearing in an enthereal puddle of cool pink bisque seasoned with lemon verbena. The langouste (rock lobster) had been shelled, and its tender meat road small buoys of cucumber, a beautiful contrast of textures between the crunchy vegetable and the sweet flesh of the lobster.

Quenelles de brochet

I was so engrossed in the elegance of this dish, so lost in my own selfish trance of pleasure, that I was surprised to hear someone speaking to me, my cousin. “Would you like to taste this?” she asked, and of course, I did, since she’d ordered a “Quenelle du 21eme Siècle” as part of her lunch menu. Looking as my second cousin’s leonine profile as she sipped her Chassagne Montrachet, it fleetingly occurred to me that she could be a lesbian, but then again, she had been married to the late Oliver, a nice soft-spoken book editor at a now equally defunct Philadelphia publishing house (all of publishing is now extinct in Philadelphia, to my knowledge, and this is a shame, since these small houses often took chances on books that were judged too unlikely to be financially successful by the New York editors).

The pillowy quenelle, a pike-perch dumpling native to Lyon and environs and one of my favorite classical French dishes, was simply brilliant in an impeccably deconstructed sauce Nantua (crayfish sauce) that was a richly flavored as it was astonishing light. Ornamented by a little ring of tiny girolles mushrooms, baby peas, and fragile leaves of salad burnet and woodruff, the quenelle was very beautiful, too. I guessed that it was these vegetal garnishes, and perhaps a tiny dose of vanilla added to the sauce Nantua, that made the dish 21^st century, since it was otherwise a flawless homage to Escoffier. And yet it was also very subtlely modern, since Labbé has an extraordinary talent for calibrating infinitesimal tweaks to a dish that move it almost imperceptibly off-center and make it his own.

As we ate there was family chatter between us, including a reminiscence by Penny about a Thanksgiving dinner at my paternal grandmother’s during which another cousin suddenly decided to breast feed her baby at the table. I was just on the verge of adolescence at the time, but it struck me as a perfectly normal thing to do and also sort of fascinated me to see the baby going at the distended nipple so greedily. For almost everyone else, though, it was a high distasteful lapse of good manners. And then there was another cousin who came with his Bolivian girl friend—he’d been in the Peace Corps there, who had long thick black braids and wore a black bowler hat to lunch and cracked and sucked on the bone of her drumstick.

We laughed over these memories, but I couldn’t quite place Penny’s sympathies during their recitation.

What I left unsaid, however, was that my main interest in going to that particular meal was the thrill of blowing on the embers of the hopeless crush I had on another second cousin, the smolderingly handsome Bart, who had unwittingly won my ten year old heart the summer before when he looked after me and my brother at a Long Island beach club.

My honey-roasted Challans duckling breast was served in a sauce of vinegar-spiked pan juices with candied peaches, fresh almonds and a side of Szechuan pepper laced muesli. Now, this was one very sexy dish, and a sly one, too, since Labbé had had his own way with the restaurant’s traditional fowl. Juicy, flavorful, and a perfectly toothsome balance between chewy and tender, this bird struck me as Labbe’s own edible version of La Marianne, that kitschy female incarnation of France that appears in bust forms in government buildings.

Meanwhile, across the table, Penny was apparently very happy with her John Dory filet in an acidulated sauce seasoned with lemongrass and ginger with garnishes of girolles, radishes, and tomatillos, the first I’ve ever seen in France. We exchanged a smile or two while were ate, but were otherwise quiet like some companionable long-married couple. Or so I thought.

When our plates were removed, she cleared her throat. “Alec, you know I’ve always been rather jealous of you.” I think she enjoyed my look of surprise. “I mean the reckless, selfish throw all cares to the winds way that you moved to New York City after college, studiously avoided all of the ‘nice’ young people your Aunt wanted you to befriend, and threw yourself into, as I’ve been made to understand, a whirlwind of nightlife and sex and illicit substances.”

I said nothing.

“Well, I just wish I’d had the courage to do the same thing. I wish I’d gone to Studio 54 and dated famous dancers and, well, all of that. I mean, it must have been so much fun.”

“It was. But then so is this lunch. Life changes, and new pleasures come along to replace the old ones,” I said.

“Yes, but I’m sorry I didn’t know any of those old ones,” Penny replied.

When waiter interrupted us to take our dessert order, I caught the gaze of the heavily rouged, kohl-eyed older woman with a necklace of apricot-sized amber beads and a silver-headed cane at the table next to ours, and she winked. Ah, so we had an audience, and suddenly the previously matronly looking dining room with its royal blue carpet with a bronze flourish patter, mirrored ceiling, and royal blue velvet covered Louis XVI or something chairs revealed a side of itself as a setting that might have tantalized the late photographer Helmut Newton. I ordered caramelized white peaches with lime sorbet and lemon-verbena yogurt. Penny chose strawberries marinated in wine with black olive puree and sugared scrambled eggs with pistachios, a fascinating entremet.

We smiled at each other when our desserts were served, but after a single strawberry, Penny put her spoon down.

“Did you know that I did a junior year abroad in England?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, in London, where I studied ancient languages and Victorian literature.” She looked out the window, and I respected her long pause.

“I went away for a weekend once with one of my professors, to Brighton we went, me and Charlotte, and we had a lovely time. I often wonder how different my life might be today if I’d stayed. I was in love, but, well, I just couldn’t see how it could work out. Or rather, perhaps I just didn’t have the courage to make it work, so I went home and married Oliver.”

I put my hand on top of hers on the table. So this was why she’d wanted, or rather needed, to see me so badly.

“Mais Cherie! Vous etes toujours tres belle! C’est jamais trop tard!” called our neighbor, and Penny started laughing so hard she had to blot up tears with her napkin. Then the lady excused herself with a chuckle and a little wave and slowly made her way across the dining room.

A minute later the waiter reappeared and poured us some very good Champagne, explaining that it was a gift from ‘Madame.”

Like Philippe Labbé’s superb cooking at La Tour d’Argent, perhaps a life well-lived then is all about the appreciating the seasons, celebrating subtlety and getting the details right in the end. I hope I don’t have to wait another twenty years before I return to this wonderful restaurant.

15 Quai de la Tournelle, 5^th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-43-54-23-31, Metro: Maubert-Mutualite or Sully-Morland. Open Tuesday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.tourdargent.com Average a la carte 250 Euros, prix-fixe menus 210 Euros, 220 Euros, 350 Euros; Lunch menu 105 Euros.

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Bruno pondering Aux Verre de Contact

A perfect example of one of the most welcome recent trends in Paris–relaxed and affordable wine bars serving interesting small plates and ‘natural’ or organic wines (others include Le Dauphin, Vivant, Les Fines Gueules, Frenchie Wine Bar, and Le Verre Vole), it occupies an old atelier space and is furnished with an appealing mix of flea-market finds (N.B. The decor may have changed, because they were planning a major renovation during the summer). The chalkboard menu changes daily, but runs to edgy modern French comfort food that offer delicious cameos of James Henry’s fertile culinary imagination, and it’s quickly become one of the most popular addresses in town with the smart, younger tribe of chefs, wine merchants and food writers who are propelling the wine-bar trend. Everyone seems to know each other, so there’s a lot of chatting between tables and stepping outside with glass of wine for some fresh air or a smoke. It doesn’t feel clubby, though–everyone’s welcome and there’s zero attitude here. Instead, this crew really seems to enjoy what they do and in sharing it.

Just sitting at the table with a glass of white wine waiting for my friend Ona, a glamorous Turkish journalist who’s new in town, I was having a good time, which led me to reflect on the fact that good hospitality is often the X factor in a restaurant. A chef can be really talented but if he or she and their team don’t actually like the front of house side of this business, which is greeting and serving, a restaurant can fall flat, a regretable example of same being Guillaume Delage’s just opened Aux Verres de Contact (reviewed below). Chefs who don’t like their customers make me think of travel writers who disdain tourists, it just doesn’t make sense. Anyway, the crowd here was clearly having a great time, and it became more obvious to me than ever that this new breed of wine bar have filled the gap left behind my the rolling demise of Paris’s traditional neighborhood bistros, i.e. casual, affordable places where you get a good feed while having a great night out. As they’ve become rarer but still much sought-after many bistros have gone decidedly upmarket in terms of their prices and serving style, a case in point being Au Bon Accueil in the 7th arrondissement.

When Ona showed up, tousled but beaming after an assignation with a very famous French business man (married, bien sur), it took me a while to figure out what she meant by “I hoped it would not become like Mr. Rarfeller,” which I finally realized was a surprisingly arcane reference to Nelson Rockefeller’s amorous demise–you just never know what’s going to come out of this one’s mouth, and that’s why she’s so much fun. That solved, I wasn’t interested in more details, so we ordered a bottle of Loire Valley coteaux de Giennois and savaged the menu. We started with a salad of Joël Thiébault vegetables, octopus and squid and a terrific vaguely Catalan dish of seared tuna chunks, mussels and tomatoes with just a whisper of saffron and pimenton in the light mayonnais-y sauce, and both were delicious wolfed down with real country bread–thick crusted and tangy, made by chef Thierry Breton of Chez Michel, which is one of my favorite bistros even though it now runs 50 Euros a head–restaurant prices have gone through the roof in Paris this year.

Though it’s become pretty ubiquitous, we also ordered some burrata with heirloom tomatoes–I can’t ever get enough burrata, that creamy cousin of mozzarella from Apuglia, and glasses of an excellent red Sancerre from Pinoz Dauny to go with a superb steak tartare and the best dish of the evening, which was seared steak with kimchi style cornichons that James Henry had made himself. Though there’s doubtless some arcane Parisian law against doing so (drinking in a public space), everyone ended up taking their bottles outside and standing around chatting until 2.30am under umbrellas in a driving but warm summer rain storm. This is a swell spot, and I’m sure I’ll be here often this Fall.

Because he’s a very good chef, I’m sure I’ll also give Guillaume Delage’s Aux Verres de Contact another try, too, but my meal here with Bruno and friends Laurent and Carole didn’t hit the sweet spot I’d been hoping for. Delage is the chef of Jadis, a bistro in the 15th that I’ve been crowing about for a while, but I haven’t been back there for the last couple of months either. Why It’s dispriting to travel to such a remote location–Jadis is in the deep 15th near the Porte de Versailles, and experience exasperated and long-suffering service. The waiters at Aux Verre de Contact were friendlier than the dining room staff at Jadis–and mind you, I don’t like Saint-Bernard-in-heat-style all-over-you service at all, but still distracted and absent minded. Our aperitif glasses were still on the table when we paid our bill, and a request for some much needed salt elicited a rolled eyes response; I wish restaurants would just put the salt and pepper on the table and be done with it. The absence of this duo often communicates a chef-knows-better sort of attitude that’s never a good sign.

As four, we were able to eat our way through most of Aux Verre de Contact’s menu, and if the food was pretty good, it was also very expensive for it was and everyone hated having to order side dishes at additional expense. Among our starters, Laurent’s marinated herring was the star, athough the warm potato salad mentioned on the menu had been replaced by lentils vinaigrette with no warning; Bruno’s marinated salmon was decent but dull; and Carole’s salade du jour of roasted peppers and little balls of goat cheese brought catered business lunches to mind. My shrimp with curried vegetables and smoked duck breast didn’t really coalesce in terms of tastes and textures either.

Main courses were pretty to look at and better-than-average, too, but none of them were memorable. I had to ask for the aioli that came with my cod, and the overcooked fish really needed it, too, but Bruno’s steak tartare was excellent–as well it should have been for 23 Euros with a few leaves of salad and a couple of soggy fries. Seventeen Euros seemed like an awful lot of money for a couple of fried eggs with ratatouille and a few slices of smoked tuna, which is what Carole had, and Laurent would have liked his pork breast both crunchier and more tender, too.

Since I like Delage’s cooking so much, and it was my idea to come here, I was more tempered in my opinions than the other three. The kitchen obviously cooks with excellent produce, and I’d much rather eat here than at any brasserie I can think of, but in the end, I had to agree with Laurent’s assessment of the meal: “Pas mal, mais trop cher et service a revoir” or “Not bad, but too expensive, and the service needs work.” Dog days of August oblige, I’ll give Aux Verres de Contact another chance, but really hope they move over to a prix-fixe format before I come back.

Au Passage, 1 bis passage Saint Sébastien, 11th, Tel. 01-43-55-07-52. Metro: Sébastien Froissart, Open Monday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Average 30 Euros.

Aux Verres de Contact, 52 boulevard Saint-Germain, 5th, Tel. 01-46-34-58-02, Metro: Maubert Mutualite. Open Monday to Saturday for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday. Average 40 Euros.

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After flying from Seattle to Paris, most people would probably be in bed by 8pm, but my wonderful food mad friends Bob and Lynn would never dream of wasting a meal in Paris, so I had to think of a casual new place with great food and wine where we could sit outside (who doesn’t want as much fresh air as possible after many miserable hours aloft?) for their welcome-to-Paris feast, and the new Dans Les Landes came to mind immediately. Since I’m a big fan of Afaria, chef Julien Julien Duboué’s first restaurant in the 15th arrondissement, I’ve been to his latest addresses a half-dozen times, and it’s quickly become one of my favorite places to eat in the Latin Quarter.

  Sitting outside on a Friday night, the terrace was packed with a jolly crowd of dating couples, older academics and a gang of rugby players (the sport is very popular in southwest France), and even though we’d had to wait a bit too long for our table, we were happy once we settled in over a platter of Eric Ospital’s sublime Basque charcuterie with a bottle of white Irouleguy, a terrific Basque wine.

These first nibbles also gave us time to study the arm-long chalkboard menu and try and tamp down our desire to order one of everything, since all of the food flying by us looked delicious. Then the waiter came and plonked down a napkin-lined plate of irresistible crunchy sticks that turned out to be white polenta garnished with smoked duck. We hadn’t ordered them, but had already eaten half of them by the time he realized his mistake. I excused us by saying there was just no way to hold back hungry friends who’d just flown hours by long haul, that the sticks were delicious, and that I thought we should order, and instead of getting snarky, he grinned and got out his pad. Among its other attractions, and they’re many, Dans Les Landes is a very friendly place.

So we went at it and ordered tortilla (potato omelette) with truffle cream, deep fried chipirons (baby squid), baby clams with chick peas and avocado, the best little barbecued pork ribs I’ve ever eaten in Paris, a plate of witty Landaise spring rolls (rice paper wraps with salad, duck foie gras and duck breast), grilled quail breasts, and doubtless a dish or two that I don’t remember.

Unfortunately, everything came at the same time, which meant that our two tiny cafe tables were groaning with food. Aside from the Landaise spring rolls, the most amusing presentation of the evening was that the chipirons–crispy, tender and irresistible, were served inside of a sabot, or one of the wooden shoes that were once worn by farmers in the muddy, swampy Les Landes region. The tortilla omelette was unremarkable–it could have used some onion and a pinch of piment d’Espelette and the truffle sauce had little taste, but everything else was excellent, and with a couple of carafes of red Tursan wine, a lesser known southwestern French pour, the weary Seattlers wolfed down this feast in no time flat.

Probably more for his own amusement than anything else, the waiter eventually returned to see if we wanted to order main courses. Several of them looked very tempting, including guineau hen roasted with chestnuts and grilled pork breast with white beans, but all we could manage was a couple of shared desserts, including a millasou Landais  croustillants with confit de vieux garcon. These turned out to be sticks of sweet corn polenta served with an alcohol spiked chutney of fruits–figs, prunes, grapes and apples. “Vieux garcon’ means batchelor in French, and I can only say from the reference here that these old boys had figured out a pretty good way to take the sting out of their solitude.

19 bis rue Monge, 5th, tel. 01-45-87-06-00. Metro: Censier-Daubenton. Closed Sunday. Average 35 Euros.

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Jeanne A, the new epicerie-a-manger in the 11th arrondissement

It’s a terrific idea, too, since every table was full last night when I went for dinner, and there’s a big and very pretty raw oak table in a back alcove that’s terrific for anyone looking for a venue for a group of ten to have a good meal and a great night out. Hubig-Schall loves his wine, and we drank terrific wines last night, including a fabulous Saint Chinian from Borie La Vitarele. The wine list here proposes only magnums, but also serves the same wines by carafe.

Our happy crew started with an excellent assortment of charcuterie–Pata Negra ham, jambon de Paris, jambon persille, caillettes ardechois, etc., with great salted butter and wonderful bread from Le Quartier du Pain bakery in the 15th, which also supplies Yannick Alleno at the Hotel Le Meurice. Then a choice between roast Challans chicken or crispy skinned spit-raosted duck from the Basque Country, both served with a delicious little galette de pommes de terre and a mesclun-and-herb salad. A white porcelain sauce boat offered an unguent and deeply flavored reduction of rotisserie cooking juices with which to slather the fowl, and we followed with an assortment of really excellent farmhouse cheeses–brie, several chevres, compte, reblochon, etc.

If Jeanne A isn’t an address that’s worth traveling across town in a cab for, it’s a fine place for a relaxed. fun, and seriously good meal. And if you want a full-scale bistro meal that is worth the cab fare, book at L’Astier, Hubig-Schall’s mother address next door or his excellent and under-rated Cafe Moderne near the Bourse, or old French stock exchange, in the heart of Paris.

Jeanne A, 42 rue Jean-Pierre-Timbaud, 11th, Tel. 01-43-55-09-49. Metro: Parmentier. Closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Average 30 Euros.

L’Astier, 44 Rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, 11th, Tel. 01-43-57-16-35. Metro: Parmentier. Open daily, Average 35 Euros.

Cafe Moderne, 40 Rue Notre Dame des Victoires, 2nd, Tel. 01-53-40-84-10. Metro: Bourse. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. Average 45 Euros.

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Arriving at Desvouges on a chilly autumn night with Bruno, we were both cranky and hungry. You won’t be surprised to hear that he wearies of being my most reliable guinea pig, but after a couples-therapy session–ah oui, happens to us all, we needed to eat and despite the fact that he was still ranting about the weight he’d gained during a weekend with me in the north of France covering estaminets (i.e. northern French bistros) as part of a story I was doing, he was probably glad that I’d thought to book someplace for dinner even if he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Or should I have saved this observation for the therapist-mediated space Oh well, whatever.

Anyway, we were two worn-out pups when we pushed open the door of this store-front place in the deep 5th arrondissement and sat down at a bare wooden table in a rather overlit dining room. But burly owner Jerome Desvouges won me right off the bat with the friendly, enthusiastic way that he took us through his chalkboard menu and the fact that he was clearly mortified when I reminded him that he’d forgotten to bring us the carafe d’eau that I’d asked for ten minutes earlier (It’s been, in fact, much longer than I can remember since I’ve heard anyone in a Paris restaurant say, “Ouff, I’m very sorry.)

Desvouges, who was formerly an economic journalist but who, from his eager recitation and commentary on his menu, is not only a really nice guy but a real food-hound, had me drooling for his planche (cutting board) of Basque charcuterie, and indeed it was excellent, if not as generously served as I’d have liked, while Bruno, one of the most eager offal eaters I’ve ever meet, was blissed out by his museau vinaigrette, or thin slices of pig snout in a light dressing. I stuck fork in, and it was really good, too.

Next, Bruno went with the steak tartare dressed with sun-dried tomatoes, capers and herbs, and it was terrific, while I went with the curiously named Nem Toulousain, a skinned pork sausage boosted with fresh thyme and rosemary and wrapped Nem-style in crispy pastry. If Bruno scored a nice little salad with his tartare, he couldn’t stay away from the sauteed potatoes that came with my Nem and I loved the ratatouille that came in a small Staub casserole, too. We scarfed down a bottle of very good Morgon with the meal, and afterwards, even though I knew that Desvouges cheese were probably as good as everything else on his menu, we just ordered espressos. The boss insisted on giving us each a small pour of Vieille Prune from Louis Roque in Souillac in the Lot, a distillery we’d visited last summer, and the smooth, ambered taste of prune eaux de vie was the perfect conclusion to a very good, they’re always be a Gaul (I hope!) meal. In fact, I loved this place and the owner, and just wish it was within walking distance of my smudged keyboard in the 9th arrondissement, in which case I’d be a happy regular. For anyone who lives on the Left Bank or who’s staying locally, this is a great address for a very good, relaxed, affordable French meal.

Desvouges, 6 rue des Fosses Saint Marcel, 5th, Tel. 01-47-07-91-25. Metro: Gobelins or Saint-Marcel. Closed Monday and Tuesday lunch, Saturday and Sunday. Prix-fixe menu 26 Euros.

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Restaurant Frederic Simonin, photo by Francis Amiand

I was very curious about this opening, too, because Simonin has such an impressive pedigree–he previously cooked with Ghislaine Arabian, and then with Joel Robuchon in both Paris and London. So I wondered what his style would be like now that he was no longer riding saddle for another chef. As it turns out, Simon’s cooking is light, fresh, and exquisitely well-balanced in terms of flavor and texture. “What I love about this food is that the chef has so obviously made an effort to create dishes that are full of flavor but light and healthy,” Bruno observed after tasting his main course–delicately scored squid with oven-roasted tomatoes, black olives, fresh basil and a very light vinaigrette.

He was spot on, too, since both of our starters expressed the same bashful culinary elegance; I had an avocado puree with dressed crabmeat and a yuzu (Japanese citrus) gelee, which was terrific, and Bruno gloried in beautiful composition of fresh spring vegetables and edible flowers on a short bread crust. Next veal sweetbreads with morel mushrooms for me, and squid for Bruno. Desserts were outstanding, too, including a superb passionfruit caramel cream with a granite of vieux rhum and for Bruno a perfect yuzu (lemon) soufflé. Service was attentive and obliging, and it augurs wells for Simonin that the dining room was equally divided between expense-account business tables and hand-holding couples the night we came in. Whether it’s to seal a deal or steal a kiss, Frederic Simonin is a welcome newcomer to the pricier precincts of the Paris food chain.

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Even if there are few foreign kitchens that I don’t whole-heartedly enjoy, I have to say that I’ve been increasingly worried about the growing scarcity of one cuisine in Paris–French. All over town, it’s often easier to have an anodyne ‘healthy’ salad, a middling Asian meal, or some almost invariably mediocre pasta than it is to eat anything that might be authentically described as French, which is why I was so glad to discover Lilane behind the Place Monge in the Latin Quarter the other night.

This cozy little restaurant with low lighting and comfortably spaced tables turned out to be a terrific place for a very nice and reasonably priced contemporary French feed. It’s not the sort of place you’re likely to find in magazines, but rather is a table you’ll likely return to time after time following an initial meal. Chef Stéphane Guilçou worked at Le Jules Verne in the Eiffel Tower before going out on her own, and whatever this experience may have yielded, she’s a very good cook who works with very good produce.

Dining with my friend Judy, who now lives nearby, we started with langoustine stuffed ravioli (Judy), which impressed me because the langoustines were impeccably cooked, and a superb terrine of foie gras wrapped in bacon and served with a coulis of dried fruit for me. Next, Judy had a mignon de veau (veal steak) with broccoli cooked two ways–steamed florets and as a pleasantly olive-oil spiked puree, and I loved my boned confit de canard with a ruddy reduction of duck and very good mashed potatoes. We finished up with a terrific runny chocolate tart with pistachio ice cream, and I was finally astonished to see that it was 12.30am and no one had made a feint to push us out on to the pavement. Lilane is a very good restaurant, and I look forward to returning again sometime soon.

Frederic Simonin, 25 rue Bayen, 17th, Tel. 01-45-74-74-74. Metro: Ternes. Closed Sunday and Monday. Lunch menu 38 Euros, Dinner 70 Euros.

Lilane, 8 rue Gracieuse, 5th, Tél. 01-45-87-90-68. Metro: Place Monge. Closed Sunday and Monday. Lunch menus 16 Euros and 20 Euros. Dinner menu 32 Euros. A la carte 35 Euros.

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Meeting my friend David, who’s gastronomic perceptiveness functions at the speed of light and is almost unfailing accurate, for dinner, we sipped glasses of Picpoul, that cheap but under-rated Languedoc best-buy supermarket white, here poured at a very fair 3 Euros a glass, nibbled delicious pitted black olives, and tried to decide if we were up for the six-course tasting menu. As a rule, I loathe tasting menus, since it always seems pretty  improbable any chef will be able to play a symphony on my palette when we’ve never met, but since we were very curious, we decided to jump in, a pretty harmless gamble, too, for 35 Euros.

So away we went, with a first-course of excellent quality crabmeat dressed with lime zest, basil, and fine slivers of Granny Smith apple, a generous dollop that neither of us could find even tiny fault with and so just eagerly enjoyed. Next, a lovely soup of rougets (red mullet) with a great presentation–the sweet waitress, the chef’s wife in a dusty pink angora dress, ladled the hot soup over fine slices of raw fish garnished with tiny rings of cebettes (green onion, but not scallions), and for me, even though this soup lacked a little fire–I’d have added some piment d’Esplette or piment de Cayette, maybe a few strand of microplaned ginger, was just delicious, and a wonderful testimony to the chef’s talent and good-humored capacity for hard work.

As is so often the case, the main courses were a shade less alluring then the starters–sea bass in a somewhat bland foam with salsify and perfectly cooked duckling breast with a polite slaw of red beets (nice combination, that), but both were very good, and we were having a very good time, because the service was so sweet but unintrusive, eager but professional.

We slotted a slice of wonderfully creamy Gorgonzola with a miniature salad and could-be-better hazelnuts (no one should ever buy nuts pre-roasted–they go off instantly), before our two desserts and were glad we did.

“I really like this place. It’s not perfect, but I like the people, the open kitchen, the crowd–it’s fun and the food’s good,” said David, and I entirely agreed. Next, panna cotta with strawberry puree–rhubarb, maybe with grilled almonds and candied ginger, would have been better at this time of the year, but this was still good, and then a dish that brought on a weird rush of memories from the days that I was a flat-broke student in London and went to Sunday lunch at the flat of my local librarian because I liked her so much, looked forward to a good roast, and love the little box of After Eight mints she’d put out with the Port at the end of our meal. At L’Agrume, a pod of chocolate mousse swam in a Jet 28 (mint liqueur) bath, and was a fine way to end a very pleasant and very impressive meal.

Given the current gastro landscape in Paris, I fear this place will be lionized before the sweet young chef (citing his name is not yet necessary, but he cooked in a lot of fancy places before hanging out his own shingle) gets a chance to cross his Ts and dot his Is. So I’d say go now before the world rushes in, and enjoy a winsome cameo of young French culinary talent in the 21st century.

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I can’t quite decide why the upper 17th arrondissement continues to produce so many good new contemporary French bistros (L’Entregedeu, Hier et Aujourd’hui, La Fourchette de Printemps are all favorites), but think it may be a great combo of low rents and a reliable local clientele, i.e, affluent people who know and love good food.

One way or another, it’s a pain-in-the-neck neighborhood to get to, so I always show up at any new restaurant in a cranky pants frame of mind thinking, This had better be good. Le Bouchon et L’Assiette having gotten some good local press, I was pretty sure I’d be able to let my hair down after a long walk in the rain, and I did, in fact, like these two small dining rooms, anonymous low-budget spaces where all of the visual fun came from retro posters that vaunted the chef’s Basque-southwestern French roots and a peek-a-boo kitchen where you could see him cooking up a storm from the shoulder up.

Dining with two French nationals, a Franco-American (the lovely Claire Quimbrot) et moi meme, we brought a great galaxy of taste to the table, and our meal launched well with excellent starters–boudin noir with mache (lamb’s ear lettuce) for Sylvie, a charming French woman who’s lived most of her life in the U.S. and so hungers for really funky French food like boudin (black pudding is the unappealing English name for this soft black sausage made with pig’s blood), carpaccio de haddock for Bruno and foie gras with red cabbage slaw with hazelnuts for Claire and I. The foie gras was generously served, home-made, and good quality, but lacked culinary punctuation–a reduction of Xeres vinegar, some sour cherries, I don’t know, but something to back-stop it’s richness.

Next Bruno and and Sylvie went for thick slices of yellow Pollack, a fish enjoying a certain popularity in Paris these days because it’s less threatened (and cheaper) than cod, with salsify in a rather dull cream foam, and a shared duckling breast with delicious golden crispy skin and red beet slaw for Claire and I. We finished up with a shared plate of Saint Nectaire, the cheese that always makes me think of country school houses in the 19th century for its herbaceousness, generosity, and full-barrel Gallic lushness, and a homemade gasteau Basque that was excellent.

With two of us going prix-fixe and two a la carte, with a single bottle of average Irouleguy red, this meal landed at 50 Euros a piece, which was more than it was worth. Still, there’s talent in the kitchen, and I’d gladly go back at noon for the 22 Euro menu.

L’Agrume, 15 rue des Fosses Saint-Marcel, 5th, Tel. 01-43-31-86-48. Metro: Saint Marcel or Gobelins. Closed Sunday and Monday. Average 40 Euros.

Le Bouchon et L’Assiette, 127 rue Cardinet, 17th, Tel. 01-42-27-83-93. Metro: Ternes or Villiers. Closed Sunday and Monday. Average 40 Euros.

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