Tucked away in a mercifully still ungentrified street in the northern Marais, Parcelles is a very near perfect Parisian bistrot a vins, or bistro with a special focus on wine. It’s immediate charm, which comes from the wake of the addresses that proceeded it at the same address, notably Le Taxi Jaune, is joyously authentic and profoundly Parisian, from the big copper-clad bar to suspended factory lamps and a retro cracked tile floor.

This isn’t some fly-in-amber address, however. Instead, you instantly sense the suave professionalism and seriousness of the staff from the moment you’re seated at a table with a crisp white table cloth. Then there’s the delightful welcome from owner Sarah Michielsen, who’s one of the best young restauranteurs working in Paris today. This is because of her reflexive hospitality but also comes from her extensive experience of running Parisian dining rooms, including, mostly recently, that of Itinéraires, the now closed restaurant of her ex-husband, chef Sylvain Sendra.

Sommelier Bastien Fidelin is similarly cordial and attentive when he comes to the table with his rather fascinating wine list, which features organic and natural wines from all over France and beyond. The importance of his work is reflected by the name of this restaurant, too. In the French terminology of wine-making, a parcelle is a small plot of land with distinctive geographical and geological characteristics that impact the quality and character of the grapes cultivated.

Chef Julien Chevalier’s menu is regularly revised according to what’s seasonal and best in the markets, and his style is wonderfully produce centric. To wit, he aims to enhance the natural flavors of the produce he cooks rather than temper them into other tastes. In this cautiously and hopefully post pandemic moment, this simplicity and authenticity is exactly the way we want to eat right now.

So Parcelles is a sophisticated but relaxed modern bistrot a vins that aspires to and often achieves a wonderfully low-key excellence.

Meeting my friend Tina, another American journalist in Paris with a French spouse,  for lunch we got through a good hunk of media gossip over a glass of excellent Champagne (Elise Deschannes – Essentielle), and decided to order different things to give the menu a broader sampling. My steamed clams in a marine broth with fresh herbs were succulent and remarkably fresh, while Tina’s pumpkin fritters with herbed Fromage blanc were perfectly cooked in a feathery tempura-like batter.

My choice of a main course may have made Tina shudder, but I can’t resist ris de veau (veal sweetbreads), because I love their resonantly carnal taste and texture. Here, they were impeccably cooked, with some light crusting and garnish of fried sage leaves, and served on a bed of buttery potato puree with a beautifully made silken sauce of veal stock and pan drippings. Tina’s guinea hen was a succulent piece of bird with garnishes of spelt risotto, a thick asparagus spear, and some tapenade. Both plates were generously served and the cooking was. light, precise and full of flavor.

The wine I somewhat begrudgingly allowed sommelier Bastien Fidelin to chose–I’d been leaning towards something from the Cotes du Rhone or Languedoc, was outstanding with this meal, too: Saint Veran – 2019 – Les Pommards by Jessica Litaud, an exceptionally talented young winemaker.

We concluded by sharing a truly perfect creme caramel and the fuzz of well-being that follows a delicious and beautifully served meal (N.B. Don’t miss the lemon cream crumble if it’s on offer).

Since I’m still savoring every meal out with a quiet sense of grateful wonderment after the misery of the two restaurant shutdowns in France, I couldn’t help but thinking that it’s restaurants like Parcelles, not the over-hyped tables of the latest winners of the competitive cooking shows on French television, that form the ballast of Paris’s enduring reputation for gastronomic excellence.

Creativity has its place in the kitchen and can be rather fascinating, but Gallic gastronomic classicism delivers a purring pleasure that is truly timeless in its elegance and sensuality.

13 rue Chapon, 3rd Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01 43 37 91 64, Métro : Arts et Metiers. Open Mon-Sat. for lunch and dinner. Closed Sunday. www.parcelles-paris.fr Average a la carte 50 Euros.

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A L’Epi d’Or, a solid old neighbourhood bistro that opened on the edge of Les Halles in 1880, has mercifully been spared the ignominious fate of too many traditional Paris bistros in an ever gentrifying city: becoming a clothing store. Sepia-tinted by decades of Gauloises and Gitanes, this sturdy old place with a cracked tile floor, a big zinc bar, and globe lamps overhead has instead become the object of the wisely gentle, puckishly reverent and shrewdly restrained culinary intentions of chef Jean-François Piège.

“I didn’t want to reinvent A L’Epi d’Or, I just wanted to make it better,” says Piège, who lives nearby and has a deep affection for this kind of historic and profoundly Parisian address. “I want the tastes of honest old-fashioned French cooking to survive as everyday food, not as part of some expensive nostalgic special-occasion meal,” adds the chef, who has two Michelin stars at his Le Grand Restaurant, and also owns and runs three other restaurants, Clover Grill, Clover Green, and La Poule au Pot.

This remark struck a real chord with me, because in some Paris neighbourhoods today, it’s easier to find a bowl of ramen or an Italian meal than it is French bistro cooking. For a variety of reasons, this kitchen, the bedrock level of Gallic gastronomy, is struggling, and I’m not talking about bistronomie, a.k.a. modern bistro cooking, but workaday traditional bistro cooking like the dishes you find on the menu at A L’Epi d’Or. To wit, dining out in Paris has changed, and changed a lot, since thirty years ago, when eating anything other than French food in Paris was very much the exception to the rule. Sure, we’d go for the occasional Chinese, Vietnamese or North African meal, but our daily food bread and everything else that came to the table with it was French in those days.

Now if you consider the modern urban gastronomic cannon, or those same popular dishes that are served in major cities all over the world–sushi, ramen, cheeseburgers, tacos, burritos, pizza, pasta, tapas, ceviche, etc., almost none of them are French with the possible exception of quiche. Traditional French cooking based on braising and the slow, careful construction and concentration of flavours has become an outlier, because it’s time consuming behind the kitchen door and also because it has wrongly acquired a reputation for being heavy, even ‘unhealthy.’ The reality is that it’s nowhere near as time consuming as a global recipe culture driven by semi-hysterical promises of fast and easy cooking might lead you to believe, and it’s also not only deeply nourishing but profoundly satisfying.

This is what I thought when I tucked into my first course of legumes pot au feu, or leeks, carrots, turnips, celeriac, parsnip and potato that had been cooked in beef bouillon as part of a pot au feu. The succulent vegetables had a light gloss of bovine richness that didn’t mask their natural tastes or textures, and the pool of sauce they came in–bouillon with a few drops of olive oil, some chopped parsley and a superbly redolent gently fruity red wine vinegar was a supremely Gallic garnish. What made this dish work so well, though, was the resonance of the vinegar, which had a percussive freshness that was fascinating. When I chatted with Piège later in the meal, he explained that the red-wine vinegar was homemade, with a mother of vinegar that was constantly fed with leftover red wine. “It’s the youth of the vinegar that makes it mellow and so good with cooked vegetables,” he explained.

To be sure, my first memory of A L’Epi d’Or had nothing to do with what I ate here. Just a couple of months after I’d arrived in Paris to work as an editor in the offices of fashion publisher Fairchild Publications, I was invited for lunch on a rainy winter day by a famous Paris fashion designer. I’d never met him before, but when I stepped through the door of this restaurant, I was certain it couldn’t possible be the man with butterscotch coloured hair and a black leather bomber jacket over a black muscle T shirt who was the only other customer in the dining room. He nodded at me, and I nodded back and then I spoke to the older woman behind the bar, giving her the name of the designer. With a pursed smile, she nodded towards the man in the bomber jacket.

He was drinking Champagne when I sat down with him, and we chatted briefly–he’d just returned from Tokyo that morning, which is why less than a minute later he almost fell asleep while reading the menu. Then he told me he’d was going to the men’s room, so I pulled back the table to let him out, and glancing at him walking to the back of the room, I was astonished to see that the back of his black leather pants was cut out to display his bare ass. Seeing me see him, the woman behind the bar barked with laughter.

“Et dis donc, Monsieur!” (Say there, Mister!), she said and guffawed. “Il n’est pas tres subtile celui!” (He’s not very subtle, that one), she cackled again, and then he returned.

“I just needed a little powder to perk myself up,” he said when he sat down. I nodded vaguely. “Would you like some#8221; he asked, offering me some cocaine.

“No, thanks, I’m happy with my marinated leeks,” I replied, and he rolled his eyes. “And you go to church every Sunday, too#8221; he snorted.

“No,” I said. “I’m Protestant,” as if that explained anything.

“Oh, God, you’re a Protestant, too. They have no imagination, which makes them terrible sex. Most Catholics are a little kinky, even if they don’t know it.” And so it went. But I liked the unpretentious bistro food, the room, and the crowd.

The motley crowd of traveling salesman, market workers, night-club goers and the occasional pair of convivial and immaculately made up streetwalkers was always one of the best things about A L’Epi d’Or, and on this first experience of its resurrection, it was too soon to guess at the eventual sociological composition of the restaurant’s new clientele except to say that the sex business has moved online in Paris and traditional bistro cooking seems to be developing an eager new following among the Bobo (bohemian bourgeois) couples who have colonized the ancient side streets of Les Halles.

I guess Bruno and I will just have to fit into the evolving mix here as a middle-aged married gay couple, too, since nothing is likely to keep us away from one of the best pâté en croûte in Paris, which was my lucky spouse’s starter. It’s worth noting that this dish is always available, too, as one of “Les Incontournables,” or those dishes that form the short permanent menu. This list also includes the excellent looking steak tartare with a beautiful dimple filled with mayonnaise of the woman sitting next to us, foie gras terrine, Croque Madame, slow-roasted lamb, breaded fish filet, rice pudding, orange-flower ice cream, and a cheese plate. Otherwise, a different starter, main and dessert are served daily, almost boarding house style.

Bruno had the lamb so tender it could be eaten with a spoon (as described on the menu), and it was slow-braised, wonderfully crusted and came with fennel, carrots and potato puree in another simple sauce of cooking juices gently sharpened into a vinaigrette. My roast veal with potato puree was the kind of proud humble Gallic comfort food that will always be my gastronomic true north, because this dish, and Bruno’s, were things I could very happily eat every  week.

And even after all of this food, we still had dessert, because we wanted it, this heavy glass bowl of fluffy chocolate mousse that we shared, and wanting it was reason enough. Next time, though, I’ll try and get here on a Tuesday, because I love beet salad with haddock, hachis Parmentier–French shepherd’s pie, and nougat glace, one of my all-time favourite desserts and another once common dish that has become a rarely seen retro treat.

If there’s any way of saving the surviving everyday bistros of Paris, chef Jean-François Piège has found it at A L’Epi d’Or, which is now a better restaurant than it’s ever been.

A L’Epi d’Or, 25 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1st Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-42-36-38-12, Metro: Louvre-Rivoli or Palais-Royal-Musee du Louvre. www.alepidorparis.com Closed Saturday and Sunday, open Monday-Friday for lunch and dinner. Prix-fixe menus: 36 Euros for three courses, 27 Euros for two courses.

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Le P’Tit Canon is perfect and very happy example of a good uncomplicated Parisian neighbourhood bistro. It’s a lively friendly well-run place with a pretty Belle Epoque style dining room with a big bar up front where you can stop by on your own for a glass of wine or a quick bite. In less of a rush, you come for a sit-down meal of well-prepared traditional bistros dishes that deliver a solid flush of French comfort-food satisfaction. Prices are reasonable, and the wine list is interesting, from the well-chosen and accessible house wines to better bottles that carry a much gentler markup over retail prices than is usually found in Paris restaurants.

You don’t come here for cutting-edge cooking, but rather for good solid Gallic grub prepared with high quality ingredients. Still, the menu winks at what Parisians like to eat these days, since there are several meal-sized salads on the menu, along with a cheese burger.

So when Bruno came into my office and asked me if I had an idea of somewhere festive and not too expensive where we could good with his mother, visiting from Valenciennes; his sister up from her home in Florence; her son, who’s studying film in Rome, and his Venezuelan girlfriend, also living in Rome and studying medical technology, I immediately suggested Le P’tit Canon. I knew the menu here would please his cassoulet-loving mother and also work for his vegetarian sister, and that the salads would make the students happy. As for me, a good steak tartare was already on my radar, and Bruno loves confit de canard, which is rarely found on Paris menus very often anymore.

“This is just like those Paris bistros you see in the movies,” said Matthias, Bruno’s Italian nephew when we arrived here, a hungry multi-generational group speaking four different languages at the table. “Tres charmant, est bien Parisien,” pronounced Bruno’s mother, who hadn’t been to Paris for several years. So we translated the menu aloud for those who don’t speak French, and everyone found something to make them happy.

The Italians were craving foie gras, which is made in house and served with raisin-bread toast and onion compote or as part of a salade folly (crazy salad)–green beans and mushrooms garnished with foie gras. Bruno couldn’t resist the marinated herring, I love their terrine de campagne and Madame Midavaine fancied some escargots, and his sister opted for the oeufs mayonnaise. Since everyone preferred white wine, and I suspect we’d likely get through several bottles, I ordered a fresh easy-drinking Viognier from the Gard at a very easy-on-the-wallet 21 Euros, and it was very pleasant.

Everyone ordered different main courses from those I predicted, since there were three andouillettes with mustard sauce and frites, a cassoulet, a steak tartare and a salad garnished with goat cheese and salmon. I haven’t gone near an andouillette, a rather pungent tripe sausage, since a first rather unhappy encounter with one the first week I was living in Paris, but they made Bruno, his mother and his nephew happy. Bruno’s sister was quite content with her salad, and his nephew’s beautiful girlfriend loved her steak tartare. For my part, a good ruddy cassoulet with two types of sausage, a generous piece of confit de canard and a generous portion of white beans in a soupy tomato sauce was exactly what I wanted at the end of a busy day when I’d had to walk all over Paris–transit strike oblige, buying last-minute Christmas presents.

At dinner we had an interesting conversation that spun on a question ventured by Bruno’s sister: “What are the two greatest cuisines in the world#8221; she asked us. The Italians all predictably affirmed that the Italian kitchen would be one of them, while Bruno’s mother announced the grandeur of Gallic gastronomy. For my part, I insisted on six: French, Italian, Indian, Moroccan, Chinese and Mexican. And you?

Dessert was a stretch for me, but the Italians couldn’t resist the baba au rhum and a nicely made creme caramel. An inevitable question was directed my way during the sweet stretch of our meal: “Alec, what were your best meals of 2019#8221; Here, in no particular order, are the tables I most enjoyed during the last twelve months

**La Scene, Paris

**KGBbis, Paris

**Pavyllon, Paris

**Maison par Sota Atsumi, Paris

**Shabour, Paris

**Substance, Paris

**Racine, Reims

**A Pignata, Levie, Corsica

**Frevo, New York City

**Stubborn Seed, Miami Beach, Florida

**Ixi’Im, Chochola, Yucatan, Mexico

Our joyous meal concluded with little snifters of Chartreuse, a holiday gift from the charming proprietor of this eminently amiable restaurant, and, as it turned, out exactly what we needed to ended up watching the first two episodes of the new season of “The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel” when we got home. So Le P’tit Canon ably hit its target, and a very good time was had by all.

N.B. This is a great address for a late lunch or dinner, since serving hours are 10.30am to 3.30pm and 6.30pm to 2am.

36 rue Legendre, 17th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-47-63-63-87, Metro: Villiers or Pont Cardinet, Open Monday to Friday for lunch and dinner, Saturday dinner only, closed Sunday. Average 35 Euros. www.leptitcanonparis.fr

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Mieux, which means ‘better’ in English, is a wonderful name for a restaurant, because it declares gastronomic ambition but with a certain appealing humility. This charmingly decorated and cleverly designed bistro just five minutes from my front door in the rue Saint Lazare delivers better than just better, though, since the contemporary French bistro cooking is delicious, and the service is charming. Restaurant Mieux also has a very good wine list.

The bistro, which opened last May, is the project Baptiste Bayle, Giulian Maiuri and Thomas Bonnel, three nice guys who did all of the work of renovating this space themselves, including pouring a cement bar, buffing the Fifties tiles they discovered when they pulled up the floorboards, combing flea-markets for the great-looking bric-a-brac and chairs from a French school that gives this place its homey atmosphere and renovating a secondhand Spaziale coffee machine, which is now used to make great java with Brûlerie de Belleville beans. Guilian, who formerly worked at the Maison Breguet and the Trianon Palace in Versailles, heads up the kitchen.

I first noticed Restaurant Mieux on the way home from doing some errands in the rue des Martyrs, and immediately liking its look and menu, I went in and booked for dinner for me and Bruno that same night. And I marveled at how gastronomic my own neighborhood has become, and in just the terms I like best—intelligently creative contemporary French bistro cooking that highlights carefully sourced seasonal produce and spins on an axis of sincerity and generosity.

Little did I know that the 9th Arrondissement would emerge as one of the best restaurant neighborhoods in Paris when we crossed the Seine from the tiny apartment where we once lived on the rue du Bac and bought our first, and then second, apartments in this arrondissement. But the 9th has turned into a sweet-spot location for restauranteurs, because the offices in this central Paris district assure a busy lunch crowd and then the food-loving locals and tourists from the growing numbers of hotels in this charming part of the city take over in the evening.

Arriving, the welcome was warm and the service immediately warm and alert but relaxed, which explained why the dining room was filled with such a cross-section of residents of the district once known as La Nouvelle Athenes, because so much of its architecture was originally inspired by ancient Greece when this part of the city was first developed from 1819 onwards. During the 19th century, this quartier was popular with artists, writers, musicians and actors, including George Sand, Eugène Delacroix, Alexandre Dumas, Frederic Chopin, Victor Hugo, Théodore Géricault, Pissarro, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin. It was also known for being a neighborhood of kept women.

This arty liberal tradition lives on in the 9th, which is still home to many writers, photographers, artists, musicians and other creatives, and it’s that increasingly endangered but wonderful thing—a peaceful and unselfconscious historic neighborhood in the heart of a great western city. Gentrification is making it more affluent, but the social tone happily remains unchanged.

The menu here runs to three starters, three main courses and three desserts, sometimes more, which change regularly to reflect the kitchen’s desire to cook spontaneously. “The produce writes the menu here,” our waiter told us when he came to take our order.

On the first night of the year when there was an early autumnal chill in the air and after a summer of salads, I started with the homemade terrine of chicken livers and pork, with the livers adding an earthy unctuousness and the pork some carnal resonance and bite, which came with pickled onions and carrots. Bruno’s bonheur was the veal tartare made with marscapone and seasoned with crushed roasted cashews—an excellent idea, chervil and chives. And because we’d both been curious about the other starter that night, the waiter thoughtfully brought us a little tasting plate of the tomatoes with watermelon, cucumbers, feta, mint and Kalamata olives, a wonderfully refreshing dish that tasted like a happy souvenir of a summer vacation in the Greek Islands.

Our main courses were outstanding, too. Bruno’s free-range pork chop from the Auvergne was succulent and garnished with coarse ground polenta and roasted carrots from the Ile de France and a wonderful saute of wild mushrooms. I was tempted by the risotto with sage butter, zucchini and smoked ricotta, but  I’ve lived in Paris for too long to ever to order this dish in a restaurant I don’t know, because the rice is unfailingly overcooked. So I ordered with maigre (croaker fish) with potatoes, cabbage and clams in seaweed butter, and it was so skillfully cooked that I wouldn’t hesitate to trust the kitchen with rice the next time I come here. Portions were so generous that all we could manage at the end of the meal was a shared portion of stewed juicy ruby-red peche de vigne—the world’s best peaches, with lemon-verbena ice cream and hazelnut crumble. An excellent selection of cheeses was also available.

Restaurant Mieux is a place where you can easily become a regular, and it’s a table I’d happily go on my own, since they have a few spots at the bar for solo diners who’d rather sit on a stool than at a table. It also has several large tables that accommodate groups of six, eight or twelve, which makes it a great choice for an easygoing night out over a very good meal with a group of friends. It’s solidly good but unpretentious restaurants like Mieux which assure Paris’s enduringly superlative gastronomic credentials.

21 rue de Saint-Lazare, Paris, 9th Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01- 71-32-46-73.
Métro: Trinite or Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Open Monday noon-6pm, Tuesday-Friday noon to 1am, Saturday 6pm-1am. Sunday noon-6pm. Lunch menus 21€ and 26€, average a la carte for dinner 40€. www.mieux-restaurant.com

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Coming through the door for the first time on a warm Sunday night, Au Petit Panisse delighted me, since it was such a perfect sketch of everything I miss about Paris when I spend a long period of time away from the city. This is because Paris is now where I feel more at home than anywhere else in the world.

Oh to be sure, when I step out of a New Haven railroad train onto the platform in Westport, Connecticut at the end of a summer day and am roused by the tidal saline stink of the nearby Saugatuck river and then slightly stunned by the almost shocking greenery of the town I where I spent my childhood, I’ll always be the boy who grew up here all over again. But then that boy yearned to get on the very same train and take it in the other direction, first west to New York City, and after that, to hopefully light out for parts even further afield, ceaselessly driven by the unslakable wanderlust that is the wick of my curiosity.

Now that I’ve lived in Paris for more than thirty years, though, the exotic and the unknown has to some degree become the country where I was born. And this is why I was possibly even more fascinated by what I heard, saw, ate and learned on a five-day road trip from Sarasota, Florida north to Savannah, Charleston and finally Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida and back again than Bruno was. This is probably because he expected to be discombobulated, whereas I, well, I honestly didn’t know what to expect, since I hadn’t been to those two very beautiful cities on the Eastern Seaboard since I was 22, and I knew nothing of Florida between Tampa and Jacksonville.

“It actually looks sort of like Normandy, doesn’t it#8221; Bruno said when we broke out of the suburban sprawl north of Tampa and found ourselves in some stunningly beautiful countryside with cows grazing in the lush pastures of well-tended farms with split-rail fences. “It does sort of, but I doubt you’ll find anyone making Pont L’Eveque out there,” I replied. And when we stopped for lunch–big juicy greasy cheeseburgers, thank you–the waitress in the Five Guys that was the only viable option we’d seen for two hundred miles, was as charming, warm, friendly and witty as anyone I’ve met in years. “Americans are very polite,” Bruno said, and though I hesitated for a minute, I finally agreed, because yes, we are just so much better than those who occupy our air waves and television screens most often these days.

The best meal we had during our trip was at The Grey in Savannah, and I loved absolutely everything about this restaurant. The setting in the city’s old Greyhound Bus station has an irresistible tongue-in-cheek charm that’s more pointed than arch–to wit, the free black-and-white postcards they give away here show that this facility was “Whites” and “Colored” segregated in the past, so its history is put forward rather than white-washed; the staff are professional, spontaneous, informed, good-natured and enthusiastic; and most of all chef Mashama Bailey’s food was as full of flavor as it was full of heart, which means it was some of the best eating I’ve done in the United States for a longtime.

And the unpretentious goodness of Mashama’s cooking brings me back to Paris, and specifically to Au Petit Panisse, because chef owner Jeff Schilde may never have met Mashama, but the pair share the same love of really excellent seasonal produce; gastronomic specificity, i.e., the glory of eating food that could only have the same taste if it came from one single place on the planet; and a great big need and desire to make people happy by feeding them well. And in this roiled and roughed-up world, this makes me happier than ever before, because I really believe good food and cooking can create bonds and understanding in even the most improbable of situations.

At our table, though, we didn’t need any help to be happy, since we were five people who adore each other and who were all eager to rabbit on about their different summer holidays now that we were so happily back in Paris. Where had we been Corsica, the south of France, Greece, Le Pyla, Savannah, Charleston, Sarasota, New York City, and lots of weekends away as well, which is why the first gastronomic subject that came up at the table of five people who love good food and wine was, well, natural wine.

“I hate it, I hate the whole thing, it’s so damned pretentious, it rarely tastes good, and it’s too expensive,” said one of my tablemates, and three of the five agreed. “Natural wine (unsulfured), biodynamic wine, organic wine, it’s all become a big pain in the ass,” paried another pal. “Okay, wait–I always prefer organic wines, and biodynamic wine is usually excellent, but the fact that vins nature have become a bristly a priori in so many young Paris bistros is a drag, especially since these wines offer an occasion to charge eye-watering mark-ups,”  said another friend, and I tend to agree with her analysis of the situation. And the Azzoni white from the Ardeche, a vin nature, that we ordered was very good.

One way or another, it was a relief to have escaped from the surrealistic mark-ups on wine that have become the rule in New York City restaurants–it still stings to have paid a thumping $12 for a water glass of very ordinary rose at a West Village bistro, and $60 a bottle for an undistinguished Albarino at a trendy Spanish restaurant on First Avenue was highway robbery, too.  All of which is to say that today Paris is a much more affordable place to eat well at mid-level everyday prices than New York or London, or almost any other major American city.

Since we were five, we basically ate the entire menu at Au Petit Panisse, and enjoyed this witty modern French comfort food made with well-sourced produce. Since I’ve developed a samphire ( a delicious crunchy seaweed) fetish, I ordered that as my starter with a nice milky ball of mozzarella, while the terrine du chef was excellent, too, and a deconstructed oeuf mayonnaise with radishes, crabmeat and powdered almonds was a dish all of us immediately decided to copy at home.

Paris is going through a decidedly tentacular phase at the moment, since octopus seems to show up on almost every menu. Happily, I like it a lot, and it was prepared two ways at Au Petit Panisse, as a starter with heirloom tomatoes and Scamorza, and grilled as a main course with a wonderfully ruddy stew of fresh white Paimpol beans, tomato, fennel and bacon.

Steak tartare was excellent–coarsely chopped to order, seasoned with fresh herbs and piment d’Espelette and topped with a grating of ewe’s milk cheese, a clever idea, while a thick slice of gigot d’agneau (leg of lamb) was grilled and accompanied by lentils with roasted hazelnuts.

Desserts were a perfect hinge between the seasons, too, with Fontainebleau cheese garnished with stewed Mirabelle plums and shortbread and an airy flan scattered with blueberries, raspberries and cookie crumbs.

The dining room here was a charming setting for this meal, too, since an old cafe du quartier had been so lovingly restored, with its original wooden doors being scrapped of paint, the bar buffed up, and the winding metal staircase to the first floor left in place. Service was friendly and efficient, and everyone agreed that it had been worth traveling across town to have dinner here, because the food is as appealing as the atmosphere.

And for my part, I loved the meal, because it made me so happy to be home again.

Au Petit Panisse, 35 rue de Montreuil, 11th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-43-71-37-90. Metro:
Faidherbe – Chaligny or Rue des Boulets. Open daily for lunch and dinner.

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Tucked away in one of the ancient and atmospheric side streets that survived the massacre of Les Halles*, the great central food market that was once ‘the Belly of Paris,’ La Poule au Pot is a long-running address that once attracted a bon-vivant crowd of celebrities and night owls with a comforting version of the dish from which it takes it name. Now, happily, it’s been saved from becoming yet another clothing boutique or sandwich shop–the most common fate of any commercial space that changes hands here today, by talented chef Jean-Francois Piège. Piège, 47, has three other excellent restaurants in Paris–Restaurant Jean-Francois Piège, his gastronomic table; Clover Grill, a steakhouse that’s also near Les Halles; and Clover Green in Saint-Germain-des-Pres. This fourth restaurant, however, is the one that feels like the most personal expression of the chef and the traditional French cooking he loves.

I’ve been smitten by Piège’s cooking ever since I first discovered it back in the days when he was head chef at Les Ambassadeurs, the now-defunct restaurant of the Hotel de Crillon. If I loved the wit of his deconstructed spaghetti carbonara–a chunk of crispy pork belly accompanied by a fragile parmesan cartridge that contained the pasta, just napped with cooking water, butter and black pepper, and love what he does at eponymous his Michelin two star restaurant, La Poule au Pot is the table that most deliciously reveals this amiable chef.

Chatting with the chef when I went for dinner with Bruno the other night, he told me, “My idea was to serve the food that I grew up eating in Valence. I love this cuisine bourgeoise French food, and this is a profoundly French restaurant.” To that end, he freshened up the old restaurant without jarring the wonderful 1950s ambience created by mirror-tile covered pillars, floral wall paper, a work-a-day tile floor, wooden chairs, or the big wooden-boxed table radio on the copper bar where little brass plaques bear the names of famous patrons of yore, many of them show-business people most English-speakers won’t know. Adding an amusingly populaire aural note to this mis-en-scene, the restaurant’s soundtrack is the seventies and eighties Pop music Piège grew up on, a detail I like, because it basically tells you, Don’t take this place too seriously–you’re here to have a good time. And we did, a very good time.

We were happily eating some oeufs mimosa–here stuffed eggs topped with riced egg yolk, chives, and finely chopped crackling, an excellent idea, with a flute of Champagne when all of a sudden a guest at the large table of ten on the wall across from us stood up and started singing opera. He had a beautiful voice, and he sang for a good five minutes, which stopped the restaurant in its tracks as patrons and waiters listened appreciatively. Who was he and why was he singing I have no idea, but I did see a couple of excellent bottles of red Burgundy on the table where he was sitting. Beyond that, La Poule au Pot in its new version remains the same bastion of complicit conviviality that it’s always been, or a far cry from the kind of modern Paris bistro where the waiter feels that it’s incumbent upon him to explain the chef’s ‘concept.’

Looking at the menu, it was tough for us to decide what we would eat, since we pretty much wanted everything. But finally Bruno chose the split and roasted marrow bones and me the galantine de canard, a vieille France marvel that’s much too rarely seen on Paris menus these days. Bruno went into a sort of Cro-Magnon trance eating his bones, while I drifted off into a reverie of gastronomic content induced by the beautifully made and perfectly seasoned galantine, a coarse pistachio-studded fowl forcemeat surrounding a lobe of foie gras and garnished with radishes and a gorgeous amber gelee of deeply flavored duck stock.

And because Piège is a reflexively generous man, a quality very much reflected by his cooking, he also sent out an order of frog’s legs en persillade (garlic, parsley, butter) for us to share. These succulent little morsels came from frogs raised in his native Drome, and they were tender and had the subtly mossy taste of a clean country pond.

On the way to dinner, I had every intention of having the poule au pot, or chicken poached in bouillon with vegetables, but since Piège has sensibly decided to serve it only during the cooler months, I had a perfect excuse to zero in on the blanquette de veau–veal in a creamy sauce with baby vegetables and mushrooms, here served with steamed rice, although I was sorely tempted by the turbot with hollandaise sauce. This gentle beautifully made stew was as happy and consoling as a grandmother’s hug, too.

Meanwhile, after dithering between the veal sweetbreads with girolles and the merlan (whiting) frit, Bruno chose the latter, which came to the table with fried parsley and tartare sauce and was good eating on a warm summer night.

Dessert seemed a long shot for us after being so lavishly well-fed, but we decided to share the sampler of three tarts. This turned out to be a wise decision, too, since the apple tart was one of the best I’ve ever eaten, I loved the big juicy blackberries on another, and the chocolate tart had a gently bracing bitterness and was perfectly made.

“This was the food that made me move to France,” I told Piège at the end of our meal. “It’s the French food I like best, too,” he replied, bashfully but obviously happy to have created so much pleasure. Walking home on a summer night with a moon in the sky, I also wondered at how fresh this cooking seemed. But this just goes to show that if you live in Paris for over thirty years like I have, what’s old invariably and quite wonderfully becomes new again. On the fulcrum of great Gallic cooking, it’s the city’s old-school cooking that not only balances the new, but makes the new both possible and interesting until it stops being new, and you start craving the edible varities of tradition again.

*The original market, a handsome cluster of glass-and-cast-iron Baltard pavilions, was destroyed after Paris’s wholesale food businesses were moved to suburban Rungis in 1969 and a notably ugly ill-conceived urban renewal project built–a modern mostly subterranean retail mall and transport hub, on the site. It’s recently been renovated with an undulating yellow-lollipop glass roof, an arguable improvement, but the gardens that surround the mall are still a torn up mess, perhaps awaiting a final redesign when tycoon Francois Pinault’s new museum of modern art opens in the former Bourse du Commerce.

9 rue Vauvilliers, 1st Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-42-36-32-96. Metro: Les Halles or Louvre-Rivoli. Open daily. Prix-fixe menu 48 Euros. Average a la carte 75 Euros. www.jeanfrancoispiege.com

The post La Poule au Pot, Paris | The Charming Reboot of a Storied Bistro, A-/B+ appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

After reading several positive reviews of Jacopo, the new moderately priced bistro by Thibault Sombardier, a media-loving young chef who has a Michelin star at the seafood restaurant Antoine and who was also a contestant on Top Chef, the French dueling chefs television show, I met a friend for dinner with high expectations. The address in the rue Vernet in the 8^th arrondissement seemed to auger well, too, since this street had once been the location of one of my favorite Paris restaurants, Les Elysees du Vernet at the Hotel Vernet when several superb chefs—notably Bruno Cirino of L’Hostellerie Jerome in La Turbie, successively made it a dark-horse favorite with a beautiful setting under a verriere (glass ceiling) design by Gustave Eiffel (this restaurant still exists and is today known as Le V, but I have no opinion on it today, since I haven’t dined here in at least ten years).

On the way to dinner I also found myself thinking that a decent bistro in this business-and-tourist district of the 8^th Arrondissement along the Champs Elysees might spare some other hapless debutant visitor to Paris the ordeal that befell me on my first night in the French capital (mind you, I’m still eternally grateful to this day that my parents considered this trip to Europe to be an essential part of the education of their four children). On that steamy August night, however, a reunion meal was on the horizon, since my mother, two brothers and me were meeting my father and sister at a hotel just off the Champs Elysees after having traveled on our own for two months.

During those two months when Mom ran the show, we’d eaten exceptionally well, too, including a superb meal at Cipriani in Venice and another one at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. For the occasion of her children’s first night in Paris, my mother, who had decided to throw caution to winds and spend a good chunk of an inheritance on this trip, had booked us at La Tour d’Argent. She wanted us to have an experience of French haute cuisine, the view of Notre Dame and the Seine by night, and the dozens of intricately stitched lessons in gastronomy, worldliness and gallantry such a meal would surely offer.

Steak at Jacopo

Lemon tart at Jacopo

Suffice it to say, my late father quickly reasserted himself as the family’s final arbiter of all things financial and told my mother to cancel the reservation, because it was, in his view, an absurdly extravagant and foolish place to take adolescent children. “Why don’t you children wait for us in the lobby downstairs,” my mother suggested.

So we sat in a strange row of four armchairs upholstered in some prickly fabric, and eventually they emerged from the elevator, my mother with tear-streaked cheeks first. We ended up walking down the street our hotel was located on and having a meal at the very same Pizza Pino that still exists at the corner of the Champs Elysees and the rue Marignan today (for the uninitiated, Pizza Pino, is a French pizza chain that’s not even on par with such sorry options as Pizza Hut or Sbarro). For ferocious pizza-lovers from the American state that has the best pizza in North America—that would be Connecticut, thank you, this meal was so mind-bendingly bad that it brought on a bout of collective hilarity that disguised, if not completely healed, the conjugal tug of war that had just taken place. To this day, I remained convinced that any cook who puts canned pineapple rings on a pizza is in need of a urgent psychiatric treatment, however.

Who knows, I thought as I arrived at the door of Jacopo, maybe if half-decent reasonably priced French food had been easy for us to find all of those years ago, my Parisian learning curve would have had a different point of departure. As is my habit, I read the menu before going inside to meet my friend, and it looked promising—there were lots of things I’d happily eat—and it was indeed quite reasonably priced, too. The long narrow dining room was rather odd-looking, however. With exposed cement walls and ceiling, bright modern lighting fixtures, dark stained parquet floors and Navy blue Fiberglas chairs at small metal edged tables, it looked more like a sports bar in a Sunbelt city than a bistro.

The joint was jumping, though, with a happy mixture of after-work office friends, tourists, and some French out-of-towners who’d must have heard about the place via word-of-mouth. Over a nice pour of Petit Chablis for 7 Euros a glass, a price that sort of par for the game in any central Paris neighborhood if you’re drinking better than plonk, my friend and me studied the menu and the crowd. We were fish out of water here, you see, because like most Parisians, we almost never find ourselves on the Champs Elysees for any reason that doesn’t have to do with some business-specific errand. Though the city of Paris has made a huge effort to enhance and renew the appeal of the avenue, it’s just not a place Parisians gravitate to, because they’ve long since written it off as tourist turf, or sort of a much better looking and considerably less illuminated Gallic version of Times Square in New York City.

I decided to order a meal that was as French at Vercingetorix, the great hero of the Gauls. To wit, onion soup and blanquette de veau, while my friend opted for the oeufs mayonnaise—hard-boiled eggs with mayonnaise, another dish as Gallic as Charles de Gaulle’s nose, and cod persille (parsley butter with tomatoes and bread crumbs). Then I glanced at the wine list, which was where I expected the restaurant would be making its margins, and they so they did. If there was one white at 25 Euros a bottle and a red at 24 Euros, it was an expensive roster, an off-page nod at the rents in this very expensive part of Paris and perhaps targeted at a business crowd at noon. Still, two people having a three-course meal and sharing a bottle of wine could get away for about 35 Euros a piece here, and cheaper still with just a glass of wine with their meal.

Salmon tartare

That’s when it occurred to me: We were having dinner in a French version of the Olive Garden (a popular chain of moderately priced fast-casual Italian restaurants in the United States), or a sort of fast casual pastiche of a real bistro designed to deliver familiar affordable indigenous comfort food at easy prices in a setting that forsook the touristy memes of white laces curtains and red-checked table cloths. And this is when the meal suddenly became really interesting, because even if the French supposedly consumed more hamburgers last year than they did jambon beurre, the famous sandwich made with baguette, ham and salted butter, the success of this no-reservations restaurant is a reflection of a deep yearning for the type of traditional French dishes that few middle-class people in France have the time to prepare anymore and which are now most often found in a handful of expensive tourist-oriented bistros in Paris. But would the food be good at Jacopo?

Our first courses were not promising, to say the least. My onion soup was unpleasantly sweet, which made me less unhappy that it had been served in such a stingy bowl, and was garnished with a large obviously pre-made crouton topped with dried out melted cheese. More puzzlingly, the oeufs mayonnaise were frankly terrible; the three egg halves (what happened to the fourth one?) were overcooked and topped with a thick flavorless foam that had no resemblance to mayonnaise whatsoever. “You can’t expect miracles for these prices,” my pal commented as she observed my optimism deflating. Except, that is, when you can.

My blanquette de veal was so good that I knew that if I found myself at lose ends for a meal in this part of town, I’d pop in to Jacopo again just to eat this delicate stew of tender meat, onions, mushrooms and carrots in a silken and light but flavorful cream sauce.

“This is really good,” I told my pal.

“No!”

“Yes! Have a taste,” I said, and she did.

“It is good, but my fish is overcooked and has no flavor.”

A shared and rather sad baba au rhum concluded this gastronomic foray, and I went off into the night undecided about the utility of this place, because on the one hand, it was better than the fast food places and chain restaurants on the Champs Elysees, and also relatively affordable, and on the other, the cooking was decidedly hit and miss.

Fast forward two weeks. On a rainy day around noon, I found myself in this neighborhood again when I went to collect a travel visa from an embassy located here, and as it started to pour, I found myself standing hungry near the doors of Jacopo just as it opened for lunch, and thought, Why not?

This time round, a steamed artichoke with a vinaigrette sauce as a starter, chicken breast in a nicely made sauce with baby lardons and mushrooms and surprisingly good frites brought on the same sort of pleasantly muddled satisfaction I used to feel many many years ago when I ate at…Howard Johnson’s, the sadly now defunct, solidly middle-class, middle-of-the-road Quincy, Massachusetts based restaurant chain that passed as a treat for their fried clam plates and peppermint-stick ice cream with hot fudge-sauce sundaes.

Everything wasn’t good at Howard Johnson’s—you had to know what to order, and the same thing is true of Jacopo, which is nobly catering to a similar demographic niche, too. To wit, if you know what you’re doing, you can have a perfectly pleasant meal here, especially for this part of Paris. My late father would have loved it.

5bis rue Vernet, 8^th Arrondissement, Tel. (33) 01-42-89-20-22, Metro: George V. Open daily for lunch and dinner. Average 35 Euros. www.jacopo.fr

The post Jacopo, Paris | An Affordable French Take on Fast-Casual Dining, B-/C+ appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

Laetitia and chef Romain Brechignac @Lisa Klein Michel

A really excellent recent meal at Le Flaubert, which was originally called Le Bistrot d’a Cote when two-star Michelin chef Michel Rostang first opened it thirty years ago, got me to thinking about the impact of the internet on restaurant writing. To wit, the only reason I had this fine feed at a restaurant I’d once loved but hadn’t been to in over ten years is that some visiting friends from South Africa had been advised to eat there by a good hotel concierge. Otherwise, I am usually so caught up in the cycle of the new, new, new–Hello, SEO (search engine optimisation) that I very rarely find the time to go back to places I’ve enjoyed to see how they might be evolving, holding up, changing.

What this does, in effect, is penalize the careers of established chefs and well-run restaurants, since after the initial blaze of publicity when they open, how do they remain sought-after, talked about, and most of all profitable when the whole dining-out gig is so gamed towards the new To be sure, a great chef can win a solid following of regulars who fill his or her dining room day in and day out, but the ferocity of the new remains hard to overcome, since it’s become a given that novelty is the best driver of cyber clicks, because–it is hoped–they will translate into on-line advertising, assumed to be the last bandage of ever more seriously ailing print publishing.

It’s not that the New hasn’t always driven media, but rather how fierce this has become as we read more and more online, with the websites’ infinite need for fresh content, than we do in print.

As someone who ardently loves good food, my goal here isn’t to open the back of the cyber business models that drive the internet, but to simply observe that they are changing the way we eat in ways which often reward good public relations more than they do good cooking. When it comes to Le Flaubert, I still remember the flutter this place caused when it first opened, because it was so surprising in 1987 that a Michelin two-star chef would turn his hand to affordable everyday dining. But insofar as this idiom is concerned, Michel Rostang is every bit as much a father of “La Bistronomie,” or modern French bistro cooking, as chef Christian Constant and the band of young chefs he trained, notably Yves Camdeborde, Eric Frechon and Thierry Breton.

After the meal I had here the other night, I can also say that this table is not only better than ever but has become one of the finest bistros in Paris. So what lucky happenstance it was that delivered me to its door, and my thanks to my Capetonian friends for getting me back here. As soon as we stepped through the door, the atmosphere was terrific–the dining room had that wonderful winter fug generated by people who are eating and drinking well, and the hostess here, Laetitia, was delightful from the moment she brought us our menus with that sort of saucy, bemusedly wry social posturing that’s bistro service at its best. We ordered glasses of Condrieu, because who wouldn’t, and after they came to the table Laetitia followed with a slice of excellent homemade jambon persille (a Burgundian terrine of chunks of ham in parsley-brightened aspic).

The South Africans were as excited as baby seals to be in Paris again after a very longtime, and since neither of them speak French, I sherpa-ed them through the menu, which left them squirming in their seats with anticipation. And since even after many years as a Parisian, I could never become blasé about the city myself, we were an eager audience when our starters arrived.

Caroline’s mackerel poached in white wine was beautifully plated with pickled vegetables and poached spring onions with an iodine rich seaweed vinaigrette, while Hunter slipped into sort of a monastic meditative bliss as he ate his duck and foie gras pate en croute, which was encased first in buttery pastry and then in a shimmering garter of dark amber aspic–I forked in here, and it was in a mouthful everything that has always defined this restaurant, or a sort of exalted rusticity produced by applying steely haute-cuisine technique to bistro dishes. Much as I adore these friends, it was a struggle against a surge of animal avarice to allow my friends to taste my airy gnocchi a la Parisienne with roasted ceps and sweetbreads, since this was not only one of the best dishes I’ve eaten all year, it was ecstatically consoling on a cold, damp winter night. That said, I hate to think of how I might of reacted if either of them had asked for a second taste.

Our food was so soothing that it allowed us to unload our respective burdens–them, the corruption of the Zuma government, me–well, just guess, without denting our pleasure and move on to happier subjects of conversation, like the beach house that Hunter had designed for them on a pristine stretch of the Indian ocean in Mozambique, one of the most beautiful countries I’ve ever visited, or the intriguing way that Cape Town is slowly but surely recovering its essential DNA as a city once known as “The Tavern of the Seas.” To wit, they said that there’s more racial comity than ever there, and that it’s less and less self-conscious. Caroline asked me about “the handsome Macron” and all of us confessed that we didn’t have a clue as to what Bitcoin might be and couldn’t care less one way or another. We also chatted about the impact of the internet on our lives, the ways we love it, the ways we don’t, with Hunter expressing exasperation that anyone could become famous just for knowing how to grab our increasingly shattered attention spans in cyber space, as opposed to having some real talent.

For mains, Caroline ordered the roasted octopus with artichoke and onions, because, as she later admitted, she’d never eaten octopus before (“it’s odd, but delicious,” was here take on this tentacled treat), and I couldn’t resist the olive-oil poached cod on a bed of Paimpol beans and ceps. Both dishes were made with superb produce, impeccably cooked and deeply satisfying, which put them at a notable difference from a lot of the wearisomely chef ‘bistronomique’ I’ve been eating too often lately.

Hunter went with the daily special, seared scallops with parsnip puree and pickled cauliflower. “It’s rare to find fresh scallops in South Africa, and if you do, they’re no where near as good as these–so firm and such a nice gentle sweet taste,” he said in praise of these succulent marine morsels from Normandy.

As part of a losing, but hopefully not futile, battle not to become a client of a chain of stores called the Big & Tall Men’s Store, a plus-sized place  where I once worked as a college student for a few weeks one summer–my father insisted I get a job before I went away to my ‘real’ summer job as a waiter on Nantucket, because he didn’t want me “loafing around,” I don’t normally eat dessert. Still the South Africans insisted, so I told them about the first day on the job at the Big & Tall Men’s Store, the only store in a suburban Connecticut strip mall without a front door–the clients parked in back and came in through the back door, presumably because they were too embarrassed to be seen going into such a place, and I was astonished to discover box shorts the size of small circus tents and suits that would fit a redwood.

During the dull hours when there were no customers, I’d sit on a stool by the cash register reading, and then when the door bell rang, signaling the arrival of a client, I never knew what shape of misery I’d find when I looked up, often way up, or wide, often very wide. These men were hurried, furtive shoppers, because they were miserable being in the store and just wanted to get it over with in a hurry. I’d mostly leave them alone, since I knew they wanted as little interaction as possible, but occasionally I’d try to help, especially during the summer, when I’d ask them if they needed a bathing suit, too. Nine out of ten of them were hugely relieved by the suggestion. “Do you sell them#8221; “Yes” “In my size#8221; “Of course,” I’d say, and steer them away from the tropical prints and stripes to the solid colors.

My memory shared as a protest got me no where, though. “Well, you have thickened up a bit since we last saw you (note to self: never be coy about your weight), but that’s no reason not to have dessert with two dear friends,” said Caroline. So I ordered some honey ice cream with roasted prunes and raisins, because it sounded more healthy than anything else. Hunter went with the petits pots de creme au chocolat a l’ancienne (the world’s best chocolate custard) and Caroline, the poached pear with whipped cream and walnuts. And so there was a sweet ending for all of us to a wonderful reunion and an excellent meal.

Le Flaubert – Bistrot d’a Cote, 10 rue Gustave Flaubert, 17th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01- 42-67-05-81, Metro: Pereire, Wagram or Ternes. Open Tuesday to Friday for lunch and dinner. Saturday dinner only. Closed Sunday and Monday. Prix-fixe menus 45 Euros, 36 Euros, 32 Euros, Average a la carte 50 Euros. www.bistrotflaubert.com

The post Le Flaubert, Paris | A Truly Excellent Bistro, A-/B+ appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

@Yann Deret

Tinkering with a neighborhood institution is always risky, but the new version of Vins des Pyrénées is a solid success. Why Truth be told, this wonderful old hole-in-the-wall that’s been open in one guise another since 1906 is actually more appealing now than it’s ever been, with much better food than it served in the past, a great-looking new decor that respects its past rather than overwhelming it, friendly service, and a terrific cocktail menu. Best of all, it’s still one of those rare places–for the time being, where you can decide to go at the last minute without having made a reservation (reservations are preferable, bien sur, but sometimes a date just happens, and this place privileges such spontaneity rather than imposing the tyrannical straight-jacket of a reservation on a spur-of-the-moment good time).

  This is a rare good news story, too, at a time when income-inequality driven gentrification continues to ravage the sociological ecosystems of the world’s most desirable cities. Even though Paris is subject to the same forces have sadly dulled and pasteurised so many of the most wonderful parts of New York and London, and the French capital has been less disrupted than those latter two, the Marais continues to go relentlessly upmarket. But at Vins des Pyrénées, owner actor Florian Cadiou has shrewdly respected the enduringly democratic DNA of the quartier enough to draw up a menu that lets you pop in for a single course–maybe their excellent Croque Monsieur made with truffled Gouda, and a glass of wine for twenty euros, which is what goes a bargain these days in Paris.

To be sure, some of the old timers, like the vociferously cranky middle-aged British music critic in a vintage black leather Perfecto jacket and his equally grumpy companion who sat next to us at dinner the other night, won’t be pleased. But hey, the days when Jim Morrison liked to hang out here aren’t coming back. That said, this place still manages to be cool without calling a tedious amount of attention to its hipster cred, and that’s something to be grateful for in an age of wiltingly over-hyped and over-conceptualised restaurants. After all, who doesn’t love an address where you could actually become a regular without having to spend a small fortune or reserve in advance?

@Yann Deret

@Yann Deret

At the end of a busy day, a cocktail seemed like a good idea, and it was, because young bartender Adele Fardeau, ex- Mandarin Oriental Hotel, makes a very fine drink indeed.

Chef Jimmy Ferret @ Yann Deret

@Yann Deret

From the brief modern French comfort food menu by chef Jimmy Reffet, who most recently cooked at Saturne and Terroirs d’Avenir, among other places, we went for the foie gras and the roast lamb croquettes, both of which were excellent. Other tempting starters included marinated leeks with crushed hazelnuts in a sauce ravigote, jambon Basque from the Maison Ospital, and terrine de campagne with homemade pickles.

Main courses of steak tartare and squid stuffed with piquillo peppers, chorizo and fennel were nicely made, too. And in the end, the menu reminded me of the French equivalent of those pleasant if unremarkable neighborhood restaurants with names like the Peacock Feather or the Drink Well and ‘bills of fare’ that ran to cheese burgers and chef salads that you used to find in the West Village in New York City. This genre of now extinct Manhattan table was where the locals went on the way home from work, alone or with a friend, for a cocktail or two and a good simple meal in a place that was friendly and familiar, because the fridge was empty, their bed was empty and/or they wanted some company. Vins des Pyrenees operates on exactly the same wave-length, although the bar upstairs has already become a place where the wild things are, especially the pretty little conservatory cum fumoir.

Le fumoir at Vins des Pyrenees @ Yann Deret

We shared a lemon meringue tart for dessert, and agreed that the only slightly disappointing thing about this place is the wine list, which, given the name of the place, could and should be a lot more interesting. What I’d love to see is a full range of French wines running from the Basque Country to the Languedob-Roussillon and some Spanish wines, too, since the Pyrénées are after all shared by France and Spain.

Vins des Pyrénées isn’t a place you come in search of gastronomic exaltation, but it’s very likeable for so usefully offering a good feed and great drinks seven days a week in one of the most appealing neighbourhoods in Paris.

25 rue Beautrellis, 4th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-42-72-64-94, Metro: Saint Paul, Open daily 7AM–2AM,  Lunch menus 17 and 22 Euros, average a la carte 35 Euros. http://www.vinsdespyrenees.com

The post Vins des Pyrénées, Paris | A Marais Bolthole Gets a Clever Reboot, B appeared first on Alexander Lobrano.

Chef Ollie Clarke

Smoked lamb carpaccio at Origins 14 – La Regalade

British chef Ollie Clarke has bought the legendary La Régalade in the 14^th Arrondissement and is transitioning it towards a new name, Origins 14 – La Régalade. In all likelihood, this will be shortened to Origins 14 once Clarke has settled in, but for the time being, the moniker La Régalade is being retained as a sort of placeholder, because so many people know where this restaurant is located and also that it was the birthplace of la bistronomie, or modern French bistro movement, when chef Yves Camdeborde first opened it in 1992.

Since modern French bistro cooking has become the dominant culinary idiom among ambitious young chefs going out on their own, it’s almost hard to imagine that this cooking style barely existed twenty-five years ago. That was when a band of young chefs who’d worked with chef Christian Constant when he was head chef at the sadly now vanished Les Ambassadeurs at the Hotel de Crillon began going out on their own and applying the haute-cusiine lessons they’d learned from Constant to bistro cooking.

This included the idea of using luxury foods liked foie gras and truffles as garnishes on bistro dishes, shorter cooking times, a lavish use of fresh herbs, and a preference for jus (deeply reduced meat or seafood stock) and vinaigrettes in place of traditional French sauces made by deglazing cooking juices with wine and then elaborating them with rich dairy products like butter and cream. Vegetables suddenly achieved a new importance in the context of this cooking style, too, and homelier cuts of meat, including a lot of organ meats, and less expensive fishes (mackerel, herring, red mullet, etc.) took pride of place on the menus at this new breed of bistro, which also dismissed the canon of traditional bistro cooking, including such grand Gallic dishes as blanquette de veau and boeuf bourguignon, as too rich and too heavy.

French food writer Sebastien Desmorand coined a name for the new movement, La Bistronomie, and a raft of new guides and publications, including Nova (no longer publishing) and Le Fooding (now partially owned by Michelin and so part of the establishment it once took such iconoclastic delight in ridiculing and rejecting) championed it. So it thrived, and to such a degree, in fact, that it’s now much easier to find a bistronomie style meal in Paris than it is a traditional bistro feed.

On my way to the restaurant on a cool autumn night, I remember the spectacular first meal I had at the original La Régalade. First we gorged ourselves on the superb loaf of terrine de campagne that arrived at the table with excellent bread compliments of the house, and then I had ravioli stuffed with foie gras under a thatch of truffle shavings and a sublime dish of grilled rougets with cep mushrooms and roasted chestnuts. This meal was so good that thinking about still makes me ravenous many years later. So I was very curious about how Clarke would reset the pendulum of this very famous place en route to meet Bruno there for dinner.

Arriving, the look of the dining room hadn’t changed in any perceptible way, which allowed me the pleasure of some umami-rich gnawing on old bones nostalgia for all of the excellent meals I’d eaten here through the years, with different people and on different occasions, over a glass of excellent Cotes du Roussillon Domaine Modat while I waited for Bruno. The crowd seemed little different from the last time I’d been here, perhaps five years, ago, as well, since it remained a mixture of locals, guidebook-following foreigners, French out-of-towners staying in inexpensive hotels around the Porte d’Orleans and solidly fed Parisian regulars of different stripes who’d probably arrived by Uber. There was, however, a sprinkling of younger types, who probably knew Clarke’s cooking from the days he was chef at Fish La Boissonnerie, a popular expat table in Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

So I found myself musing like some kind of an uncle on the idea of having known this restaurant for its entire lifetime and also wondering why I hadn’t been here in such a longtime. In the end, the reasons this address fell off my list had to do with the fact that bistronomie became so ubiquitous it no longer required a journey to an out-of-the-way corner of the 14th Arrondissement to enjoy or not enjoy it and also because as good as the cooking of chef Bruno Doucet may be–Doucet took this place over when Camdeborde moved to Saint-Germain-des-Pres to profitably play to his international reputation in a front-row setting where he could command higher prices, it lacked the sinewy originality and occasional thrillingly primal bluntness of Camdeborde’s style. All of this probably explains why Doucet decided to sell the restaurant to Clarke and concentrate on the two other Paris restaurants that bear the La Regalade name, La Régalade Saint-Honoré and La Regalade Conservatoire at the Hotel de Nell. Odds are good that he probably wants to make some money off of a good globally known brand name on his own count, too–and who can blame him, without having to worry about maintaining the allure of the original location.

When Bruno showed up we ordered right away, since he was hungry at the end of a long day. After the waiter left our table, I found myself earnestly hoping about what would happen next, and then it did. The help-yourself terrine de campagne brought to the table as a complimentary hors d’oeuvre arrived with a thump, and then there was second thump an earthenware jug of cornichons was set down on the table, along with a basket of excellent bread. And we shamelessly savaged the terrine, which was superb. Oh, and by the way–don’t even think about scolding the fat edging this terrine, since it was as delicious, maybe even more delicious, as good butter. Just for the record, maybe it’s Instagram fatigue or something, but I’ve also gone completely off super-styled food photography and am now besotted with photographs that tell the truth.

Since the kitchen was clearly struggling a bit to keep up with a full dining room just a couple of weeks after the takeover, we were also treated to a superb slice of one of the best rabbit terrines I’ve ever eaten. Clarke, 28, whose food I loved at Fish La Boissonnerie, has clearly mastered his basic Mrs. Beeton’s cooking skills, because these beautifully made terrines could as easily have been served in a Cotswold farmhouse as a restaurant in Paris. And in the interval between the terrines and the arrival of our first courses, I couldn’t help but think about what a hugely challenging thing a reset of La Régalade would actually be, since it’s such a monument of recent Parisian gastronomy. And yet…. And yet the thought does occur that bistronomie has become pretty rote after twenty-five years, so perhaps we’re eager for a delicious and well-reasoned change?

No sooner than I’d started mulling over this idea–what exactly might we be wanting when we sit down in a Paris bistro today#8211;then our starters came to the table. My carpaccio of smoked lamb with spinach leaves, pine nuts and Kalamata olives was excellent, as was Bruno’s marinated bonite with Granny Smith apples and roasted chestnuts. And then it struck me–maybe what we want is food that’s less chef-y and more about good eating What made me think this is that these starters were intelligently conceived, well-sourced, frank and not intended to show off, or bear a showy chef’s signature, although they did–Ollie Clarke’s.

For all of his experience in Paris, I have a sneaking feeling that it’s not the French chefs he worked for who had the biggest impact on Ollie Clarke, but British seafood maestro Rick Stein, since Stein is a cook who glories in great produce and is fascinated by preparing traditional recipes with the subtlest of tweaks. What this means is food that’s delicious and modern but humble. Or food like Ollie Clarke’s.

Even if they both had a flaw or two, our main courses confirmed this perception of Clarke’s cooking as feet-on-the-ground, with the good bones of serious technique, plus a sensibly shy shot of imagination and a profound love of produce. My pork belly was described as croustillant, or crispy, on the menu, but wasn’t. Still, the taste was gently smoky and pleasantly porcine, and the garnishes of cabbage and carrots with a puree of boudin noir (blood pudding) were logical–the vegetables, and clever–the sauce. Bruno liked his veal breast with honey-glazed parsley root, too. When I return, however–and I will, I’ll order fish, because I’d be curious to see just how Rick Stein may still be Clarke’s compass in the kitchen, since Clarke began his career at Stein’s The Seafood Restaurant in Padstow, a pretty seaside town in Cornwall.

Clarke also had the good sense to maintain another much loved tradition at La Régalade, the individual Grand Marnier souffle, which was impeccably made and as much of a failsafe Gallic happy ending as can be imagined. Ditto a stunningly good baba au rhum, or sponge cake gorged with rum-spiked sugar syrup, a big quilt of vanilla-flecked whipped cream and the charming garnish of candied lemon verbena leaves.

This was a very very good meal, and the Paris table it made most think of wasn’t any of the bistronomie places in Paris today, but rather the restaurant Bones when Australian James Henry was the chef there. Clarke and Henry share a love of the art and hard work of good honest cooking made with excellent produce, and neither of them need to insert themselves into the story with fiddly garnishes or fussy plating like many other bistronomie chefs. So Ollie Clarke is off to a a terrific start, and La Régalade looks good to go for a new cycle of quiet culinary renown with him in the kitchen.

Origins 14 – La Regalade, 49 avenue Jean Moulin, 14th Arrondissement, Paris, Tel. (33) 01-45-45-68-58. Metro: Porte d’Orleans. Prix-fixe menu 37 Euros. www.origins14.com Open Tuesday to Friday for lunch and dinner, Monday dinner only, closed Saturday and Sunday.

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