Ever since he took over the original La Régalade in the 14th arrondissement from founding chef Yves Camdeborde in 2004, Bruno Doucet has continued to delight bistro-loving Parisians with his shrewd and technically impeccable modern French bistro cooking. First he rebooted the menu at La Regalade, making it brighter and more modern than what Camdeborde had originally been doing, and then he opened a branch, La Régalade Saint-Honoré, in the 1st arrondissement.

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Mea culpa, but it’s the middle of winter in Paris when the days seem to last fifteen minutes and everyone I know is sun-and-fun deprived and slammed with work. So you do what you can, which in my case meant an impromptu decision to have a big fat burger for lunch after a morning of appointments in the 10th arrondissement. Truth be told, I’d have preferred the Daily Syrien, for Ahmad’s fabulous falafel and turnip pickles, but it was packed, so I crossed the street to Paris New York, the latest high-concept burger joint in Paris and hoped for the best. The brief menu offered a choice of 4 differently garnished burgers made with Breton Pie Noir beef from Le Poncelet, a prestigious butcher shop, or a portobello mushroom burger; fries; cheesecake; various craft beers; wine by the glass at three different price points, the most expensive being Francis Ford Coppola Diamond Collection red and Newton Chardonnay.

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I know, I know, I’m a bit odd, because I actually like winter. Some part of this preference may be due to my New England upbringing, but most it surely comes from the DNA I inherited from stalwart ancestors 95% of whom lived in cold, light-deprived parts of Northern Europe my surname notwithstanding. So sallying forth on a winter night when big fat lazy snow flakes were whirling to the ground, I was in fine fettle, because I was meeting a friend at the new Septime La Cave, the wine-bar annex of Septime, a restaurant I like very much.

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The facade of Le 6 Paul Bert brought Georges Braque to mind

Even though I’ve lived in Paris for a very longtime and go out at least five nights a week, there are still a few restaurants I always look forward to going to again and again–Le Paul Bert in the 11th arrondissement, for example. I’ve loved this place ever since the first time I stepped in the door a good five or six years ago, because it is such an almost studiously perfect example of a genus very dear to my heart, the Paris bistro. This place isn’t some sort forgotten off-the-radar cat-sleeping-on-a-pie restaurant, though, but instead is an exactingly rendered summary of everything the whole world thinks of when it thinks of Paris bistros, from the saucy service to the zinc bar and wonderfully assorted (but again mostly artfully styled) flea-market enriched decor, and a menu that’s meant to be a primer of great bistro dishes but which truth be told, somewhat undershoots this mark for lacking many plats mijotee, or long-simmered stews and casseroles like boeuf bourguignon or coq au vin. Instead, most of the cooking at the Paul Bert consists of prepped starters and a la minute grills, and it’s very good indeed.

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Though I really regret the socio-economic homogenization that’s taking place at an ever accelerating rate in the 9th arrondissement, because I loved the more motley mix of inhabitants I found when I first moved across the Seine in 2000, there’s one way that this change is having a brilliant impact on the neighborhood. As I’ve observed before, a week doesn’t go by without another really good new restaurant opening its doors to feed the hungry throngs of affluent bobos, who are mostly too busy to cook themselves but love good food (oh, and yes of course I know that longer term residents than me might be tempted to tag me as a bobo, or bohemian bourgeois, too, but I think that at this stage of the game I’m shading towards eccentric, since being bohemian is a privilege of those under 40, and while I might be accused of being many dubious things, one I’m most decidedly not is bourgeois).

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When Mme. Penny de Bay-Shore, an American friend who runs a wonderful B & B in Honfleur (La Petite Folie) first tipped me off that Alexandre Bourdas of Sa.Qua.Na., a chef from the same delightful seaside Normandy town whom we’re both big fans of, was opening a restaurant in Paris, Pascade, my pulse raced. Why? For anyone who loves really good food, it’s been an odd year in the French capital, with a variety of popcorn-like novelties–cheeseburgers, burritos, hot dogs (never thought I’d see this day in Paris), eclairs in sweet and savory versions, and other foods that are part of the media-annointed cannon of upstairs-downstairs trendy cosmo eats, getting a lot of ink from the French press and all of the international outlets that feed on its teats, but with many fewer good new serious restaurants. So I hoped we might see out the year with a bang, i.e., a really good new restaurant after so many wet fire crackers, ego annexes, marketing step-children and other new spots that were almost anything but interesting and sincere.

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