Over the past year, the shaggy heart of the 10th arrondissement–as opposed to the already trendy part along the banks of the Canal Saint Martin, has emerged as one of the more interesting up-and-coming food neighborhoods in central Paris. I love Vivant, Pierre Jancou’s beautiful new bistrots a vins here, and also really like L’Office, which has a 9th arrondissement postal code but is really part of this neighborhood, and now just at the year’s end, Albion, another sweet little bistrots a vins (bavins) has added more momentum to this really charming–because it’s still not completely gentrified, corner of the city.

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Ghastly though it may have been in some ways–the American political situation comes to mind, 2011 has been a brilliant year for eating well in Paris, and the 11th arrondissement continues to thrive as one of the most reliable incubators of new culinary talent in the city, as the recently opened Le Petit Cheval de Manege so deliciously proves. Alerted to this place by my friend Nadine, who lives nearby, I met her for dinner on a Friday night at the end of a frantically busy week, and as soon as I spotted it, I knew from its warm Edward Hopper like facade that we’d probably have a really good meal, especially since there was some great cheese on display when I came through the front door.

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Unfortunately, I was never able to book a place at The Hidden Kitchen, the running series of private dinner parties cooked and hosted by the hugely talented Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian in their Paris apartment, because I travel so often and these meals were so popular you had to commit weeks ahead of time. Many of my favorite dining companions in Paris had raved about both the food and the hospitality at these meals, however, and so it was with intense curiosity that I went to Verjus, the restaurant the couple have just opened in a passage linking the rue de Richelieu and the Palais Royal for dinner the other night.

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  Maybe the most interesting thing about Racines 2, the new branch of the bistrots a vins in the Passage des Panoramas that was instrumental in launching the neo-bistrots a vins (neo-bavins) format is the clientele. Stopping in for dinner with my favorite fellow Connecticut Nutmeg man in Paris the other night, the abundance of leopard-print on ladies of a certain age led me to conclude that Madame Figaro must have recently annointed this trend, there were expensive eye-glasses galore, a distracting amount of pricey cosmetic surgery and that tell-tale sign of the 16th arrondissement, which is car keys–to big 4 x 4 environmental monsters–tossed on the table.

In any event, this dining room and Costes brothers type crowd come off as a sort of flying-saucer landing in the hip little ‘hood that was put on the Paris food map by Daniel Rose at Spring and Adeline Grattard at Yam’Tcha. Their compass points, however, are a deep love of good food, a democratic amiability and a passion for old stone, since both chefs painstakingly renovated and exposed the ancient walls that surround them. At Racines 2, in contrast, there’s a touch of old stone here and there but the main visual action is the Philippe Starck decor, some of it clever, like the mud-encrusted wicker bee-hive chandeliers but most of it deja vu for anyone who’s been to Bon, the original Starck designed restaurant in the 16th arrondissement, or the Royal Monceau Paris Raffles Hotel. One way or another, this restaurant feels very out of place in the rue de l’Arbre Sec, which is one of my favorite little streets in the heart of Paris. Even more alarming than the decor or the crowd, however, was the menu.

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In Paris, the new-wave bistrot a vins, or casual wine-oriented bistro with a short changes-often menu and a carefully selected list of wines that are usually organic or naturel—made without sulphites, is filling the hole in the local food chain left by the slow-rolling but ongoing demise of the traditional bistro. How are these places different from trad bistros? Well, the food is lighter, produce-centric, seasonal, inventive and often comes in a small-plate format. A real effort is also made to write menus that flatter the wine list and vice-a-versa.

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N.B.: Chef Kevin O’Connell is imminently to leave this restaurant; Charles Compagnon is a smart guy who knows good food, though, so stay tuned.

If I very much liked L’Office in its previous incarnation, the new one is terrific, too, and the change in chefs and ownership here adds momentum to one of the most welcome and interesting trends in Paris right now, which is that the city continues to be a magnet for talented chefs from all over the world. This internationalization of the city’s culinary talent pool mirrors what happened in the French fashion industry a longtime ago, and it’s adding a lot of energy, creativity and good food to the Paris dining scene. Among really good recently opened Paris restaurants with foreign-born chefs in the kitchen, there’s of course Chicago-born Daniel Rose at Spring, but also Mexican-born Beatriz Gomez at Neva Cuisine, Australian James Henry at Au Passage, Italian Giovanni Passerini at Rino, and a whole brigade of exceptionally talented Japanese chefs.

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