When it first opened some twenty years ago, Au Bon Accueil became a huge hit as a precursor of what is today known in Paris as ‘La Bistronomie,’ or market-driven contemporary French bistro cooking. I wrote it up for a long-gone but still lamented travel magazine called European Travel & Life, which was one of the best travel magazines ever to come out of the United States, and we went often for inventive and delicious dishes that came with generous garnishes of what were then a great novelty–fresh, carefully cooked vegetables. As seems to be the inevitable evolution of any popular restaurant in the French capital, this place eventually found its way into most of the world’s major English-language guidebooks, raised its prices and became difficult to snag a table at without booking a longtime in advance, so I drifted away.

On a rare night this summer in Paris when it was possible to sit outside, I was racking my brains for a place that would be open in August, serve outside, have good food and not be too expensive. So I thought of this place, was surprised that they were open, and went off to meet a friend from London for dinner.

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Bruno pondering Aux Verre de Contact  When it reopens on Tuesday (August 23), I suspect that Au Passage, a terrific new wine bar tucked away in a funky lane between the Place de la Republique and the Place de la Bastille may be taken by storm, because people have been talking about this place all summer. I went just before the team here, which includes some really nice Spring alumni–Audrey, former hostess at the restaurant, and talented Australian chef James Henry, who was part of the kitchen cast, took a much needed summer break, and not only was the food very good but it was a lot of fun.

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With a name that makes it clear they’re making a play for the fashion-business lunch crowd in the heart of Paris, including, rather panderingly, staff from nearby Chanel, Camélia is the ‘second’ table of the just opened Mandarin Oriental Paris hotel. It’s also under the aegis of the hotel’s chef Thierry Marx, and weather permitting they serve outdoors in the hotel’s attractively landscaped interior courtyard garden. So deciding to take advantage of a woefully rare break in the ceaseless rain falling on Paris this summer, and also curious about what Marx would get up to at a ‘second’ table, Bruno and I made a dash for it and went to dinner here the other night.

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It’s taken 136 years, but there’s finally a restaurant at Paris’s Opera Garnier. Architect Charles Garnier had always envisaged a restaurant in one of the city’s most beautiful and iconic buildings, but it was never realized for financial reasons. Other attemps were made in 1973 and then again in 1992 by Pierre Bergé and Hugues Gall, but both plans fell short for lack of funding. Now, after a seemingly eternal wait–the latest project has been muted for at least three years, and the launch chef seems to have changed every fifteen minutes, too, with Lyon’s Nicholas LeBec said to be in the wings for years only to be purportedly replaced by Alain Senderens at the last minute, L’Opera Restaurant is finally open, with chef Christophe Aribert of the two-star Les Terrasses in Uriage near Grenoble running the kitchen.

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They’re not a lot of ‘forgotten’ or overlooked neighborhoods in central Paris anymore, but the Quartier de l’Europe, that curious hive of streets which bear the names of various European cities between the Place de Clichy and the Gare Saint Lazare is still sleepy and relatively unknown. To be sure, the neighborhood was once home to the headquarters of many big insurance companies and was also known as ‘Le Quartier des Assurances,” but most of them have decamped to unlovely suburban office buildings overlooking the peripherique these days. All of this may be about to change though, because Google is setting up shop in the rue de Londres, and once they finally finish the eternal renovation of the Gare Saint Lazare, I think this neck of the woods is going to take off.

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Okay, so I’m a little wary of crowd-sourced travel tips. The one and only time that I ever used TripAdvisor to find a hotel has become a standing joke between Bruno and me. We were traveling to Florida for a wedding with our friends Laurent and Carole, and since I’m the native English-speaker, I’d been deputized to book hotel rooms in Tampa, which is where we’d be first arriving from Paris before heading on to Sarasota. Like anyone before a trip, I had a million things to do the day before we left. Suddenly, it was midnight and I was zipping up my suitcase before a crack-of-dawn flight when Bruno asked me where we were staying in Tampa. Oh, God. I’d completely forgotten to book our rooms, so I galloped on to TripAdvisor and booked two rooms in the top-rated hotel in Tampa, which, the description noted, was very near the airport.

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