BONES--A Brilliant New Place to Gnaw On in the 11th, B+

 

  Last summer I had the insane good luck of going somewhere I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd see in this lifetime: Tasmania, the stunningly beautiful island which looks like a piece of Australia that snapped off and floated 150 miles south. Flying down to Hobart, Tasmania's largest city, from Sydney to meet my friends Peter and Mike for a week's exploration of this heart-breakingly gorgeous place, I sat next to a chatty lady who poured a tiny bottle of gin into her orange juice and told me she'd moved to the island from Melbourne a year earlier for 'private reasons.' And when I didn't touch that bait, she changed course and went on and on about the island's wonderful food and wine. I had, to be sure, heard friends in Sydney rave about Luke Burgess at Les Garagistes, but nothing prepared for me for the unselfconscious and sinewy genuis of the head-to-tail farm-to-table ethos of brilliant little restaurants like Ethos or the wonderful Pigeon Hole Cafe, which served me one of the best caffe macchiato I've ever had. To wit, the best young Australian chefs not only source as carefully and locally as possible, they grow and make as much of what they serve as they possibly can, and its the pervasive seriousness of Tassie's artisinal food culture that ultimately makes the island such a superb place to eat.

 

James Henry   Curiously enough, I found myself replaying these summer meals as I walked through the snow near Place Leon Blum in the 11th arrondissement the other night on my way to Australian born chef James Henry's new restaurant Bones. Following my trip down under, I had a keener understanding of exactly why I'd liked Henry's cooking at Au Passage, where I'd first come across him after he'd moved on from a stint at Spring, so much--he's a quintessentially Australian chef in terms of his relationship with the produce he uses and his cooking and hospitality style, which is warm, direct, and completely unpretentious.

  

   Settled in over funky good bottle of La Peur du Rouge, an unsulphured natural white wine from Domaine Le Temps des Cerises in the Languedoc, a lot of familiar food-and-wine faces popped from one of the hippest crowds in Paris these days, and yet there was nothing about this massively popular place that suggested it was a scene or would become a scene. Oddly, but sort of wonderfully, it's almost as though Henry built-in some sort of circuit breakers which will put off the poseurs who charge after every hip new address in the weekly style supplements. 

   

  For one thing, the lighting, such as it is, is harsh, with two old factory lights casting everyone in sort of a cold metalic rail-siding-in-the suburbs of Birmingham light. And then there's the fact that the young staff here are just plain nice. In fact it's pretty clear they're all working here for the same reasons that are pulling customers through the door--they're seriously committed to Henry's sincere hearty locavore cooking and natural wines and they're hoping to have a good time. Or in other words, there's zero attitude here, which gives this place a laidback, democratic quick-with-a-smile vibe that has a lot more in common with Hobart than Paris (to say nothing of Brooklyn, and can we please say nothing about Brooklyn and Paris in the same sentence again for at least a decade? Thank you!).

 

  So in Parisian terms, this place is actually sort of eccentric. Sure, they're a couple of other local restaurant people who are deeply into coining a new idiom for casual good-times good eating in Paris--Pierre Jancou, Charles Compagnon, and Samuel Urbain notably among them, but without giving it too much thought, Henry is really pushing the boat out even further, since Bones may be many things, but it's not a French restaurant per se. And that's one of the reasons that it's so interesting, so irresistible as a totem of Paris still teething its way into the 21st century.

  

  James's food is very nice, too. For all of the forearm tatoos, dude strut and punk-rock sound-track (fun!), Henry is a damned serious eye-on-the-ball chef, which is why his constantly evolving prix-fixe menu is a challenge he lives up to. 

  

 

   I really liked this flirty little hors d'oeuvre of shaved celery bulb with smoked trout and trout eggs, was happy to taste his griddled squid with baby onions and squid's ink again (a version of same was on the menu at Au Passage), and his yellow pollack (lieu jaune, in French) with candy-cane carrots from potager princess Annie Bertin was very good eating, too, as part of his 40 Euro prix-fixe menu. The dish that really bore Henry's signature, however, was the pigeon with kale--a big crinkly leaf of this still little-known in the Old World vegetable that was a sight for sore eye, and salsify with a punch-you-in-the-nose-mate sauce of blood, bird juice and gizzards; I loved it. 

  

  In fact I think Henry really likes giving his clients the bird, as it were, and when we had a chat, he told me that once he knows his following here better, he'd love to serve a lot more offal and other bits and pieces that might rough up a young French crowd that's been slowly sucuumbing to one of the most heinous of all American vices--chicken breasts. The only reason I learned to eat--and love, snouts and feet and innards of all sorts is that I moved to France, so the idea that a younger French generation is becoming disaffected with barnyard eating is an honest heart-ache for me. 

  

   

  Since my date was flu-ish we skipped the cheese course from the Auvergne, and side-swiped dessert instead. A composition of almonds, coffe and lemon, it was just fine, but nothing memorable--I've never asked him, but I just don't feel Henry to be someone who cares very much about the sweet end of a meal. Instead he's all about the energy and agitation of getting the feed started and the almost literal blood-and-guts of making sure you're well fed. So despite the fact that his cooking isn't very precise and lacks the cool-operator suave of Louis-Philippe Riel at Le 6 Paul Bert, this place matters most as the launch pad for a young man who is quite certainly fated to become a very successful and well-known chef, whether this future unfolds in Paris or elsewhere. It's also just a big sweet gulp of fresh air for anyone who wants Paris to ignore the 3 Bs--Berlin, Barcelona and Brooklyn, and coin its own idea of a grandly Gallic good time at the beginning of this new century as surely as it did the last one.

  

43 rue Godefroy Cavaignac, 11th, Tel. 09-80-75-32-08. Metro: Charonne or Voltaire. Open Tuesday-Saturday for dinner, bar up front is open from 7pm-1am. Prix-fixe dinner 40 Euros for four course, 47 Euros with cheese. www.bonesparis.com

AU PASSAGE--A Great New Wine Bar, B; AUX VERRES DE CONTACT--Could-Do-Better Bistro, B-/C+

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. 

   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.