LA TABLE DES ANGES--The Discreet Charm of a Really Good Neighborhood Bistro, B+

 

  Unfortunately it doesn't happen very often, which is why I appreciate the very rare pleasure of spontaneously deciding to try a restaurant in Paris even more. As a food writer, you see, I'm obviously obliged to keep up with the latest new addresses, and since I don't like going to restaurants on the weekend if I can avoid it--as a rule of thumb, Parisians generally cook or entertain at home then, which leaves the city's restaurants to suburbanites or tourists, and I'm also too busy to go out to lunch, this leaves me five available meals per week to test the latest openings. This may sound adequate, but recently a whole week went by during which I didn't find a single meal that was worthy of writing up here, even if only in negative terms.

  

   

   Yesterday, though, after we couldn't get into "Mud," which opened here yesterday, Bruno and I decided to go for a long walk after having spent a print-drunk day at home. Knowing that the fridge was bare, I hoped the Tunisian green grocer at the bottom of the rue des Martyrs would be open so that we could buy some asparagus and rustle up a simple dinner at home. But he'd already closed, so we keep walking up the rue des Martyrs with the idea of doing sort of a H shaped walk home. Along the way, I found myself regretting the two branches of Fuxia that have opened here--the food's okay, but it is a chain, and also thinking that it had been a very long time since I'd last eaten at Le Cul de Poule, which was packed last night. The menu there didn't really speak to me, though, and Bruno had already said he didn't want to eat at a restaurant, so we keep moving, and then it started to rain again, so we stopped under the awning of La Table des Anges to wait out the shower, and of course I read the menu posted outside. It looked really good, and there was a reasonably priced 32 Euro prix-fixe, so I turned to Bruno, who said "Non" even before I'd opened my mouth. "Well, why 'Non,'? We don't have anything to eat at home, it's getting late, I'm hungry, this place looks good." "We still have some salad." He could live on lettuce and other leaves, but I can't and won't so I told him I'd invited him to dinner and stepped inside.

  

 

  Seated at a wooden table with Kraft paper place mats by one of friendly owners, who immediately brought us a complimentry serving of speck and salami to nibble while we studied the menu, I liked the look of this place. The exposed stone walls gave it a warm atmosphere, and the slicing machine by the chalkboard announcing the daily specials inspired confidence, too. Still, tempted though I may have been, I was not going to order langoustine risotto in a Paris restaurant I didn't know--I've had good risotto exactly once in Paris during twenty-five futile years of trying, and so instead decided on the asparagus veloute and the brandade de morue, which is one of my favorite dishes. Bruno chose the homemade duck terrine and the quenelles de brochet (pike perch dumplings), and we ordered a bottle of Fleurie, a perfect Spring time wine, from the short but interesting wine list. Happily, the bright cherry-jam nose of the Fleurie dissolved whatever peevishness Bruno was still nursing over this impromptu dinner outing, and then things took a decided shift for the better when our starters arrived.

  

 

  Studded with pistachios, Bruno's duck terrine was homemade, beautifully seasoned (thyme, green pepper corns), generously served and accompanied by a ramekin of tangy onion jam. My froathy soup had a superb depth of flavor, too, and the bread served with these dishes was excellent crusty baguette with a lacy crumb and a faint perfume of wood smoke. I overheard the couple sitting in the corner across from us congratulating themselves for having found this place, too, and grinned as I watched the owner serving them each a complimentry tot of fiery hazelnut eau de vie that had been made by monks somewhere in the Yonne. I hoped we'd get to taste it, too.

  

 

 

  Since brandade de morue, that sublime mixture of baked olive-oil lashed whipped potatoes, salt cod and garlic that's perhaps best sampled in Nimes, can be a sorry business when it's not made with real care, I hoped our luck would hold with the main courses. Ditto Bruno's quenelles de brochet, which can be leaden and tasteless when made from industrial ingredients in industrial quantities. This apprehension surely explained Bruno's alarm when the waiter revealed his enormous quenelle in a covered Staub casserole. As if reading his mind, however, he reassured Bruno that it was homemade and also explained that the accompanying sauce had been made with broth and a little cream but no flour. The quenelle's delicate sauce was also garnished with mushrooms, carrots, baby onions and a potato. 

  

  Potently garlicky and almost airy in its lightness, the brandade was superb, as was Bruno's quenelle. When we claimed a well-fed pause before dessert, the owner returned to the table with two glasses of Fleurie from another producer, a thoughtful gesture, and we complimented him over his chef. "Thank you, yes, he's very talented," said the proprietor, who told us his name is Yan Duranceau, a young up-and-comer who has already worked at Le Grand Véfour, the Plaza Athénée and Taillevent.

  

 

  Both of us finished up with fine slices of brebis d’estive, which is made by Christine Arripe at her Ferme de la Montagne Verte in the Ossau valley and shipped directly to this restaurant in Paris. The particularity of this rich but subtle ewe's milk cheese is that it's only made during the transhumance period from June to September in the up-mountain valleys of the Bearn. Not surprisingly, it has won a Slow Food label, and it's just superb.

 

  And finally, two slugs of that mysterious hazelnut eau de vie, which made our eyes water and tasted exactly the way a rafter in the attic of Burgundian barn might if you gave it a good lick--grass, dust, caramel, smoke, it was just lovely, and we walked home with the fuzzy happiness of having inadvertently discovered a delightful new everyday restaurant in our neighborhood embroidered with the warm halo induced by the monks' skills with a still.

 

La Table des Anges, 66 rue des Martyrs, 9th, Tel. 01-55-32-24-89. Metro: Pigalle or Notre Dame de Lorette

www.latabledesanges.fr, Closed Sundays and Mondays. Lunch menu 16 Euros, prix-fixe menu 32 Euros. Average a la carte 45 Euros. 

LA REGALADE CONSERVATOIRE - Another Superb Performance from Chef Bruno Doucet, B+; L'AFFRIOLE - In Top Form After All of These Years, B

  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.

  For anyone who hated trekking to the outer reaches of the 14th arrondissement--and most people did, this second address was a real blessing, not only for its convenient location, but also because the contemporary bistro cooking served here is so outstanding. Now Doucet's launched a third address, La Régalade Conservatoire in the gorgeous new Hotel de Nell, which opened two weeks ago and has already become one of the hottest boutique hotels in Paris. 

  Arriving with Bruno, Tina and Francois on a wintry night, we had a drink in the bar with a glass room behind reception, and enjoyed the gorgeous hand-made oak furniture that is a major component of the interior design that brilliant designer Jean-Michel Wilmotte did for the hotel. Here, Wilmotte, black-and-white checkerboard floor, solid oak chairs, and tables with beige runners create an atmosphere that's profoundly Parisian, but modern by teasing the usual nostalgia this term so often implies when used in a decorative context with strong graphics and a rigorous Zen design aesthetic. This is the second restaurant I've recently dined in by Mr. Wilmotte--the last one was Yannick Alleno's Terroir Parisien, and I have to say that he's become one of the best restaurant designers working in Paris today.

   Doucet's menu for this handsome dining room rolled out some terrific new dishes I'd never seen before, too. What I really wanted was the creamy cauliflower, Stilton and bacon soup that Tina had, but since I'm still flogging some of the caloric discipline I learned during a week of low-calorie thalassotherapy in Brittany, i went with the marinated scallops with Granny Smith apples and aged Comte in a fine cubed hash adding texture and a gently acidic bite to the creamy scallops under a thatch of frisee dressed in chive oil. I also loved the quiet daring of pairing cheese with scallops, since according to conventional Gallic kitchen wisdom the only dairy produce appropriate for this shellfish is cream. Instead, the comte deliciously enunciated the natural creaminess (sic) of the scallops.

   After our main courses, a few sticking points registered. When the delightful hotel manager excused himself and went home, service fell off a cliff in the dining room, with the waiters clustering behind the bar like a bunch of crows and almost pointedly ignoring their customers, and this was after they'd failed to present the complimentary terrine that's one of the signatures of a La Regalade meal without being prompted. The bread was also dull, and lighting in this dining room needs to be tweaked, since the built-in ceiling spots cast small short hard beams of light instead of illuminating the room gently and thoroughly. And as good as the food is and as attractive as Wilmotte's dining room may be, this place has very little atmosphere. All of these flaws will doubtless be remedied as the restaurant settles in, however.

  Our main courses were excellent. Francois tucked into a big juicy steak sliced and presented on a mound of stewed beef cheeks and carrots in a red-wine enriched jus; Bruno and loved our griddled half-salted cod with a pistachio crust on a bed of winter vgetables and shellfish (mussels and cockles) in a delicate shellfish bouillon, and Tina wolfed down a grilled breast of veal with winter vegetables.

  Rice pudding with caramel sauce, a classic La Regalade dessert, and pomelo-and-pineapple fruit salad with excellent ginger sorbet concluded this very good meal, which had a particularly festive air for me and Bruno, since this new branch of La Regalade is a very easy walk from our front door.

 

  The following night, after we'd both had non-stop days during which neither of us had time to shop, we decided to meet for dinner somewhere midway between Bruno's office and our apartment. I asked Bruno if he had any ideas. "That's your job," he said. Oh, okay. Well, I left it until the last minute, and then was trying to think of someplace relaxed, pleasant and reasonable on the Left Bank, no small order, when it occurred to me that it had been years since we'd been to L'Affriole, a long-running and very good bistro in the 7th run by chef Thierry Verola, who'd worked with Alain Senderens a longtime ago. So I booked us there, and our first surprise was that the warm honey-and-ochre vaguely provencale dining room of yore had vanished in favor of a good-looking and much hipper decor that referenced various Fifties French classics--the green chairs have the shape and design of those found in public parks like the Jardins du Luxembourg or French classrooms, and the tile walls and factory-style suspension lamps also had an appealing retro look.

   

  The chalkboard menu offered all sorts of appealing choices that night, but both of us started off with the butternut veloute, which was rich and pleasantly garnished with Savoy cabbage, and then Bruno had sea bass with a red wine sauce and winter vegetables en cocotte, and I continued on my cod bender with a perfectly cooked filet in a creamy soubise sauce. Our desserts were excellent as well--ile flottante with creme anglaise for Bruno and apple-and-raisin compote for me. All told, with its warm friendly service and reasonably priced wines, L'Affriole is a very good neighborhood bistro that well deserves its swarming crowd of regulars.

L'Affriolé, 17 Rue Malar, 7th, Lte. 01-44-18-31-33. Metro: Pont de l'Alma Closed Sunday and Monday. Lunch prix-fixe two-courses 26 Euros, three-courses 30 Euros; Dinner prix-fixe 36 Euros.

La Régalade Conservatoire, Hôtel de Nell,  7-9 rue du Conservatoire, 9th, Tel. 01-44-83-83-60. Metro: Bonne Nouvelle. Closed Saturday lunch and Sunday. Prix-fixe 35 Euros.

LE 6 PAUL BERT - Really Good Modern Bistro Cooking in a Great-Looking Venue, B+

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.

   

  

   To be sure, I've had good and less good meals at Le Paul Bert, but I have such profound respect for and confidence in owner Bertrand Auboyneau, who also owns the very good Ecailler de Bistrot fish house a few doors down from Le Paul Bert, that when I heard he'd opened at second bistro, Le 6 Paul Bert, it was the first thing I did after returning from a Christmas trip to New York. Because we'd eaten lavishly well in New York, where the occasion was a big birthday for Bruno, he wasn't exactly champing at the bit for anything more than salad at our kitchen table on the night I roped him in trying this new place with me, but all reluctance faded immediately the minute we stepped in the door of this very handsome new restaurant and were promptly seated by a charming young waitress (she and the second server, a nice waiter, get kudos, too, for so cheerfully keeping up with orders in an very busy and challenging dining room--small plates mean a lot more to and fro at the table).

     

  The menu came as a surprise for being an assortment of small plates in the idiom of such recent Paris restaurants as Saturne or Roseval, but these rather cryptically described compositions--as is true at Septime and many other new Paris restaurants, dishes are described haiku style as lists of their ingredients, sounded great, so we quickly decided to go with the 38 Euro 3 plates and dessert dinner menu. We negotiated the who was getting what, and then with a bottle of one of my favorite white Crozes-Hermitage wines (Les Baties from Dard et Ribo) and better bread than I've eaten from Jean-Luc Poujauran in a longtime to keep us happy, I mused on a more immediate dilemma--should I say hello to Le Figaro food critic Francois Simon, who was sitting at the table next to me, or desist for fear of calling attention to him if was hoping to remain as assiduously anonymous as possible; I decided to desist--it was very easy to relax in this exquistely decorated and well-lit room. With a small selection of groceries up front and a service bar, young Quebecois chef Louis-Philippe and sous-chef Elsa cook in a small open kitchen at the head of the room, and tables come in a variety of different sizes, including a rectangular one for six up front.

  

 

   

  Our first two dishes--my 'ravioli' of daikon radish, chopped raw beet, tangerines and oysters in a delightfully gentle citrus vinaigrette, and Bruno's grilled squid in a herb oil coulis with baby salad leaves were beautifully conceived and intriguingly referenced by the subliminal tidal pools of the collective culinary imagination of young chefs around the world. While very much his own creations, these cameos indicated that Louis-Philippe is doubtless aware of what colleagues like David Chang (Momofuku, NYC), René Redzepi (Noma, Copenhagen), and Luke Burgess (Les Garagistes, Hobart, Australia) are doing, to say nothing of other l young turks in Paris, including Gregory Marchand at Frenchie, James Henry at the soon to open Bones, or Braden Perkins at Verjus. To wit, these plates exhibited a suave play of acidities and different textures, were sort of raffishly elegant, and packed some powerful pleasure with the freshness of exquisitely sourced produce.

   

 

  Bruno's next dish, rollmops (herring) with a cucumber pickle, pickled scallion, beets and cream, leapt back across the Atlantic to the deli traditions of Eastern seaboard cities at the other end of the steamboat borne Eastern European diaspora a century ago, especially New York and Montreal, and was really fascinating for being framed by Paris, a city where Ashkenazic dining traditions have been fading for a longtime. I liked my chunky veal tartare, which made me think of the one served at Les Fines Gueules, although the seasoning was off balance due to too much mustard oil. Both dishes were worldly, well-prepared, and in the context of Paris today, shrewdly daring. Or in other words, anyone who knows what's cooking in New York or Stockholm and other cities right now might not find these preparations especially original, but in Paris they politely make a request to change the gastronomic conversation, and that's a good thing. 

 

  

  

  And with the arrival of our third course, something really fun and unexpected happened--I suddenly found myself in the presence of the first Dude Food I've ever eaten in Paris. People in other cities are actually a tad weary of this David Change cum M. Wells style of eating, but for me, a semi-assimilated Parisian, it was mighty fine. Bruno let me taste his succulent pork belly with baby clams and Japanese artichokes (crosnes, in French) and it was terrific--an immaculately conceived and cooked little still life that just left you wanting more. My barbecued pork on a carrot crepe sounded sort of awkwardly effete on the menu--I kept thinking of a high-school quarterback I once knew who is today married to a very handsome stock broker named Tad in Boston, or a study in troubled masculinity, but all of this smoke and mirror action vanished when my critical sensibility was snuffed out by a stroke-my-belly hit of unexpected pleasure. Hey, I know I'm no Dude, but on the other hand I love meat, smoke, everything fried, most fats and anything that's crunchy and edible. I'm trying damned hard to train myself to like healthy food, too, and this is why I loved getting a pass card with the 'carrot crepe,' which was really nicely seasoned root veg mash with some good crusting. So Louis-Philippe knows how to do North American Dude Food to suit a European sensibility, and that's a mighty fine gastonomic hat trick.

  

 

  By now I'd decided I really liked this place, an impression that deepened with a good cheese course (mine) and an odd riff on cannoli, those deep-fried Sicilian pastry treats filled with ricotta and candied fruit that I used to crave in New York's Little Italy and Boston's North End. Here, though, damn it all, cannoli just meant a round tube of caramelized sugar filled with lemony cream. Bruno said it was great, but I was still in athletic- protector mode after my barbecued pork and only wanted to eat all of my really good cheese.

 

  Aside from the charming service, what I most appreciated about this restaurant is that chef Louis-Philippe has the really long gastronomic antennae needed to cook in the context of what's happening all over the world right now, along with a really interesting nascent cooking style of his own and impressively solid kitchen skills, and these are the reasons I predict he'll become an important chef and that this swell little bisto will be packed solid within a week or two as the reviews roll in. It's imminent popularity notwithstanding, I intend to become a regular here, because they're so few restaurants in Paris today that issue themselves the almost nightmarish challenge of changing their menu every day. 

 

 6 rue Paul Bert, 11th, Tel. 01-43-79-14-32. Metro: Faidherbe-Chaligny. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Lunch menu 23 Euros, Dinner menu 38 Euros, average a la carte 40 Euros.  

 

N.B. Several readers have recently reported problems with their reservations L'Ecailler du Bistrot and Le Bistrot Paul Bert, and when I went for my first meal at Le 6 Paul Bert, it took ten minutes to track down my reservation. All of which is to say that they're a bit overwhelmed these days, so to prevent a frustrating disappointment, my advice would be to book well in advance and reconfirm your reservation on the morning of the day you're going.

L'ATELIER RODIER--A Charming and Very Good Neighborhood Bistro, B

   

  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).

 

  In any event, the 9th arrondissement has become an irresistible location for ambitious young chefs like the tandem who have just opened the very promising L'Atelier Rodier, the wonderfully named Destin Ekibat, a delightful and talented young chef from the Congo, and Santiago Torrijos, who was born in Colombia (note, too, that the wonderful influx of international culinary talent to Paris shows no sign of stopping). They met while working in a suite of the same kitchens, including those of Robuchon, the Bristol, the Westminster and the Plaza Athenee, before going their own ways to the Raphael and Guy Martin respectively. But they knew they wanted to do a restaurant together, and so they shopped for a space for several years, finally found this old cafe in the heart of Bobo Land. 

   

  They did a lot of the work here themselves, too, and now it's a handsome space with exposed stone walls hung with photographs, pleasantly kitsch seventies wallpaper and an open kitchen with paned windows in the back. Arriving, the waiter offers to take your coat, and there's a drinks trolley that suggests an aperitif, perhaps a nice red Cinzano like my friend Odile and I had before dinner on a rainy week night. So in terms of its look and its service, it immediately presents itself as someplace that’s more ambitious, grown-up and customer-service alert than the average new neighborhood place.

  

   

  The 37 Euro prix-fixe menu was immediately appealing, too, so that even if an amuse bouche of foamy under-seasoned cauliflower soup under-whelmed, both of us like our nicely executed first courses—a tidy rectangle of dressed crab, which needed salt, on a bed of chunky celery root and cubbed Granny Smith apple for Odile and an open ravioli of wild mushrooms with a lemon-verbena spiked cream sauce and garnish of Spanish ham, which also needed salt, for me. Aesthetically soignee, made with well-sourced produce and generously served, both dishes were pleasant but also previewed the pardonable but recurring problem in this winsome young kitchen: a timidity with seasoning. 

   

  Odile suggested that the Spanish ham on my ravioli would have been better frizzled—she was right, for reasons of both texture and the richness of a little fat, and I added that the lemon-verbena sauce needed the texture of some piment d’Esplette or some other quiet fire. Herbs—maybe chives and cerfeuil, would have given similar relief to her crab, but in the end both dishes were well-prepared.

  

 

  Not very imaginatively, we both had the same main course—the last thing I’d ever do to anyone with joins me on a mission of discovery is bludgeon them into eating something useful to my review. I, of course, could have ordered something different, but on a cold wet night when I was tired I wanted the pot au feu de volaille, especially after seeing it served at a neighboring table. So we both loved this dish, which came as a beautifully prepared large dice of grilled autumn vegetables—leeks, celery root, turnips, parsnips, potatoes, Japanese artichokes and a succulent slow-poached chicken breast in a bowl filled with a superb gently spiced (star anise? clove? cinnamon?) bouillon. Madame and I agreed that this was a lovely dish, and couldn’t really find anything to improve, although I couldn’t help thinking that a couple of pot-stickers filled with a stuffing of chicken thighs and legs would have been welcome.

  

 

   When one of us of ordered cheese—a generous serving of excellent Salers, they served it to both of us, and then did the same with the slightly too gelatinous and under-seasoned lemon cheesecake. “This is a very easy restaurant to like,” said Odile over coffee, and I agree enough so that I went back a few days later and had a sensational dish of braised beef cheeks with a saute of artichokes, oysters mushrooms and girolles glossed with a light but thrillingly potent jus de boeuf. 

  

 

  If Ekibat and Torrijos are cooking this well in early days on their own, I think they’ll be doing some really spectacular food within a few months time as they become more confident, this kitchen gets broken in and they understand their clientele. I certainly intend to be on hand to find out, too, but in the meantime, my next stop will be at Premices, the other new restaurant in the rue Rodier and a louche, cool-operator looking place just aross the street from the sincere and very sweeting L’Atelier Rodier.

  

17 rue Rodier, 9th, Tel. 01-53-20-94-90. Metro: Anvers, Cadet, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette. Open for lunch Thursday-Saturday; for dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday. www.latelier-rodier.com

Lunch menu 18 Euros, dinner menu 37 Euros, five-course tasting menu 55 Euros, average a la carte 40 Euros. 

BISTROT CAPUCINE--That Great Little Place Just Around the Corner, B

     "Dear Alec, Looking forward to seeing you in a week, and to introducing you to my sons, especially the eldest, who's seems to be just about as food mad as you are. I know you'll be away the first two nights we're in Paris, so I've been poking around your blog to see if I could find a relaxed reasonably priced and decidedly French restaurant just out the door from our hotel in the 1st arrondissement. You've written about some terrific sounding spots in the 1st in your book and on your blog, but what I really need is a 'normal people' restaurant. Anything trendy would be lost on me and the boys, as would anything too cutting edge. Sorry to bother you with this, but maybe you'd have an idea of a friendly sort of meat-and-potatoes spot that won't break the bank but will serve us some good food, and, for dear old Dad who'll be running this excursion and is, as you know, fond of the grape, a nice bottle of wine!"

   This was the message I received a couple of weeks ago from Todd, a college friend from Pittsburgh who was taking his sons to Paris for the first time while his wife was on a long business trip in Asia, and it got me to thinking about how rare 'normal people' restaurants have become in the heart of Paris. With a few wonderful exceptions, only chain restaurants or slickly designed places peddling the ersatz health food that's become the new Gallic noon-time normal for office workers--smoothies, salads, soup, etc., can afford to set up shop these days on this prime turf, and this really can make it a challenge for visitors staying in any of the many hotels in the heart of Paris, or that turf defined by the Madeleine, Place de la Concorde, the Opera Garnier and the Place Vendome, to find a reasonably priced, good quality French meal. So I gave this request some thought. I like the Bistrot Volnay a lot, but knew it would be too fashionable for Todd and his boys. Then I remembered. As luck would have it, however, I actually had found a swell little bistro in this neck of the woods a few weeks back, Le Bistrot Capucine.

  I'd met a friend who's a hotel executive for lunch, and he told me that this friendly little spot with a gorgeous red Berkel slicing machine on the bar (anyone want to know what I'd like for Christmas? Yes! And the machine's painted the very same red as Santa Claus's jacket. Alas, these things run around $5000)--always a good sign, is not only his go-to spot for lunch but favorite new place to have a cave-man dinner, since it just started serving a swell small plate and côte de bœuf only menu in the evening.  

  That pretty Indian summer day, I loved chef Jean-Marc Berthelot's market-driven menu, and we had a terrific lunch--roasted smoked mozzarella with artichoke cream and cherry tomatoes, poached cod with really nicely made squid's ink risotto, and some brie de Meaux to see us through a last glass of a wonderful bottle of Minervois. It was while we were lingering over the rest of our wine and a coffee that we fell into conversation with the amiable Berthelot, who opened this restaurant in 1998 and who recently went through a royal battle with his landlord to prevent himself from being priced out the neighborhood.  The reason that this later subject came up is that I'd been talking about how all of the 'real people' places in the neighborhood had been priced out of existence, and specifically reminisced about the excellent traiteur where I used to buy lunch almost every day when I worked in the rue Cambon. The nice lady who owned this place smoked the ham she sold in the chimney of her country house and made all of the salads--celeri remoulade, potato salad, grated carrot, etc., from scratch everyday and they were delicious.

   Berthelot, whose interesting and accomplished career includes stints at Chez Pauline--the great now-gone bistro in the rue Villedo, Guy Savoy, various London kitchens and as a private chef on Caribbean yachts sailing out of Saint Martin, despairs of the economic gentrification that's making it hard to find a good meal in the heart of Paris, and this is why he not only put up a fight to keep his restaurant, but takes pride in serving only the very best organic produce, which he buys himself at the Marche de Vincennes or the Marche d'Aligre, and sourcing his meat at the Boucheries Nivernaises. He obviously loves his work as a chef and a host, so it came as no surprise when he mentioned that execs from nearby Chanel like to privatize his place for let-their-hair-down feasts in the evening every once in a while.

 

  In need of a similar let-down-your-hair meal a month or so ago, Bruno and I headed over here for dinner and had a terrific night. We sampled almost all of the small plate starters, including big fat fleshy Sicilian olives, grilled artichoke hearts, salami and sublime ham, and then tucked into a terrific côte de bœuf. This superb mountain of first rate meat came cooked perfectly medium rare with a generous side of sea-salted roasted baby potatoes and a chlorophyll bright sauce verte that was vivid with the tastes of flat parsley, chives, chervil and a little basil and tarragon. It met the char on the meat as a real treat, too. But since this dinosaur dinner weighed in at 900 grams, or almost two pounds, we struggled to finish it despite the fact that it was juicy flavorful meat with a perfect texture--it firm enough to require a sharp knife but was easy work under the blade.  

  Over coffee and a slug of great Basque eau de vie, we chatted with Berthelot and his wonderfully wry bar tender, and beyond politics and food, everyone railed about how no one makes time for a good time anymore--work has just about gobbled up everyone's lives, and about how they're fewer and fewer 'real' streets in the heart of the Paris anymore. By this we meant, streets with shops that sell things that you actually need and/or can afford, but a few survive, including the rue Vignon and the rue Caumartin, both of which we all like a lot.

   So on the way home, I ressolved to try and cover more 'real people' restaurants on this blog, and I also sent a message to Todd about the Bistrot Capucine. A few days later, I had a response.

"Alec, Thanks so much! We were pretty jet-lagged when we wandered into Bistrot Capucine, but Jean-Marc was so welcoming, speaks great English, and his beef was some of the best any of us have ever eaten. We liked this place so much we went for lunch a day later. I persuaded the boys to try Jean-Marc's cod steak with risotto and they loved it! Big step for American teenagers who will only eat pasta, pizza and burgers at home! See you on Friday and maybe we can talk them into some foie gras...or keep it all for ourselves! Best, Todd"

22 rue des Capucines, 2nd, Tel. 01-49-26-91-30. Métro: Madeleine or Opéra. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Lunch menu 28 Euros; average la carte dinner 30 Euros