…Costes brothers at their various waningly fashionable addresses, including the Hotel Costes, Georges at the Centre Pompidou, and La Société in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, has happily been eclipsed by an accelerating return…

…little fish house in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, cast off the robes of Escoffier–his sauces, and served fish almost naked. He invented this dead simple approach to seafood cookery while running his first…

…wine. It’s immediate charm, which comes from the wake of the addresses that proceeded it at the same address, notably Le Taxi Jaune, is joyously authentic and profoundly Parisian, from…

…their clients, preferring to believe instead that people come to them on bended knee for magic-show-like manifestations of their brilliance. Sometimes this happens, sometimes the construction resembles the last scene…

…too. Freshly landed squid cooked on a plancha until they were just tender and garnished with summer vegetables, including radishes, broad beans, corn, carrots, zucchini and potatoes composed this succulent…

…ambassador. That early summer night, the dishes that Bruno and I ate with old friends from Los Angeles left us diffident at best. Charles and Kato were off to Switzerland…

…round the world to track down the long vanished traces of the bohemian community that made Montmartre one of the world’s greatest artist colonies between 1880 and 1914, at long…

…hours: Le Premier – Tues-Fri for lunch, 25 Euros; Occasional Thursdays for dinner, 40 Euros; Le 28 – Wed-Fri for lunch, 30 Euros; Mon, Tues for dinner, 40 Euros. www.ferrandi-paris.fr…

…of smoked brill, and it was a subtle, pleasant composition of flavors and textures that was distinctly Nordic and very refreshing. Wine: Macon-Uchizy Les Maraches 2012 Domaine des Comtes Lafort….

…and smoked celery root skin–Braden likes smoke, and so do I–came with a brilliant side of baby spinach leaves, hazelnuts, pickled grapes, crimini mushrooms and frozen foie gras shavings that…

…and accessible house wines to better bottles that carry a much gentler markup over retail prices than is usually found in Paris restaurants. You don’t come here for cutting-edge cooking,…

…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…

…and then I walked many long blocks on pavements made pretty but slippery by random collages of the year’s most tenacious yellow leaves finally pelted off the trees by a…

…to ornament the epergne in the center of the table. During the seventies and eighties, the decline of life-styles that regularly required fish fork and knives, much less silver-plated asparagus…

…generous slices with a trio of sauces we ignored (although the Béarnaise was clearly homemade and pinch hit as the perfect dipping sauce for some excellent frites), chunky fries, and…

…steamed cockles and squid’s ink mayonnaise that was one of the best uses of this product I’ve ever found. Spared the usual heat, the ink retained a potent oceanic lushness…

…the gathering mists of exasperation that had installed themselves at our table, and this despite the fact that we very much enjoy each others company and hadn’t seen each other…

…also has one of the city’s loveliest terraces for out door summer dining, which is a Parisian passion. Grand Coeur (The Big Heart) comes with a seriously impressive pedigree, too,…

…of umami, but also a perfect reflection of those dishes Rathgeber loves best and does best, dishes with melded flavors, the duck, the fat back, the beans, some tomato, and…

…at us. “Vous etes des freres?” Oui. “Et vous aves trop bu hier soir, ca se voit!” Oui. She smiled and shook her head. “Vous etes des mauvais garçons? I…