Years ago, if you wanted to drink interesting wine and nibble some inexpensive food, your options were limited to wine bars serving platters of charcuterie and cheese. A handful of Paris places offered more in the way of padding, but the options were always simple – more hearty than arty.

The opening of L’Avant Comptoir in October 2009 kicked off a wave trickle of wine bars serving truly interesting food. Aux Deux Amis, Spring Buvette (RIP) and Le Dauphin followed within a year, and Frenchie has more recently opened a wine bar across the street. These places have a few things in common: small plates, impeccable ingredients, and small production/natural wines. They’re also refugee establishments, providing shelter for clients who couldn’t score a seat at the restaurant, or for former employees who have jumped the mothership. Aux Deux Amis falls into the latter category, as does my new crush Au Passage.

I knew that Audrey, former front-of-house mistress at Spring, was  somehow involved with this new wine bar in the 11th (she’s the girlfriend of one of the owners), but it was a pleasant surprise to also see James Henry behind the stove. James used to do the cold apps and desserts at Spring, and the evening menu at Au Passage is very much in this wheelhouse. Aside from a couple of fatty comforts (burrata, rillettes), most of the small plates could have easily been starters at Spring – they featured pristine produce (Joël Thiébault and Terroirs d’Avenir) and were bright with both color and acid. Flavor pairings were unexpected and, for the most part, successful. I loved the anchovy bass line in a dish of “courgette, ricotta” and the coriander flower in an escabèche with clams and chinchard (reminiscent of mackerel). I was less convinced by the sprinkling of pomegranate on a plate of “saucisse, carrotte”, but I can forgive the out-of-season and overplayed garnish when the dish was otherwise totally delicious. Desserts followed the same Spring format of crustless cream + fruit/chocolate + crunchy bits, but they make more sense in a laidback wine bar than a Michelin aspiring restaurant. Another nice touch: bread from Thierry Breton (Chez Michel) in the same style as (but better than?) Poujauran.

As for the wine, we tasted three and were enamored with two. The red Sancerre from Pinoz Dauny was a great way to begin, and we were delighted by the Verre de Poêtes recommended by Jean-Charles Buffet. I didn’t love the Boisson Rouge dessert wine, but 2/3 isn’t bad when one is prowling for new and interesting wines. We washed the sugar from our mouths with a smoky white whiskey and still managed to escape for only €40 per person.

In a nutshell: Au Passage is what happens when a business minded wine nuts open a large and relatively inexpensive space and spend their money on ingredients and talent. Prices are low, there enough tables and turnover to make booking a real possibility, and the menu changes every day. All this will probably add up to a habit. The rentrée will bring loving reviews and longer waits for reservations, so go and get it while you can.

Au Passage (closed August 7-22 for summer vacation & renovation)
1 bis passage Saint Sébastien, 75011 Paris
Tel: 01 43 55 07 52
Open Mon-Sat for lunch (1 dish for 9.50€, 2 for 13€, 3 for 16.50€) and dinner (small plates, most around 8€)
Facebook page

I think I may have found my happy place. In this place, men who are handsome enough to have worked at le Chateaubriand bring me glass after glass of natural wine. I soak these up with small plates of food that look simple, are made with foodie approved ingredients (Thibault veggies), and taste a little like love.

Burrata with green asparagus

The most delicious (oily, oniony) Tortilla outside of Madrid. Made by mom.

My happy place isn’t decorated like a 1970s dive bar. It just is a 1970s dive bar. I am surrounded by carefully scruffed kids in Converse, and the stereo is playing songs we haven’t heard since high school. The final bill includes small prices for food that’s noted as “solides divers”.

It won’t always be this good. The owner will come back, proper meals will return, and the stereo will be turned down. But at least for one night, in the company of an old friend, I felt (to quote L.L.) a little knocked out.

Aux Deux Amis
45, r. Oberkampf, 75011
Tel: 01 58 30 38 13

> Read other trusted reviews on Aux Deux Amis at Paris by Mouth

“That’s not possible,” I replied, and I meant it. For the past six weeks, in preparing to launch a new website, I’ve been following the restaurant press quite closely. If I hadn’t heard of it, I thought smugly to myself, then it probably wasn’t worth knowing about. I then proceeded to mock his choice. “Rino (the French pronounce this Reeeno)… will there be gambling after dinner?” He looked puzzled, knowing nothing of the Nevada town, and then decided to drop the subject. His redemption would come soon enough.

I ran off to Florence for the weekend and returned to find Rino the name on everyone’s lips. Those few short days brought a three-hearted review from Emmanuel Rubin (Figaroscope) and 4/5 dots from A Nous Paris.  Le Fooding called it “Italo-French genius.” Glowing praise from Alexander Lobrano included the words “simple, sincere, delicious, intense, this was one of the best meals I’ve eaten in a long time, and I can’t wait to go back for more.” There were emails waiting from friends, asking if I wanted to try this new restaurant that everyone seemed to be talking about. The boyfriend was (rightly) quite pleased with himself.

So let’s get to it: why is everyone talking? In part, because Rino is new (and there’s not much of that in Paris) and very cool. In walking from the Métro, we passed a record shop and the Bottleshop – a bar whose hipster contents on this balmy spring evening had spilled out all over the sidewalk. That vibe continued inside the restaurant, where the too-cool-for-decoration consisted of bare white walls and wooden tables.

A red dossier with the Rino logo (or was it Manpower?) was presented when we sat down. Inside, a folded-up wine list included a great selection of affordable bottles.  Of the 13 reds, nine were priced at €28 or less. That was also true for eight of ten whites. One or two were even (gasp!) less than €20. The waiter seemed to know his stuff (we learned later that he created the wine list), and so we asked if we might drink by the glass according to his suggestion. We tried four different wines, and they were charged at either €4 or €6 per glass. Not a misfire among them.

And how about the food? It’s hard to write about this without mentioning La Gazzetta, the restaurant where Giovanni Passerini had previously worked as sous-chef. Passerini’s dinner menu looked remarkably similar to that of his mentor Petter Nilsson. Like at La Gazzetta, Rino was offering a standard no-choice menu for €38 (4 courses at Rino, 5 courses at La Gazzetta) and a full-blown feast for €50 (6 courses at Rino, 7 courses at La Gazzetta).

On the menu at Rino last night:

• Barley risotto with anchovies, preserved lemon, and fish eggs
• Sea scallops with carrots, capers, and watercress
• Cod with swiss chard and pil pil (a Basque sauce)
• Chicken leg with tapenade and turnips
• Veal with oyster and beets
• Financier with pear ice cream and poached pear

For the record, my last meal at La Gazzetta also began with fish eggs, continued with cod, and and included some veal with sea urchin and beets. The similarities are obvious, but not unpleasant.

I was delighted by both meals, and by the sense of confusion that this kind of cooking creates. There’s something really fun about looking at a menu and having no idea about the taste of the proposed dishes. Barley and fish egg? It turns out to be stunning. Veal and oyster? Not as inspired as the raw version at Passage 53, but still interesting and new (to me). The most straightforward dish was dessert – a poached pear with ice cream and cake. It was simple and delicious – a soft landing back on earth.

In a nutshell: this is the new place that people will be talking about in Spring 2010. Inventive combinations, clean flavors, playful spirit. Prices are easy, especially if you go for the standard menu (€38) and an affordable wine at dinner. Lunch is priced at €18 and €22. I’ll definitely be going back.

Rino
46 rue Trousseau, 75011
01 48 06 95 85
Closed Sun/Mon

> Read other trusted reviews on Rino at Paris by Mouth

Years later, shortly after moving here, I met a woman at a party who turned out to be the food editor for TimeOut Paris. I asked her, as I’m sure everyone does, to recommend one really special place that I could afford. After a moment of appraisal (in which she might have seen that I was both eager and broke), she decided upon le Bistrot Paul Bert.

> Read the rest of this review at The Girls’ Guide to Paris

> Read other trusted reviews of Le Bistrot Paul Bert at Paris by Mouth

]]> http://megzimbeck.com/2010/01/le-bistrot-paul-bert/feed/ 0 http://megzimbeck.com/2009/10/go-west-country-girl/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=go-west-country-girl http://megzimbeck.com/2009/10/go-west-country-girl/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:02:38 +0000 Meg http://megzimbeck.com/?p=1160 I’ll admit it: the humble crêperie is one of my favorite places in Paris. The food is affordable—usually less than 15 euros for two courses—and the eating is easy. Nothing goes down better after a night of heavy wine “tasting” than a ham-egg-cheese complète. What’s more, the rough decor and the brusque charm of the waitresses remind me of old-time American diners.

Despite all this, I don’t often recommend crêperies for traveling foodies. These places, at least the traditional ones, are tricked out in lace and dark wood paneling. They feel like Grandma’s house, especially if your grand-mère is a sturdy Breton lass with loads of butter at the ready. Crêperies are comforting and cute, but they are most certainly not cool.

At least, that used to be the case. The landscape shifted recently when West Country Girl arrived on the east side of Paris. I suggested the new crêperie for a lunch with Catherine Sanderson of Petite Anglaise, and was relieved to see that the early reviews were right: this place is refreshingly cool. Stylishly retro, the banana yellow bar and cherry laminate tables are balanced by muted decorative painting from Olivia Marie-Debackere. There’s a revolver mounted over the stereo, which is piping a mix of Beirut and other indie darlings. Nick Cave, whose song inspired the restaurant name, is undoubtedly in the mix.

A friendly German hipster-waitress helps Catherine and me sort through the menu options. We both go for the lunch special, at 12.50 euros, which includes a complète, a dessert crêpe and a healthy dose of artisanal cider. The first crêpe arrives and is exactly as it should be: thin, dark and crusty on the outside (a lot like Nick Cave) with oozing (organic) ingredients inside. The subsequent dessert crêpe is slicked with caramel beurre salé—the salted butter caramel that makes everything right in the world. We finish with Illy coffee while debating whether the cute boys next to us are in a band or not.

In a nutshell: Hit West Country Girl for carefully made crêpes with a side order of indie cool. The retro-styled space is just around the corner from the bars of Oberkampf, making WCG an affordable launching pad for a night of east-side debauchery. Either that, or a hangover lunch.

West Country Girl
6, passage St.-Ambroise, 75011
Tel: 01 47 00 72 54.
Open for lunch and dinner Wed–Sat. Tues: lunch only. Closed Sun–Mon.

And if you like the sound of West Country Girl, you’ll also love:

Breizh Café
109, rue Vieille du Temple, 75003
Tel: 01 42 72 13 77
Closed Mon–Tues.

Reprinted with permission from the Girls’ Guide to Paris

I eventually figured out that Inaki Aizpitarte, the Basque chef from la Famille and Transversal, had taken over shortly after my visit. The old-school bistro setting hadn’t changed, but the acrobatic food was altogether new. I returned to see/eat what all the fuss was about, and experienced a four-course show so delicious that I was able to remember and (drunkenly) recite it when I met Inaki at a friend’s wedding.

Now, with rumors circulating about the chef’s possible departure, I decided to revisit le Chateaubriand. Booking is still hell. The phone was answered after fifteen attempts, which saved me from the usual pain of walking over to beg in person. I was told they were full until I used the name of my visiting boss and then voilà, a table fell from the sky. The same thing happened, incidentally, when I called to book le Comptoir de la Relais. There really is an alternate universe beyond the one that we plebians see.

If you can make it past the gates, le Chateaubriand is a surprisingly sweet and convivial place. The all-male waitstaff provides plenty of eye-candy, and the crowd is always interesting to watch. Cross-town foodies arrive early, while the well-paid hipsters who make up the core clientele tend to show up after 10pm.

The menu, despite its daily reinvention, hasn’t much changed. It’s still a four-course menu unique (no choices, no subs) for €45. Printed on simple xerox paper, the dish names are deceptively simple. For example, “tranche de boeuf, aubergine, faiselle” was much more than the sum of those components. The beef was cooked rarer than I usually like (they don’t ask), but its bloody character contrasted brilliantly with the other flavors.  Dressed with snowflake-thin slices of raw cauliflower, it mingled on the plate with faiselle (a mild and light fresh cheese) and smokey eggplant. Like most of Inaki’s creations, it was a surprising combination of elements that I would never dream of putting together.

At this price, le Chateaubriand is still one of the most compelling dining experiences in Paris. It’s perfect for adventurers who can appreciate both spirited cooking and rumpled waiters. It’s not the right choice for anyone who has food issues or is unwilling to jump through those reservation hoops.

Here’s the run down (€45 for four courses, plus amuse):

Maigre, verdure (raw white fish with vegetables)

Cabillaud, lardo di colonnata, PDT (cod, thinly-sliced lard and potatoes)

Tranche de boeuf, aubergine, faiselle (beef with thinly sliced cauliflower, smokey eggplant, and faiselle – a mild fresh cheese)

Fraises, chantilly (strawberries and whipped cream, with pop rocks tucked inside)

Le Chateaubriand
129 avenue Parmentier, 11th arrondissement, 01 43 57 45 95?