Meg Zimbeck » natural wine

Photos: Ô Divin

admin — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 15:18:33 +0000

Outside-Inside at O Divin

Inside-Outside at O Divin

Summer calm at O Divin

On the terrasse at O Divin

Stuffed piquillo peppers at O Divin

Salmon, avocado & tomato at O Divin

Pâté with caper berries at O Divin

Oysters with Bordier butter at O Divin

Warm Camembert from Bordier at O Divin

Natural wines at O Divin

More natural wines at O Divin

Exterior O Divin

I treasure this little spot near the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, and come often for the selection of natural wines and simple food. It’s neither expensive nor ambitious nor crowded, and the welcome from Nafouel is always sweet.

For practical information and a collection of trusted reviews, please see our page for Ô Divin on Paris by Mouth.

Review: Aux Deux Amis

Meg — Wed, 12 May 2010 09:17:56 +0000

The evening began with an apology over the phone: “the owner is gone this week, so we’re only doing tapas.” It finished with some nail-in-the-coffin Crozes-Hermitage, taken while standing at the bar and listening to this song:

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

Pierre Jancou: pulling up the Racines

Meg — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 14:02:30 +0000

Pierre Jancou, the photogenic owner of Racines, sent me a sad email this morning:

Finally Racines will be sold next friday and I will go to the Drôme region next to my family and have new adventures.

However shocking it might seem, this isn’t the first time that Jancou has built and sold a thriving enterprise at the height of its popularity. He offloaded his previous project, la Crèmerie, just as the mainstream press were climbing on board. The right owner and offer came along, he told me, just as he was beginning to tire of his Saint-Germain clientele. Too many of them were overlooking his hand-selected vins naturels and only wanted to drink Bordeaux.

Three months after cashing the Crèmerie check, Jancou was back with Racines. For this next venture, he opted for the bustling neighborhood just south of Grands Boulevards. It was more populaire, he explained, and had the advantage of being within walking distance from most media HQs. After years of catering to left-bank customers, Jancou adopted a bold (some might say bullying) take-it-or-leave it approach with Racines. Every bottle and ingredient was hand-selected and special. The butter was Bordier. The veggies, Passard. If there was head cheese, it came from the world’s best prize-winning producer, and you’d be a fool – a FOOL ! – not to eat it.

As for the wine, Racines stocked 100% vins naturels. These wines, when they are good, can be transformative. They can also taste like feet. But returning a ripe and funky wine was never really an option at Racines. It wasn’t the wine that was off – it was the inability of your mainstream palate to appreciate the terroir. Jancou cultivated his small-batch producers with the same love and attention that they directed to their grapes. They were his friends, his investment, the subject of his self-published poetry. Who were you to have a contrary opinion?

I say this as someone who supplicated from the very first moment. I was humble and beseeching and more than a little star-struck. My dining companions were the same. And in exchange for being open, for being glad to be there, we were treated with generosity and love. It was that kind of place – arrive empty, leave full.

Nevertheless, I’ve received plenty of reports about rough treatment at the hands of Jancou. These well-meaning victims all had one mistake in common: they thought they were eating at a restaurant. Racines was never a restaurant. It may have been classified as such at the editorial desk, but in reality it was a school. You had to reserve, arrive on time, and treat your teacher with respect. If you behaved as a mere customer and were not properly hot for teacher, then teacher, by all accounts, could be a dick. Rightly so.

Whatever dick/Jancou does next, I’m sure there will be a line of students clamoring to enroll. And I’ll be there, apple in hand, right among them.

In memory of Racines:

Two hot dishes from Racines

Meg — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:44:41 +0000

Hot Dish #1: Pierre Jancou

Photo: Kai Junemann

Hot Dish #2: Pierre’s Agneau de Lait en Cocotte
The latest issue of Gulf Life, the in-flight magazine for Gulf Air, has a new interview with Pierre Jancou. The charismatic owner of Racines was kind enough to share (along with his time and some tasty natural wine) this recipe for milk-fed lamb with spring vegetables.

Photo: Kai Junemann

Ingredients
1kg lamb shoulder, cut into large chunks
2 tablespoons olive oil
300 ml dry white wine or chicken stock
200 g baby carrots, cut into large chunks
200g spring onions, cut into large chunks
200g turnips, cut into large chunks
2 large tomatoes, cut into large chunks
3-4 whole garlic gloves
2 branches fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
salt and black pepper

Preparation
Yeah… I can’t actually reprint the whole thing. Check the seat pocket during your next flight to Bahrain, or click here for the complete web article and recipe.

Racines
8 passage Panoramas, 2nd arrondissement, 01 40 13 06 41