What an incredible place! And what an endearing owner!

There are only three 2-top tables at this dinner-only bistro run by big-hearted Mamie, which is French for Granny or Nan. Six seats in all—maybe seven or eight if Mamie feels like rearranging something, but don’t count on it.

Mamie (Susanna/ZouZou) grew up in the business. Her parents had run a café. So had her grandparents. At 16, she went to work at Bouillon Chartier (rue du Fbg Montmartre) and stayed there for nine years before moving on, eventually operating her own bistro. A shady landlord, she says, led her to quit her previous address. She and her husband, Christian, a fireman-cum-chef, then stumbled upon this place, formerly held by a certain Germaine for 50 years. They took over in 1990 and named it for the sand/desert roses (roses des sables) that Christian collects, some of which can be seen in the window. Christian is now unable to work due to ill health, so Mamie runs the place herself, as a one-woman show, preparing dishes in a miniscule alcove kitchen, taking orders on a slip of paper, bringing drinks, serving dishes, cleaning up, and adding up the bill on the paper placemats. She chats as she works with those capable of chatting in French. I was the only one in that category on a recent evening.

Since few Parisians would be willing to stand by a restaurant door at 6:30pm in the hopes of getting a seat when the owner first slowly opens the curtain and the door at 7, and since few would wait around without knowing when the second or possibly third seating will begin, La Petite Rose des Sables attracts foreign diners. Come alone and you’ll be seated with another solo diner from who knows where. Groups in odd numbers may be split up. Anyway, the place is so small that you may be talking with everyone else before long. Chinese, Korean and English turn out to be the main languages of her guests, though Mamie doesn’t speak any of those. No matter. Good old-fashion patience and gestures will suffice.

Upon arrival, Mamie pours guests a small glass of sangria as a welcome aperitif and tears open a small packet of potato chips as the appetizer. Don’t care for sangria? Mamie (she often speaks of herself in the third person) will bring something else. The three or four dishes of the menu are simple enough to understand. That evening there was a chicken dish, two pork dishes, and beef bourguignon, served with rice, fries, or coquillette elbow pasta (kids’ favorite in France), and/or salad. It’s simple, long-stewed in big pots, hearty and filling. Dessert (whatever Mamie feels like serving—meringue, a slice of pie), mint tea and a shot of alcoholic punch are included for 12€-16€80.

The food isn’t rave-worthy, yet when combined with the surprisingly limited seating, the personalized bistro decor (photographs, gifts from clients, and plaques with heart-warming sayings, along with the checkered tablecloths and curtains), and especially Mamie herself, La Petite Rose des Sables deserves kudos for existing at all.

When we entered, Mamie warmly announced that we could only stay for an hour or an hour and a half so that she could turn the table, but she wasn’t actually watching the clock. If you’re happy, it appears, she’s happy. She even gives out gifts (I got a pair of Paris socks) and willingly poses for photographs. We stayed for two hours despite my efforts to pay so that others could come in. “There’s no rush,” she said. “I have plenty to do before they come in anyway. Have some more punch.”

It would be easy to dismiss all this as Tik-Tok touristy since the bistro primarily attracts non-French visitors. Mamie doesn’t seem to mind that her clients of today are not her clients of 20 or 30 years ago. She nevertheless treats everyone like a local—a local who’s a bit slow on the up-take.

It would also be easy to dismiss the place as not being a bistro in the strict sense of my purist friends because it has neither an active bar counter nor opening hours beyond meal time. But no other term fits for such a personally decorated setting where one enjoys inexpensive, long-stewed dishes, and the grandmotherly kindness of Mamie.

A surprising bistro find that’s been here all along! And when it’ll be gone, it’ll be gone.

La Petite Rose des Sables – Chez Mamie. 6 rue de Lancry, 10th arr. Metro République or Jacques Bonsergent. No reservations.

Cash and credit cards are accepted but not mobile and contactless payments. She places tips in a piggy bank resembling a camera, saying it’s “for the grandchildren.”

© 2026, Gary Lee Kraut

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When asked to create a Paris itinerary and touring plans for individual travelers, I respond with questions:

What are your interests, hobbies and ages? Have you been to Paris before? Where are you staying? Are you in decent walking shape or have any mobility issues? Do you speak much French? Do you have any dietary restrictions? Do you drink wine? Will you want for shopping (for anything in particular?) or simply stop into boutiques if anything strikes your fancy along the way? Do you have a sense of how much guided time you’d like? What are you looking to get out of your stay in Paris?

Altogether, the answers provide me with information that ensures not only that that my clients won’t be over-walked or over-museumed, under-shopped and under-wined. They also allow me to imagine creative ways to enable them to visit sights, explore neighborhoods, understand history, experience culture, and satisfy their hunger and thirst in ways that are meaningful, rewarding and enjoyable to them.

Many clients will give cursory responses to my questions then cut to the chase, saying:
– We’re not museum people but want to see highlights (definitely Notre-Dame and the Eiffel Tower), or
– We like learning history and seeing different monuments and architecture (and we want good pastries, of course) but want to keep it relaxed, or
– Here’s the list of what my 18-year-old daughter/granddaughter wants to do.

The most common response, however, goes something like this:

We want to visit the main sights without having to wait in line. We don’t mind touring on our own but would like some guidance. We like walking but also want to take breaks. We want local food experiences but don’t need anything fancy. We want to try great pastries, and we are wine drinkers, in moderation. Can you help us?

I certainly can!

If you identify with that request, here’s my nearly personalized itinerary for you, including a selection of major sights, varied neighborhoods, easy-going bistros and brasseries and bars, and GPS-guided audio tours to steer you as you go.

Day 1: Feel the Pulse of the Historical Heart of the City then Stroll Along the Champs-Elysées

Morning
Arrive at Notre-Dame Cathedral by 9:30am (or in any case no later than 10am) to enter with little wait (entrance is free, and stop panicking about a timed reservation!) then walk the length of the City Island on which it stands, past the former royal palace, through charming Place Dauphine, and to the sublime river views as you cross the Pont Neuf (the New Bridge). Next bridge upstream, set out on an essential visit of the central Right Bank with my VoiceMap audio tour Exploring Paris of Dreams and Nightmares: The Dark Side of the City of Light.

Lunch
As you follow that audio tour, sample Paris from any of the many cafés, bakeries and other tempting and tasty eateries along the route. (You can pause the tour at any time.) Or wait until the end of the tour for lunch. Here are three welcoming options within a several blocks of the tour’s endpoint: the uber-traditional, easy-going Bistrot des Halles, the cozy and historic brasserie Le Zimmer, and the upbeat wine restaurant Le Robe et Le Palais.

Afternoon
Stroll the full-length of the Avenue des Champs-Elysées—including visits to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais and perhaps several shops along the avenue—accompanied by my audio tour The Champs-Elysées: from Place de la Concorde to the Arc de Triomphe. At tour’s end, climb the Arc de Triomphe for a sweeping view over Paris (ideally with a pre-purchased, timed ticket or Paris Museum Pass). Then metro over to Trocadero for a fabulous view of the Eiffel Tower.

Evening
Head to a lively neighborhood to raise a glass or two at the joyfully old-fashion and inexpensive wine bar Le Baron Rouge. Prefer a beer? Fishtail around the corner to the character-filled Troll Café. Then stay in the neighborhood spirit for dinner at one of the numerous eateries in the area. Consider L’Ami Pierre, if you dare, for a plunge into Paris bistro life by night or Jouvence for a neo-bistro experience. There are also plenty of pizzerias, cafés and other inexpensive eateries in the neighborhood.

Day 2: Linger on the Left Bank then Meander in Montmartre

Morning
Begin your explorations of the central Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, where student life meets the Parisian bourgeoisie on alluring streets. Peek in at the food shops and stands at Maubert-Mutualité to get a sense of neighborhood market life. Visit the tomb of Saint Genevieive in the beautiful Saint Etienne du Mont Church. Take in the imposing and important Pantheon (avoid the line with an advance ticket or a Paris Museum Pass). Then leave the city streets to take an enchanting stroll with my audio tour of The Left Bank’s Most Elegant Park: Exploring the Luxembourg Garden so as to take part in the lifestyle of the Left Bank that is the Luxembourg Garden.

Lunch
Sample excellent French produce, cheese and more at the Saint Germain Market and nearby bakeries (Maison Mulot, Secco) and pastry shops (Arnaud Larher, Pierre Hermes). Or saddle up for wine and light snacks (call them tapas if you like) at Avant Comptoir du Marché.

Afternoon
Complete your visit of the central Left Bank with a walk through the Saint Germain Quarter, the chic, charming and boutiquey neighborhood that thrives at the heart of Parisian café society. Then head to Montmartre, starting at the metro station Abbesses or Anvers, to climb the hiil to Sacré Coeur before taking a well-earned seat for a drink at the hill’s historic eatery-drinker La Bonne Franquette. Then wind your way down along Rue Lepic all the way to the Moulin Rouge.

Evening
Stay within the atmosphere of Montmartre with dinner at La Mascotte Montmartre for fresh fish and seafood and other fine brasserie fare.

Day 3: Meet Mona at the Louvre, The Thinker at the Rodin, Napoleon at the Invalides, and peek in at luxury boutiques in between

Morning
View Mona and more at the Louvre Museum (get a timed reservation for 10am at the latest and brace for the crowds), then air your mind from your heady art history experience with a noble garden walk with my audio tour The Tuileries Garden: The Royal Walk from the Louvre to the Champs-Elysées.

Lunch
Keep it simple and full of character for lunch at Le Petit Vendôme, a busy bistro where where Parisian joie-de-vivre meets tourist joy-of-travel.

Afternoon
Before and after lunch, go window-shopping in the lap of luxury on Rue Saint Honoré and Place Vendôme. Then head over to the Rodin Museum for an easy-going, sculpture-spotted stroll in the park, along with a coffee stop in its garden café. Enter the museum itself, if in the mood, for a thorough view of Rodin’s work. Then visit Napoleon’s Tomb nearby and, if so inclined, the medieval armor portion and more of the adjacent Army Museum.

Evening
Discover casual, modern, moderately-priced Parisian gastronomy in a neighborhood not yet visited above. Here are some suggestions: L’Oyat, L’Escuella, Aux 2K, Caillebotte, Petit Boutary. Then augment the evening at a jazz club such New Morning, Sunset/Sunside, Duc des Lombards, Caveau de la Huchette.

Be sure to check opening times for all of the suggestions above.

Looking for an even more customized itinerary and personalized touring? Contact me directly for travel therapy by phone and more.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Three Days in Paris: Your Nearly Personalized Itinerary appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Pierrick Bourgault is a bistro devotee and a steadfast reporter and photographer of such places. Author of dozens of books on bistros and bistro life, he has, in his latest little book (in French), written a love letter of sorts to a bistro and a bistro-keeper dear to his heart: Le Café du Coin in Le Mans, operated for 37 years by gruff, tender, pipe-smoking Jeannine Brunet, known affectionately as La Mère Lapipe. La Mère Lapipe spoke of herself in interviews as the fourth historical monument of Le Mans, after the cathedral, the 24-Hour race, and the shredded meat spread called rillettes. And well before she died, in 2022, at the age of 80, she was celebrated as such.

Pierrick Bourgault’s works about bistro life may be slight or filled out, personal or researched, scattered or focused, but in all he pays homage to the bistro as a gathering place and sanctuary for those who might otherwise never meet, a place that’s as indistinguishable from its overseer as the Vatican is from the Pope.

In this new book, a mini coffee-table book, the writing is sparse. In 50 snippets, each illustrated by a rudimentary cartoon drawn by Gab, Pierrick Bourgault sketches moments of drunkenness, silliness, humor, anger, quirkiness, joy, tragedy, temperament, wit, hope, despair, tenderness, raucousness, and vulgarity, and of loneliness momentarily set aside. This Café du Coin was a real place that could be any place that allows for the creation of a community of eclectic and diverse individuals. La Mère Lapipe was a real person who could be any bistro owner dedicated to maintaining such a place of character and conviviality over many years.

Pierrick Bourgault grew up on Mayenne, in western France, and studied natural sciences at the University of Le Mans. Though he made his home in Paris, he returned to Le Mans frequent enough to be a welcome regular at Le Café du Coin, both as observer and participant, with an admiration for Jeannine’s own devotion to bistro life. This book isn’t detailed, in-depth, analytical writing about bistros, but rather an affectionate broad-stroke portrait that reveals how one place and one person can bring together a diverse group of individuals simply by being as tolerant of them as they are of her. La Mère Lapipe’s Café du Coin comes across not so much as a business establishment as it does a home away from home, as the best bistros do.

La Mère Lapipe au Café du Coin by Pierrick Bourgault, published in April 2025 by Editions Ouest-France.

See this video portrait of Jeannine Brunet aka La Mère Lapipe filmed after its reopening in 2021 after Covid lockdown.

The post Bistro Life: La Mère Lapipe by Pierrick Bourgault appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

There’s an association in Paris called the Académie Rabelais whose mission, as stated in their by-laws, is to “Encourage among its members and their friends joie de vivre, optimism, good humor, indulgence, gaiety, the spirit of friendship and of remembrance, and respect for the principles of Master François Rabelais: laughing, irony, wisecracking, joyful singing, le gai savoir, eating well and drinking well.”

Reading that mission statement, I thought, “Now there’s a party I’d like to attend!” And so I did, though we didn’t call it a party. We called it lunch with Bruno Carlhian, author of an excellent guide to owner-operated Paris wine bistros, and several members of the Académie Rabelais, under whose auspices the book was published.

La Tournée des Patrons is the clever title of Bruno’s guide. La tournée—the round or round-up—refers to both a round-up of bistro-keepers—des patrons—and the round on the house that owners might offer their clients. In selecting the 100 eatery-drinkeries included in the book, Bruno sought out “authentic” bistros (quotation marks in the original), which he defines as individually owned establishments open throughout the day (i.e. not just at mealtime) and that have a café/bar counter. Fresh, homecooked food is de rigueur, but most important is the presence and personality of the bistro-keeper, one who knows his wine.

A criminal defense attorney, a gallery owner and a contractor walk into a bistro

That’s not the opening of a joke but the start of a cheerful afternoon since they were the three fellow academy members to join Bruno and me at Le Guersant, a bistro on the western edge of Paris, in the 17th arrondissement. Bruno himself is a journalist specialized in food, wine, gastronomy and agribusiness. I’d asked him to choose the bistro for our lunchtime interview.

There’s no mistaking the atmosphere of a neighborhood bistro when you enter shortly before 1pm: several people are standing at the bar counter with a glass of wine or beer or a demitasse; someone behind the bar, who may or may not be the owner, looks up from his or her task to return your ecumenical Bonjour messieurs-dames with a Bonjour, monsieur; beyond the bar there’s a room with few if any empty seats, where a server, who may or may not be the owner, twists through narrow passages between tables or chairs carrying a thick pork chop and potato purée and a square of beef and frites or some such homey dishes; on nearly every table there’s a bottle or at least glasses of wine in various stages of consumption, and you recognize your lunch companions at the far table by the window by their slight nod in your direction, even if you’ve never met them before.

In choosing Le Guersant, Bruno was nearly giving me a scoop. The jury that he presides over within the Académie Rabelais had recently decided that in the spring of 2025 Nicolas Gounse, the bistro’s proprietor, would receive the academy’s trophy La Coupe du Meilleur Pot. The trophy has been awarded annually since 1954 to a bistro-keeper in Paris or the near suburbs whose establishment does justice to the notion that bistro life is best served by the offering of the quality wines of independent growers, personally selected by that bistro-keeper. The trophy takes the form of a wooden box topped with the tin decoration of a cup, a bunch of grapes and a specific kind of bottle called a pot. A pot is a 46 cl vessel with a thick base into which wine from a barrel or from a larger bottle is poured.

It isn’t the wine list itself that’s honored with the trophy. As with the selections in La Tournée des Patrons, the Académie Rabelais pays homage to a bistro-keeper with the wherewithal, the personality and the dedication to operate a welcoming all-day bistro with a bar counter. The wines available have been personally selected by the bistro-keeper as opposed to checked off from a list in a wholesaler’s catalogue. “Quality wines of independent growers” does not mean expensive wines. These are, after all, unpretentious, everyday neighborhood bistros. In short, when it comes to wine, Nicolas Gounse and other winners of La Coupe du Meilleur Pot can talk the talk, without pretention, with the best of them. And from the way the conversation unfolded at Le Guersant over the next 2½ hours, I gathered that my table companions from the Académie Rabelais were among those best of them.

Acceptance into the Académie Rabelais

The Académie Rabelais’s origins date to the Second World War, when a group of writers, journalists and cartoonists who’d left Paris during the German Occupation began gathering in Lyon, which was then in France’s Unoccupied Zone. Guided by local gastro-insiders well acquainted with the keepers of bouchons, as the bistros of Lyon are known, the group began meeting over food and wine. Progressively, as the German Gestapo took anchor in Lyon, those wartime gatherings came to an end. They were revived post-war, in 1948, at Château Thivin in the Beaujolais wine region near Lyon, where the group formalized their association as the Académie Rabelais. Refer to the opening lines of this article for the academy’s humanist mission. Among other events and outings, the academy gathers for dinner three times per year as well for one weekend in a wine region, where they meet winegrowers and restaurant owners.

Nicolas Plescoff, the gallerist at the table, a specialist in 20th-century art and sculpture, has been the academy’s president for the past seven years. In recounting the academy’s history, he said that in the early 2000s membership underwent a significant change as the elder members from the press fell away and more recent arrivals worked in a variety of professional fields.

The group’s by-laws, which allow for a maximum of 50 members (there are current 46), don’t specifically exclude women, but as yet none has been admitted. Potential members are co-opted through personal relationships, not through blind application. Once recommended by a friend, colleague or family member, a candidate must first be accepted as an intern or apprentice. As such, he is expected to attend academy events for a full year in order to become familiar with its spirit, culture and members, and its members with him. After that year, the board gives an initial stamp of approval (or not) to the intern/apprentice whose candidature is then put before the full membership for a final vote.

With the academy no longer dominated by members of the press—in fact, there are now more lawyers among them—Nicolas Plescoff favors a membership represented by a wide variety of professional fields. As with many aging associations, the academy has difficulty recruiting younger members. He’s therefore is pleased that the academy recently co-opted a 27-year-old who works in the wine trade.

As to admitting women, he said that perhaps the next generation will be more accepting of the possibility, but for now there’s general agreement that the Académie Rabelais should remain an all-men’s club. Members don’t spend their time together making misogynistic or crude comments, he explained, but men change their behavior when their wives or other women are around, which would alter the spirit of the academy.

While the academy doesn’t admit women, make no mistake about it: the contemporary Parisian neighborhood bistro as a cultural institution is not a men’s club. At some times of the day and at some meals, men may indeed outnumber women in a neighborhood bistro, but women can and do enjoy a meal there with equal joy or warmth or indulgence. (Stay tuned for an upcoming article about bistro gals. As a teaser, I note that the president of one bistro-going women’s group told me that one reason they don’t admit men is the annoyance of dealing with mansplaining.)

The Académie Rabelais literary prize

While companionability, wine and gregarious service define a restaurant outing with members of the Académie Rabelais, the academy lives up to the literary side of its name. I refrain from calling any of its members “intellectuals.” In other settings, some of them may be. But once, while discussing books at a bistro bar counter, I made the mistake of referring to a stranger with whom I’d recently clinked glasses as an “intellectual” and I nearly got thrown into the gutter for it. In Paris bistro life, I’ve learned, you can refer to a well-read fellow as a philosopher, an artist, a professor, a wisecracker, even a prince or a fool, but call him an intellectual at your own risk and peril. Pas de ça ici, mon vieux! Suffice it to say that a clever, incisive, humanist spirit and a wealth of knowledge on assorted matters including human nature go a long way toward getting you accepted—if not to the academy, then at least to their companionship and to entertaining conversation in a Paris neighborhood bistro.

A jury within the academy awards an annual literary prize, the Prix de l’Académie Rabelais, to the author of a work of fiction or non-fiction displaying Rabelasian spirit, meaning a work that includes a good dose of irreverent humor, and, of course, wine. Appropriate works, according to the lawyer at our table, are hard to come by, what with all the navel gazing and humorlessness of French literature over the past few decades.

The winner of the 2024 literary prize was Laure Gasparotto for “Si tu veux la paix, prepare le vin” (If You Want Peace, Prepare Wine). The 2023 winner was Charles Senard for “Carpe diem – Petite initiation à la sagesse épicurienne” (Carpe Diem – A Little Initiation to Epicurian Wisdom). The winner receives 50 bottles of Beaujolais wine. Descriptions of the prize-winning books over the years can be found here.

Acceptance into Paris bistro life

Anyone, including non-French-speaking visitors, can take a seat in the dining room of a neighborhood bistro or lean into its bar counter to observe bistro life. Participating in it is another matter. That, according to Nicolas Plescoff, entails being accepted by the keeper of the house or his staff. Beyond the courteous tone of your entrance, newcomers, he said, will quickly be judged by what they order. Margins are tights, so “if you order only an appetizer and a glass of tap water during crowded mealtime,” he said, “you shouldn’t be surprised if you aren’t well received. You’re nearly obligated to order an appetizer, a main course, dessert and wine.” Though our table followed that recommendation and then some, that bona fide exchange of good will is certainly not an actual obligation. Three courses may be one too many for some appetites, which is why the lunch menu is often priced for an appetizer + a main course OR a main course + dessert.

Drinking alcohol is, of course, never an obligation. Yet, for those who do enjoy a glass or two, the following wine advice that Nicolas Plescoff provided is well worth considering: “To be accepted in a neighborhood bistro, first order a glass of white wine as an aperitif.”

“Un verre de vin blanc, s’il vous plaît” (A glass of white wine, please) as the easy-to-recall password to taking part in Paris bistro life? I’ve tried it. It does go far to initiating a conversation with the owner or server (what type of white wine would you’d like? dry, fruity, etc.) and lets that person know that you’re willing to spend a few extra euros at the table. “Un verre de beaujolais blanc, s’il vous plaît,” might further indicate that you’ve got some connoisseur’s cred.

It would be ill-mannered of me to note the quantity of wine consumed at our table during our lengthy lunch. I’ll just say that Nicolas Gounse guided us on a lilting viticultural tour de France. We may not have been typical clients—after all, more than familiar faces here, my table companions had recently notified him of the honor they were bestowing with La Coupe du Meilleur Pot—nevertheless, it was clear to me that we weren’t the only ones in the room in trotting conversation, eating and drinking to great satisfaction. Others around the room appeared to be doing the same. It wasn’t a party atmosphere but, more “authentically,” the ambience of an unhurried lunchtime break from whatever appointments or obligations lay to either side of the meal, in other words of a neighborhood bistro at lunchtime.

I was in no rush to leave. Still, at 2:15 on a Thursday afternoon, after 90 minutes of easy-going conviviality, I expected that any minute now one of my tablemates would state that he had to get back to work and the rest of us would then grudgingly agree. Another 30 minutes passed. Then one of the academicians called Nicolas Gounse over to the table. I was sure that it was to ask him to prepare the bill, or at least to bring coffee. Instead, he asked where we should travel next on our seated tour de France.

Drinking vs. excessive drinking

Bistro, in France, implies that alcohol is served. Wine bistro emphasizes the place of the wine selection there but is not to be confused with a wine bar. In theory, a dry bistro is possible, in the same way that admitting female members into the Académie Rabelais is possible.

Excessive drinking—or drinking at all—isn’t directly encouraged by the bistro-keepers that I’ve come to know. At a neighborhood bistro or wine bistro, selling alcohol does help with the bottom line; turning a profit might even depend on the sale of alcohol, as with many restaurants. The theoretical dry bistro would therefor have an economic challenge in France, perhaps overcome by serving lots of bubble tea.

“Wine is a part of our culture,” said Nicolas Plescoff, referring to both France and the academy. “But we aren’t an association of drunks. It’s important to maintain a certain standing. True, our dinners tend to be well served in wine. Perhaps we drink more than the national average, but we drink good wine.”

Nicolas Gounse, our host here, recognizes that wine is a part of daily life for some clients, the way cigarettes may be. Wine is a part of the culture (and one is free to argue that it shouldn’t be) but, wine or no wine, sociability is a primary aspect of the neighborhood bistro (le bistro de quartier). Without sociability (or refuge so for the solitary), there’d be no reason to qualify it as neighborhood (de quartier). Yes, drink does play a role here, though it would be incorrect to peg a neighborhood Paris bistro today, such as Le Guersant, which is open throughout the day, or the selections in La Tournée des Patrons, as primarily drinking establishments or as places for a teetotaler to avoid. Above all, for readers of these lines, they should be seen as important glimpses into local or neighborhood culture.

Frequent consumption or over-consumption of alcohol may be a societal problem, but it isn’t not specific to wine bistros. In what may come off as a form of apology, I note that, fortunate for Parisians, those who have a glass or two or more in a wine bistro or any other type of eatery-drinkery, or at private party for that matter, typically leave on foot or take public transportation rather than get behind the wheel of a car. Getting behind the wheel of a bicycle or scooter is the more likely danger.

I pace myself well as bottles accumulate on the table. I may slow down or, if necessary, put my hand over the glass to announce that I’ve had enough as the circulating bottle tips my way. I nevertheless don’t hesitate to accept, as I did here, a bistro-keeper’s parting shot of grappa, cognac, calvados, or plum or pear brandy when it arrives with the bill or at the bar counter on the way out. I may not finish the small pour, and some of what’s offered may be rotgut, but I won’t refuse what is essentially a gift of acceptance, la tournée du patron. Again, no obligation.

The deeper I’ve gotten into Paris bistro life over the past year, the more I’ve come to appreciate Bruno Carlhian’s selections in La Tournée des Patrons. While Bruno and his fellow academicians more than hold their own in knowing and enjoying good cuisine, and while they do expect fresh and seasonal ingredients, the quality of the food is not primary in selections for the book or for La Coupe du Meilleur Pot, as it might be for a culinary guide or award. Nevertheless, I vouch for the quality (and the quantity) of my three courses (30€) at Le Guersant: poireaux mimosa, côte de cochon + purée, crème caramel.

I can certainly understand the selection of Nicolas Gousne as recipient for the 2025 Coupe du Meilleur Pot, And I can well imagine the pleasure of being a regular or occasional client at Le Guersant. Alas, it’s across the city from me.

Altogether, a terrific neighborhood bistro and a delectable encounter with Rabelaisian bistro buddies, creators of a gargantuan guide to wine bistros.

Le Guersant, 30 bd Gouvrion-Saint-Cyr, 17th arr. Open Monday through Friday from 9am to 11pm. Nicolas Gounse, proprietor. A successful bistro-keeper naturally needs a good right-hand man or woman. Here, Nicolas is primarily assisted by Romain Gastel, with whom he also worked in other bistros for a dozen years before taking over Le Guersant in 2022.

The bistro is a 10-minute walk from the hotels Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile and the Meridien Etoile at Porte Maillot.

La Tournée des Patrons. Text by Bruno Carlhian, photographs by Gabriel Omnès, drawings by Gab. 20€. The current edition (2023) is an update of first edition from 2016. The academy plans to next update the book in 2026.

La Coupe du Meilleur Pot. See here for a map showing the location of the establishments whose owner has received La Coupe du Meilleur Pot over the years, along with other Académie Rabelais recommendations, many of which appear in La Tournée des Patrons.

For other articles in the Paris Bistro Life series, see here.

© 2025, Gary Lee Kraut

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Non-members stop by the bistro for morning coffee or a pre-lunch aperitif, unaware of the planned, informal gathering of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs. But they might as well be a part of the group as Hervé slices off chunks of headcheese to offer them a taste. Headcheese and coffee? Maybe. Headcheese and wine? Sure.

Tristan Olphe-Galliard arrives with a bottle of wine that he sets on the counter as his contribution to the morning gathering of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs. Before sharing the wine, though, he shares the story of why he’s arrived later than planned: The mechanism to open the door to his building was stuck, so to get out he had to crawl like a thief from the window of a neighbor’s apartment. And he definitely can’t stay with us past lunch, he says, since he has to… Right.

He’s brought a red Mentou-Salon, a cousin to Sancerre, from the eastern winegrowing area of the Loire Valley. A brief explanation is enough—this is a social gathering, not an informational assembly. It’s easy-drinking wine, a pinot noir of the cherry-tinged kind. Tristan is an ambassador for the network of Bistrots Beaujolais, bistros which are themselves ambassadors for Beaujolais wines or at least have some on their wine list. He’s also a freelance photographer, as well as a member of the Francs-Mâchons, a non-profit association with a natural affinity to the Joyeux Mâchonneurs but more organized and with a distinct appetite for Beaujolais wines. But Triston is only partially on duty this morning; not duty enough that he feels obliged to bring a Beaujolais to this gathering but dutiful enough to invite me to meet him here to discuss my plan to visit some of his Bistrots Beaujolais over the next two months. Research.

But first things first. The barman opens the bottle.

You don’t need to be a member of the Joyeux Mâchonneurs to attend the Tuesday morning gathering. You don’t have to eat pig. You don’t even have to arrive joyeux, though hopefully you’ll leave that way. All you have to do is bring something sharable to eat or drink (keep it simple) or else buy a(n inexpensive) bottle of wine at the bar. And, no, the point is not to go on a pre-noon bender. It’s enough to toast with a sip or two—a bistro glass is small anyway. It’s the spirit that’s generous, not the pour. You can put your hand over your glass in refusal at any time (though it will likely be filled as soon as you look away). Seriously, order coffee if you like.

Bistro life

The word bistrot (with a final t in French) encompasses a range of restaurants and eatery-drinkeries that emphasize traditional French food and wine. In English-speaking countries, bistro may carry an air of pretention, which doesn’t belong in France. At its heart, the French bistro (let’s leave out the t here) is an unpretentious neighborhood gathering place for traditional, homemade food and inexpensive drink. “Traditional, home-made food” itself can vary within limits and budgets. And in the relatively wealthy city of Paris, “unpretentious” is itself a term that’s up for grabs, while “inexpensive” will depend on the neighborhood. In any case, a bistro should feel down-home rather than upscale, even those that attract an upmarket crowd.

In terms of opening hours, there are two types of bistros: a bistro that’s open only for lunch and dinner, i.e. a bistro as restaurant alone, and an eatery-drinkery bistro, such as Le Vaudésir, where food is served at specific hours yet one can enter throughout the day for liquid nourishment (and, if you’re a regular or ask kindly, maybe someone can make you a sandwich or give you some headcheese or a hard-boiled egg). I’ve met with Tristan this morning in soliciting his help constituting a list of the latter kind of bistro, the historic but not necessarily bygone bistrot de quartier, the neighborhood eatery-drinkery bistro. The archetype of a neighborhood bistro such as Le Vaudésir serves a social function as a gathering place, an outlet for extroverts, a refuge for the lonely, escape from your spouse or kids, comic relief for the observer, a place where a regular is recognized, etc.

In the densely populated and much-visited city of Paris, “neighborhood” doesn’t mean that the patrons all live within three blocks of the bistro. At lunchtime, neighborhood bistros are frequented by those who work in the area but live elsewhere. And the dinner crowd may be a mix of neighborhood residents, Parisians with a city-wide vision of dining out casually, and travelers staying in nearby hotels.

The neighborhood bistro of the eatery-drinkery kind may not have Bistrot written in its name or on its awning. Even a café or a brasserie or a meat-and-potatoes/sausage-and-lentils dive can be considered the local bistro if it serves an unpretentious social function (gathering place, refuge, escape, etc.) and presents the other elements associated with the bistrot de quartier: traditional cuisine and cheap or modestly-priced drink, conviviality, a changeable atmosphere morning to night, and a smattering or more of Joyeux Mâchoneurs or their like. Just as Joyeux Mâchoneurs by any other name would be just as joyeux, a bistro by any other name would be just as … bistro.

I’ve neglected to mention the other essential element to the type of bistro that I’ve come looking for: an on-site owner. Not just any on-site owner, but an on-site owner as conductor, MC, security guard, arbitrator, sphinx, ultimate judge, merchant and boss. He may stand stoically on the raised platform of the bar as he surveils the room. He may join in the banter of his regulars. He may raise a glass with others. He knows his regulars. He knows when to be wary and when to be welcoming. At Le Vaudésir, he’s Christophe Hantz.

By the bar counter there’s a list of names and dates of owners at this site since 1896, beginning with a certain Forestier, who sold wine. For much of the first half of the 20th century, coal and wood were also sold here. (The second room, behind the bar, is where they were stored.) In 1993, the owner at the time renamed the bistro Le Vaudésir, after one of the seven “climats” of Chablis Grand Cru. Vaudésir Chablis was still a relatively inexpensive at the time, but it’s now too pricey to belong on the selection here. Christophe has been at the helm of Le Vaudésir since 2001.

Michelle Steiner, the chef he hired that year, joins us for a drink before returning to the kitchen to make final preparations for lunch service. “Christophe and I are like an old couple that’s never copulated,” she says. Christophe isn’t yet around to give his take on their relationship.

La Fête du Livre Bistrot at Le Vaudésir

There is no off-the-beaten track in Paris; there are just streets we haven’t yet ventured down and doors we haven’t yet opened or times of day or night that we haven’t yet been there. So it isn’t to go off the beaten track that I’ve returned late the same day by taking the train to Denfert-Rochereau, walking 10 minutes south, and turning left onto rue Dareau. The street leads film-noir-like to a door beneath the railroad tracks. The first room is so crowded that I can’t even push open the door. I enter through the second door a few yards further down. No, I haven’t gone off the beaten track to make my way back to Le Vaudésir this evening; I’ve come to attend the Fête du Livre Bistrot, a celebration of books about bistros, their authors, and, above all, bistros themselves.

Not all Parisians go in for such places, as the diminishing numbers of restaurant-bar-café bistros show. They’re too old-fashioned for some; the cooking isn’t contemporary enough for others; they prefer to mingle elsewhere, differently or with a younger crowd; if there’s a squat-toilet that may not be to everyone’s liking. “Local” itself may have lost its significance for those who prefer screen time. The foreign visitor may be intimidated to stand at the counter with piliers de bar (literally bar pillars, i.e. barflies) or sitting elbow-to-elbow at a table beside animated strangers in unintelligible conversation. No, the atmosphere of the eatery-drinky neighborhood bistro isn’t for everyone.

But it is for everyone here this evening, chatting with each other and with the authors, purchasing books, examining the works of two photographers, drinking the Saint Pourçain wines brought by the producer who’s serving them at the bar, reaching for the plate of headcheese and pâté on the bar counter. Tristan is here, Hervé is here, and so are other members of the Joyeux Mânchonneurs.

I speak with the winegrower of the Saint Pourçain as he serves me a glass. The wine is free this evening. Christophe is also behind the bar. I say hello. He raises his glass and offers his infectious smile, though he may or may not recognize me.

I chat with Alain Fontaine, owner of Le Mesturet, in the 2nd arrondissement. Le Mesturet’s awning reads Bar à Vins and Restaurant but it’s bistro enough for me. Alain spearheads a non-profit association whose mission is to promote and defend the idea that the art de vivre of bistros and traditional cafés of France deserve recognition as “intangible cultural heritage.” He says that foreign visitors, Americans in particular, are more prominent supporters for bistro life than the French themselves. (Perhaps, I think, because we like a good cliché or because we don’t have these at home.) Earlier this year he hosted at Le Mesturet a launch part for Café Society: Time Suspended, the Cafés & Bistros of Paris, a collection of photographs by Joanie Osburn, a frequent visitor to Paris from San Francisco. I tell him that I’ll be stopping by Le Mesturet to speak with him soon in the context of my own research. Whenever you want, he replies.

I run into free-spirited food writer and guide Guillaume Le Roux, whom I knew from restaurant press events a dozen years ago and haven’t seen since. We recognize each other immediately, briefly catch up, and promise to get together soon.

I speak at length with historian Laurent Bihl, author of Une histoire populaire des bistrots and gladly weigh myself down by purchasing his 800-page book.

I greet Gérard Letailleur, author of “Histoire insolite des cafés parisiens” and “Si Montmartre et La Bonne Franquette nous étaient contés,” whom I’d previously met at Aux Sportifs Réunis-Chez Walczak, a historic bistro in the 15th arrondissement.

I nod to Pierrick Bourgault who’s in intense discussion with someone interested in his work as a photographer and writer. Patrick explores his love and appreciation for bistros in both non-fiction and fiction. Among other publications, he’s the author of Au bonheur des bistrots,  which pays homage through photographs to the men and women who run countryside cafés, and the novel Journal d’un café de campagne. We’d previously met at the unmissable La Bonne Franquette at the top of Montmartre.

I meet Benjamin Berline, who’s part of the team working with well-known French food writer Gilles Pudlowski. He gives me a copy of the 2023 edition of the Petit Pudlo des Bistrots, a booklet that brings together 107 recommendable Parisian bistros (with an introduction by Alain Fontaine).

I find Tristan outside and thank him for setting me on my way for my bistro research. I tell him I’ll see him soon. (Though Tristan and I don’t run in the same circles we do manage to cross paths often.) I tell him I’m leaving. He says that he’ll be leaving soon too. Right.

Le Vaudésir, 41 rue Dareau, 14th arrondissement. Metro Saint-Jacques or Metro/RER Denfert-Rochereau. Closed Monday evening, Saturday lunch, Sunday. Cash only.

© 2023 by Gary Lee Kraut

The post An Introduction to Paris Bistro Life: Le Vaudésir appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

I could have used numerous sources to guide my selection of restaurants in Paris when visiting this past spring—the Michelin Guide, the New York Times, reliable bloggers, returning friends, or this very website—but as an economist I chose to follow in the culinary footsteps of a fellow economist. Not just any fellow economist, mind you, but a pioneering economist whose serious academic work impressed me, a fellow who had a good appetite, a keen knowledge of traditional French cuisine, a taste for wine, and a compulsion for keeping detailed notes on the 250 or so restaurants that he had the opportunity to experience in Paris over the years while working for the World Bank.

Bela Balassa, a Gourmet Economist

I was first introduced to Bela Balassa’s academic research while a graduate student at Georgetown University in 1975. International economics was not my specialty, but we all read Dr. Balassa’s groundbreaking work on the terms of international trade. Ultimately, his research led the way to fundamental changes in World Bank policy.

Decades later I would come across a booklet that he printed up privately, a restaurant guide titled A Primer in Culinary Economics or How to Maximize the Culinary Utility of the Dollar in Paris. He ultimately produced eight editions of his booklet, the last in 1987.

In his “Preface or Let the Reader Beware,” Dr. Balassa wrote in the 1985 edition, “This essay provides an appraisal of twenty-five restaurants in Paris, carefully selected among over two-hundred-fifty the author has visited between 1959 and mid-1985… The author has spared no effort in selecting, checking and rechecking the restaurants on the list, without regard to his caloric (and cholesterol) intake.”

“[This] has been written,” Dr. Balassa noted, “for the benefit of those who wish to maximize the (culinary) utility derived from eating, suitably accompanied by wine, and subject to a budget constraint.”

“Maximize utility” is a term that speaks to me as an economist, but I recognize that most travelers visit Paris in search of pleasure rather than utility. And rightfully so. In fact, the fundamental proposition in microeconomics is that consumers attempt to achieve their highest satisfaction (economists call it “utility”) by consuming a bundle of goods, subject to a budget constraint. Of course, Dr. Balassa’s use of economic terms is partially tongue in cheek here; he never actually provides details about his calculations of a quality-price ratio. Basically, he set out to maximize his personal satisfaction from wining and dining in Paris, subject to his own (experienced) appetite and (healthy) budget constraint, and then to share his sense of a good, even great, meals in Paris with family and friends. Dr. Balassa had a personal notation system for restaurants with 10 being the highest possible “grade” and 5 being the lowest acceptable for inclusion on his list. He was serious and systematic enough in his approach to include only establishments that he had visited at least twice.

Born in Budapest in 1928, Dr. Balassa immigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1956 after the Hungarian Revolution was crushed by Soviet tanks. He was appointed assistant professor of economics at Yale before becoming a professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which provided him with the travel stipends that he used as the basis for his budget constraint in his culinary explorations in Paris, primarily the latter. He died in 1991.

In the spring of 2020, my last semester teaching at Georgia Tech, I acquired with the help of one of my students the 7th edition of Dr. Balassa’s Primer, printed in 1985. It’s more a booklet than a book, printed on a standard 8.5” x 11” paper, folded in half and stapled in the center. There are 66 pages of text discussing the restaurants and ten pages of a Glossary of Culinary Terms.

Dealing with the Danger of Using an Old Restaurant List

There are inherent dangers to using a decades-old restaurant list for guidance, but I willingly accepted the pitfalls in the name of culinary adventure, and I was rewarded for my efforts by the six delicious meals that I share below and that you may find helpful in seeking to maximize your own culinary utility. I should say we were rewarded since my partner in this adventure was Judy, my wife of fifty-four years, who has a doctorate in French and enough experience in French cuisine to be an excellent culinary sleuth.

There are 25 restaurants listed in the 7th edition, but 38 years in the Parisian restaurant business had taken its toll on Dr. Balassa’s recommendations. In undertaking the adventure of following in Dr. Balassa’s culinary footsteps, Judy and I decided that in order to be true to the original selection we would only go to restaurants with the same name and location as those that he recommended in that 7th edition. Six of the original 25 restaurants made the cut. In late April 2023, we left for Paris having rented an apartment for 28 days and made reservations in those remaining six restaurants.

Emphasizing the personal nature of his Primer in Culinary Economics, Dr. Balassa, who passed away in 1991, described various dishes he had shared with his family. He included what his son and daughter particularly liked on the menu of various restaurants. So I decided to seek them out in preparing our adventure. Through some diligent effort and a lot of luck, I made contact with Bela’s widow, Carol, to share the blueprint of our culinary adventure. She in turn shared our plan with her son and daughter. Carol’s son then sent me excerpts of the Primer’s 8th and final edition, from 1987, which led us to add two more restaurants to our list, bringing the total of restaurants still existing under the same name at the same address to eight.

His/Our Budget

Naturally, a World Bank travel stipend for a consulting economist of Dr. Balassa’s stature did not relegate him to cut-rate cafés, crepe stands, kebab stands and all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets. It gave him a seat at an array of decent and fine establishments, including some Michelin-starred tables.

In his preface, Dr. Balassa indicates that his “self-imposed limit” when considering the price of a meal in 1985 was $70 for a meal for two people. He writes, “Still, staff members of international organizations will have their travel expense account returned for ‘clarification’ if they eat two meals a day at these prices. To avoid such an eventuality, they should limit themselves to a daily meal at one of the restaurants, a spartan breakfast, and a quiche Lorraine for lunch.” The average value of one U.S. dollar in 1985 is worth $2.84 adjusted for 2023 prices. Therefore, Dr. Balassa’s $70 limit for a meal for two is adjusted to $198.80 at today’s prices, or approximately 184€ while I traveled this past spring. That, as you’ll soon read, allowed for some excellent meals.

Revisiting A Primer in Culinary Economics: 6 Choice Restaurants

In following in Bela Balassa’s culinary footsteps, Judy and I came to feel an affinity with him, and before long we were referring to him not as Dr. Balassa but as Bela. I therefore use his first name for the remainder of this article. Though we would later give “grades” to these restaurants, as Bela had done, I list them here simply in the order in which we visited them. Unlike Bela, we only dined in each once. And though we may not have the range and depth of culinary experience to draw on that he did, we feel experienced enough in French cuisine, particularly traditional French cuisine, to share our point of view on the restaurants we visited.

La Petite Auberge

La Petite Auberge, 13 rue du Hameau, 15th arrondissement

Bela called this a “very excellent restaurant,” and nearly four decades later we found that it was very good indeed. We came to expect that Bela’s recommendations leaned to the traditional neighborhood type restaurant. This certainly fit the bill. It is a bit out of the way unless you’re in Paris for a trade show at the Parc des Expositions (Porte de Versailles), a 5-minute walk from the restaurant. The home stadium of Paris’s Stade Français rugby team is two miles away. Rugby posters decorate the unassuming interior space of this restaurant that has stood the test of time.

We had a French guest visiting from the Beaujolais region who was eager to join this culinary expedition. We started by sharing a pâté de canard (duck pâté) with radishes and house-prepared cornichons. The combination was well balanced with the duck fat and salty cornichons. For our main course we ordered blanquette de veau riz (veal stew with rice), noisette d’agneau poêlée (a pot of nuggets of lamb) and escalope de veau normande (Normandy-style veal cutlet). To our delight, the menu announced that Tous nos plats sont accompagnés de frites maison (all dishes come with “pommes frites”). Our guest quickly approved and compared the meals to those her grandmother prepared when she was a young girl. The white stock was thick and savory on both veal dishes. The lamb was well-prepared, served medium rare with a broccoli floret. The fries were hot and had a near-perfect crunch when consumed. For dessert, we ordered crème brulée, tarte aux pommes, and panna cotta. The deserts were unremarkable. We all would have preferred just another round of the pommes frites. Overall, however, Bela had steered us right for a meal of unpretentious French comfort food with authentic flavor… at an easy-going price. Our luncheon meal for the three of us came to 107.80€, or about $116.42, well within the Primer’s budget limit. Of course, he might have added more wine and perhaps a digestif in keeping with his “very excellent” experience.

Benoit

Benoit, 20 rue Saint-Martin, 4th arrondissement

Our second restaurant was a highly anticipated affair. Our daughters had been following our Paris planning process and were eager to contribute to the enterprise. In our 2022 family Christmas exchange we found a gift certificate for a six-course tasting menu for restaurant Benoit.

Subsequent to Bela’s dining here, Benoit joined Alain Ducasse’s restaurant portfolio and then earned one star in the Michelin Guide. Of the restaurants remaining from his Primer, it had Bela’s second highest ranking. He wrote, “Benoit may be grouped with Chez Pauline and Pierre Traiteur. All three provide traditional cooking of high quality at reasonable prices… I rate Benoit a notch above Pierre Traiteur, with Chez Pauline slightly behind.” Benoit is still open for business at its Bela-era location, in fact its location since 1912, while the other two are not.

Bela warned in his booklet that lunch rather than dinner was the best opportunity to stay within budget. However, at Benoit we reserved for dinner since that’s when the Menu Dégustation 6 Temps that we’d been gifted is offered.

While the neighborhood (it’s near the Centre Pompidou) has changed dramatically since the restaurant opened over one hundred years ago, once inside, among the woodwork, the red velvet seats, the brass railing and the engraved glass windows, we immediately felt that we’d entered a neighborhood of yore. The meal started with notre pâté en croute, pickles de legumes (house pâté in a pastry crust with pickled vegetables), served with warm slices of baguette. The fish course was next. It was the tasty combination of filet de bar doré, artichauts poivrades et roquette savage (filet of sea bass, sauteed with artichokes and wild arugula). The main plate arrived with a generous individual portion served in a copper pot. It was sauté gourmand de ris de veau, crêtes et rognons de coq, foie gras et jus truffe (sauteed veal sweetbreads, rooster cockscombs and kidneys, with foie gras and truffle juice). The description itself was a mouthful, and none of our previous experiences in traditional bistro fare had led us to such an unfamiliar combination of flavors and textures. We would probably not have ordered this as a main course if we were ordering off the menu, hence a reason to risk a tasting menu. The next course was simply and delightfully fromages de France (French cheeses). It was certainly a good idea to follow the pot of sweetbreads, cockscombs, and kidneys with creamy French cheese. Sorbets de la manufacture (sorbets from Ducasse’s ice cream and sorbet “factory”) followed the cheese course. A plate of profiteroles Benoit, sauce chocolat chaud followed.

The whole evening had been a rewarding adventure in Paris dining. Furthermore, the staff was interested in hearing about our exploration of the “professor’s Paris restaurant recommendations.” The chef and maître d’hôtel signed both our tasting menu and Bela Balassa’s booklet.

In the section titled “Introduction or a Bit of Nostalgia,” Bela discusses the importance of the “quality-price ratio.” He explains that many establishments were dropped from his recommendations over the years either because they became too expensive or because the quality had deteriorated, or sometimes both. Benoit has certainly increased in price over the years but I suspect that Bela would have kept it on his list these many years later. Our tasting menu for two was priced at 190€, or approximately $205.20, only slightly above his limit. Had we ordered off the menu instead of using our daughters’ gift certificate, we could have had a very fine meal within the limit.

Le Récamier

Le Récamier, 4 rue Juliette Récamier, 7th arrondissement

Our third stop was located on a pedestrian cul-de-sac off rue de Sèvres, which is dangerously close to the Bon Marché department store and Gérald Darel for anyone for whom well-heeled brand shopping might distract from a culinary mission. Judy nevertheless maintained her focus before seizing the shopping opportunity after lunch.

Récamier refers to a certain Juliette Récamier whose unfinished portrait by Jacques-Louis David hangs in the Louvre. Madame Récamier, as the portrait is called, was a French socialite whose salon drew people from the leading literary and political circles of early 19th-century Paris. Interestingly, David stopped working on her portrait in 1800 when he learned that François Gérard had been commissioned to paint her portrait. Gérard’s portrait hangs in Paris’s Musée Carnavalet. By all accounts and as seen in her portraits, Madame Récamier was something special. On the restaurant’s web page, they make sure their patrons are aware of this heritage, saying, “Today, her spirit is still alive … The elegance of Madame Récamier’s salon lives on.”

Bela recommended a table on the terrace and we were able to secure one. (The terrace is removed from car traffic.) His recommended dining options were beef and fish. He wrote, “the daily additions to the menu includes fish dishes,… [the chef] gets first-quality products every day.” The freshness still appears to be true, but the menu Bela read had evolved over the past 38 years. The ones in our hands contained a substantial list of savory soufflés, which have been a hallmark of the restaurant for the past ten years. We promptly ignored that list, until the dessert page.

Judy started with soupe de carotte au curry (curried carrot soup), while I ordered salade d’artichauts poivrade á l’huile d’olive citronnée, Parmesan Reggiano (artichoke salad with lemon olive oil and parmesan cheese). The dish that was the highlight of Judy’s Paris dining experience that month came next: filet de bar grillé, légumes de saison, sauce olivade et tapenade (grilled sea bass with seasonal vegetables in an olive and tapenade sauce). The fish and sauces were well prepared, but Judy especially gave the dish two thumbs up for the quality and quantity of the seasonal vegetables. Based on Bela’s recommendation, I ordered pavé de veau, pommes de terre sautée, sauce morille (veal with sauteed potatoes in mushroom sauce), which was nearly as gush-worthy as Judy’s choice. For dessert, we shared a soufflé à la mangue, sorbet fruits rouges (mango souffle with red-fruit sorbet). Bela had warned, “…watch out for the desserts. The meal does not come cheap and you are easily up to our self-imposed limit if you take one of the excellent Burgundies,” a warning that if you have an expensive bottle of wine, your budget may not afford dessert. We had not taken an excellent bottle of wine with our meal, rather we each had a pleasing glass of Macon Villages and therefore felt completely guiltless sharing our very satisfying dessert. Our luncheon came to 138€ or about $140, so there would have been room within the budget had we wanted more wine and/or a second dessert.

Joséphine Chez Dumonet

Joséphine Chez Dumonet, 117 rue du Cherche-Midi, 6th arrondissement

Originally called Joséphine, this restaurant opened in 1898. When the Dumonet family took over the business decades ago they added Chez Dumonet to the name. The family still owns the restaurant. In adding this entry to his list in the 8th edition, Bela referred to it as “basically a bistro, and a good one.” As we knew by then, Bela was a huge fan of classic bistro fare. He recommended several dishes including “foie gras frais de canard – outstanding.” Reading Bela’s reviews, it appears that he never met a homemade foie gras he didn’t like.

The restaurant was featured in the 2013 film Le Weekend when the two main characters return to Paris to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary. They search for the classic French bistro, dismissing one place after another because they are too big, too pricey, too empty, too touristy, or too stuffy. Then they find the curtained restaurant on a quiet one-way street with small wooden tables covered with simple white tablecloths. Voilà, there is Joséphine. We certainly agreed.

We had house guests from the Netherlands who joined us for our luncheon reservation. Aspèrges blanches (white asparagus) was in season, so we all started with the dish. We shared the foie gras de canard frais maison, and although our house guests aren’t typically as fond of foie gras as we are, we were all pleased with Bela’s recommendation. Having another couple at the table gave us the opportunity to taste four classic bistro dishes for the main course: confit de canard maison, cassoulet maison, boeuf bourguignon aux tagliatelles, and foie de veau, vinaigre de framboise. Regarding the latter, I would not usually order calf’s liver, but Bela had high praise for the dish and I’d set out to follow in the great gourmet economist’s footsteps, so on I marched… and it was melt-in-the-mouth delicious. Judy had the cassoulet, a meat and bean stew, though perhaps not for the sake of Bela’s memory but rather for her own since during her teaching career she was involved in numerous student exchange programs between the sister cities Atlanta and Toulouse, and cassoulet is a specialty from Toulouse that Judy enjoyed whenever she visited that pink-tinged southwestern city. Our companions were very satisfied with their French comfort food of duck confit and beef Burgundy. The classic French dishes prepared to perfection at Restaurant Joséphine were a hit around the table. To our discredit, we did not save room for dessert, what with the two appetizers, but I trust that Bela’s two dessert recommendations are still valid: the tarte fine chaude aux pommes (hot thin-crust apple pie) and the millefeuille Jean-Louis. The price of our four meals came to 258€. Therefore, the two-person budget of 129€, or about $139.32, which would have been within budget even with the dessert.

Divellec

Divellec, 107 rue l’Université, 7th arrondissement

Jacques Le Divellec moved from the La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast to the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris in 1983, bringing with him his appreciation for fish and seafood and his talent for preparing them. Bela would have known the restaurant when it was called Le Divellec and Le Divellec himself was in the kitchen. The chef retired in 2013 and the restaurant was taken over several years later by Mathieu Pacaud, who removed the Le but kept the Divellec. The restaurant currently has one Michelin star. Admittedly, our rules were to follow in Bela’s footsteps only when a restaurant remained with the same name in the same location as when he dined there. But no need to be too picky for a mere Le.

We attended the American Church of Paris that Sunday. The restaurant is a short walk from there. Bela reports a pleasant décor at Le Divellec that “gives the impression of a yacht club.” I shall reverse the compliment, saying that this yacht club gives the impression of Divellec.

The employees at Divellec were most curious about our culinary adventure. During the meal they offered us tours of the wine cellar, the private dining rooms and the kitchen.

Bela recommended starting your meal with fresh oysters, and so we did to our great pleasures. Next, we shared calques bar, bonbons de pomme vert, citron caviar (thin layers of sea bass marinated with green apples and lemon), a house specialty. The layers are sliced so thin that the sea bass looks translucent. The dish was deliciously delicate. The next course we considered our main, though it could have easily served as another appetizer. We shared palourdes, gratinées au thym citron (baby clams prepared au gratin with lemon thyme). We are very fond of mussels prepared in a similar fashion but the clams outperformed the dish of mussels we had recently had at another restaurant. After the clams, we enjoyed a delightful soufflé au chocolat (chocolate souffle).

Bela noted, “White wine is de rigueur with seafood and fish, and Le Divellec offers a wide selection.” We followed his advice—and the sommelier’s—and enjoyed a bottle of Château Reignac from Bordeaux. It proved an excellent complement to our three courses of seafood. At 65€ the Château Reignac wasn’t terribly expensive by Paris standards, yet it pushed the bill beyond Bela’s limit. The total came to 218€, or $235. We could have held the budget line with just a glass of wine, as we did at all the other restaurants, but Paris calls for a little splurge every now and then. All told, we could see—and taste—why Bela awarded Le Divellec his highest score, 9 out of 10. We also concluded that this was a restaurant we would most like to bring our family to upon our return to Paris. Sea food, chocolate soufflé, and a bottle of Château Reignac for a Sunday lunch. What could be better?

L’Ami Louis

L’Ami Louis, 32 rue du Vertbois, 3rd arrondissment

When Bela was rating his restaurants 38 years ago, L’Ami Louis’s chef, Antoine Magnin, was 78 years old and Bela worried that “the time may not be far when he decides to retire. Yet, his restaurant should not be missed by anyone who appreciates traditional French cooking in a vieillot bistrot atmosphere. Indeed, there are few bistrots like L’Ami Louis left in Paris.” Bela would be pleased to learn that the famous little bistro lives on in the finest tradition and continues, as Bela wrote, to serve “genuine, tasty food as one imagines having in our grandmother’s days.”

With just 14 tables, the restaurant is quite small. Reservations are required, not just because it is a marvelous bistro, but it also has been visited by Bill Clinton, Jacques Chirac, Alice Waters, Francis Ford Coppola, and recently, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff. I went alone for lunch while Judy was cashing in on a Mother’s Day massage gift from the daughters. Bela wrote, “I recommend that you order the following dishes, to be served in succession: foie gras, confit de canard, and agneau de lait” (foie gras, roast duck breast, and suckling lamb). He also said that you can stay within your budget for two, … “provided that you share some of the gargantuan portions.” Dining alone meant making adjustments, beginning with the notch of my belt, for I had no one to share with.

I started with a simple salade verte (a lettuce salad). This was my initiation to the “gargantuan portions.” The salad bowl brought to the table included at least two heads of Bibb lettuce. The salad bowl was enough for a family of four. But it was only lettuce, and the Dijon vinaigrette, lightly applied and evenly distributed, made it effortless to keep having just one more bite. My main course was always going to be confit de canard aux pommes bearnaises (roasted duck breast with potatoes in bearnaise sauce). I wasn’t tempted by the suckling lamb, not because I wouldn’t have liked giving it a try in Bela’s honor but because it was not on the menu. Anyway, the duck was plenty. I sure could have used Judy’s help with these first two courses. I had only had duck confit a few times previously but this serving exceeded my previous memory of the dish. It had the traditional crusty top with most tender breast meat. The bearnaise sauce drizzled over the potatoes was an excellent complement to the duck breast. The salad bowl, the crispy duck breast, and potatoes with bearnaise sauce were all in front of me, when there appeared before me a large bowl of pommes de terre frites (French fries). A nearby table of six diners were enjoying roast chicken with pommes frites and their bowl of fries was just as large as mine! Where was Judy when I needed her? I continued to enjoy all the flavors on my table to the best of my abilities. And to further exercise my abilities, I then ordered dessert, a gâteau au chocolat (chocolate cake), and coffee. Shortly, I was rewarded with a glass of brandy. I think the restaurant’s servers were showing their appreciation for a customer who had made the most of his lunch. The cost of the meal was 137€, or about $148. Times two that would have been well beyond budget, but here I was lunching alone. I could use the justification that the “gargantuan portions” would have easily served the two of us, but no need to justify. I can’t imagine that the World Bank would insist that their consulting economist eat every meal with company. He, too, must have sometimes struck out on his own.

Maison Rostang and Au Trou Gascon

L’Ami Louis proved to be the last restaurant we tried from Dr. Bela Balassa’s recommendations. For various reasons we were not able to fit in the remaining two establishments. They will have to be on our list the next time we are in Paris.

One of them is Maison Rostang, 20 rue Rennequin, 17th arr., which now has two Michelin stars and may well be above this project’s budget limit. Bela knew the restaurant as Michel Rostang when its founding owner-chef of that name held the reins. Rostang now operates a mini-culinary empire while having handed the keys to the kitchen at Maison Rostang to Nicolas Beaumann.

The other is Au Trou Gascon, 40 rue Taine, 12th arr., which was highly rated in the 7th edition but was dropped in the 8th edition, perhaps because in the intervening year (1986) chef Alain Dutournier, without abandoning Au Trou Gascon, took up arms at the more luxuriant Le Carré des Feuillants. (The Feuillants closed in 2021 yet the Trou still exists.)

Final Grading

On his personal scale from 1 to 10, Divellec received the highest grade of the restaurants that remained active, a 9.0. Benoit was given an 8.5. Both Le Récamier and L’Ami Louis received an 8.0, La Petite Auberge 7.5, and Joséphine Chez Dumonet 7.0. Of course, the gourmet economist scored these restaurants thirty-eight years ago. Chefs have since come and gone, neighborhoods changed then changed again, and Paris is a highly competitive market for fine dining. Perhaps it is remarkable that these six remain and did not disappoint when we came calling. Au contraire, each restaurant was appetizing and a joy to visit both in its own right and as part of a culinary quest to follow in Bela Balassa’s footsteps

As I mentioned at the beginning, Judy and I have some experience with French cuisine, however we are not French cuisine experts. Nevertheless, we had our favorites and, for what it’s worth, we couldn’t help but give our own “grades” to these six restaurants. Using Bela’s grading scale, and for all the reasons stated above in the restaurant reviews, we echo his rating of (Le) Divellec at the top with a 9.0 grade. We’d then grade Le Récamier and Benoit with 8.5 each. L’Ami Louis comes next at 8.0. Last but not least, Josephine Chez Dumonet and La Petite Auberge, we note each at 7.5 while considering them favorite “French comfort food” locations.

Paying homage to Bela Belassa

Our Paris dining project started as an homage to a world class economist. However, the adventure of following his dining recommendations evolved into a captivating culinary quest. Bela Balassa is deservedly remembered for his significant contributions to our understanding of how international trade functions. He should further be honored, as I do here, as man who knew that sometimes you have to stop worrying about understanding the wider world and simply enjoy a good meal, with good table companions, and within budget… in Paris.

© 2023, Richard Fritz. First published on France Revisited.

The post Culinary Utility of the Dollar in Paris: 6 Recommendations from a Gourmet Economist appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

“We wanted the hotel to feel like it has always been a part of the Marais landscape,” Swedish, London-based interior designer Martin Brudnizki is quoted on the website of the new Paris 5-star hotel Le Grand Mazarin as saying. “… We were therefore inspired by the great Houses of the aristocratic era.”

He is referring there to the mansions and townhouses built in the 17th century when the Marais became trendy territory for the construction of noble residences and their continued use and decorative evolution by the titled and entitled through most of the 18th century. The Revolution then sent the aristocratic owners and renters either into exile or to the guillotine, after which “always been a part of the Marais landscape” came to mean something vastly different.

No longer marked by great wealth and privilege, the Marais was increasingly defined by labor, light industry, immigration and poverty. There were still dozens of grand old mansions around, but by 1900, the Marais swelled with a poor and working-class population, including many immigrants, among them thousands of Jews from Yiddish-speaking communities in Eastern Europe, with many more arriving through the 1930s. The Holocaust then sent the Jewish population either fleeing or to the death camps, leaving behind a decrepit cityscape that the rare visitor in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, even 1970s may well have thought had “always been a part of the Marais.”

The 311-acre heart of the Marais was saved from further ruin and the specter of concrete-and-glass renewal by a national law of 1962 calling for district-wide historic preservation and restoration. The law, along with the subsidies, public works and business opportunities that would eventually follow, accompanied the continuing evolution of the Marais, with: the arrival of Sephardic Jews to Paris in the 1950s and 1960s; the opening of the Picasso Museum in 1985; the opening of gay bars and clubs in the latter half of that decade; the steep rise in real estate prices in the 1990s; the development through the 2000s of rue des Rosiers, formerly part of the Pletzl at the epicenter of pre-war Yiddish-speaking immigration in the Marais, into a street that’s part Jewish food court part internationally-branded boutiques, and, in the 2010s, the listing of a considerable number of properties on Airbnb, each promising “charm” and “exposed wooden beams” (read: old buildings now gentrified).

Slowly at first, then much quicker since the mid-1980s, the Marais evolved into such a well-maintained on-the-radar quarter for strolling, shopping, museum-going, art-gallery-contemplating, café-sitting, with a few gay bars here, and a few Jewish restaurants there, that today’s visitor might think that its trendy bourgeois-casual lifestyle and the ease of communicating in English “have always been a part of the Marais landscape.”

Le Grand Mazarin

Where, then, do Le Grand Mazarin and its restaurant Boubalé fit into today’s Marais?

On the edge, or in many ways as its main entrance, catercorner to City Hall, in a 19th-century building across the street from the BHV Marais department store, at one corner of Place Harvey Milk, named for assassinated American defender of gay rights. A doorman in pride purple livery stands by the hotel entrance.

Past the small reception area, the drawing-room lobby presents a muted flamboyance, introducing visitors to the muted greens, reds and blues that dominate throughout the building and to the cozy, quirky, sophisticated nostalgia that impregnates the place.

The 50 rooms and 11 suites present a potpourri of furnishings, each outlined with a prominent curve or bevel, with enough reminders of 18th-century styles that the pre-Revolutionary petite noblesse would feel very much at ease here. It’s design without being high design, welcoming without being precious, indulgent without being lavish. Above all, it’s stylishly comfortable. The rooms are of modest size, as one would expect in the Marais. Rates start at 590€ and will rise beginning spring 2024.

The hotel’s restaurant Boubalé, described below, serves traditional Askenazic/Israeli fare. There’s also has a little, kitsch-chic, ground-floor bar. In the basement there’s an attractive pool with a fresco reminiscent of Cocteau’s work along its arched ceiling. A VIP basement lounge-bar will also soon open in another portion of the basement.

All told, the upmarket hotel, restaurant, bar and VIP room that form Le Grand Mazarin don’t seem to have “always been a part of the Marais landscape” so much as they present a cheery, nostalgic pastiche of major markers of the Marais of the past five centuries.

Boubalé

This restaurant and its adjacent bar are very much part and parcel of Le Grand Mazarin but with separate entrances from the hotel. So they can certainly be considered for anyone not lodging upstairs.

While the hotel’s rooms and suites call to mind the well-being of the petite noblesse, Boubalé—the restaurant’s name is a Yiddish term of endearment—and the bar appear to have been inspired by a vigorous and stylish older actress in Yiddish theater who enjoys hanging out with the younger crowd.

As noted above, the restaurant serves traditional Ashkenazic/Israeli cuisine. Jerusalem-born chef Assaf Granit has become a prime purveyor of Israeli cuisine in France. He’s the first Israeli chef to have a Michelin star in France (at Shabour in the Paris’s 2nd arrondissement). As executive chef with the JLM Group, he has been overseeing Boubalé in its opening period before the restaurant’s executive chef Itmar Gargei takes full command of the kitchen.

“Tradition, tradition!… Tradition!”—you know the song. This is the menu version of that: challah, pastrami plate, gravlax, roast beets with feta and horseradish, chopped chicken liver… seafood knaidlach, “ashkenazi mesachen,” “goulash+gnochhis”… strudel, babka… More polished than revisited, it’s all tasty—“entertaining” is perhaps a more accurate word—in a traditional smorgasbord kind of way. If not made with Bubbie love, then at least made with open-kitchen care. Ordering several appetizers (we ordered nearly all of them) to share is the way to go, both to get a taste of the various dishes and to get into the upbeat spirit of the place. The aforementioned Yiddish actress may well have had the tableware custom-made in the old country; her children will let it gather dust in the closet when they inherit it, but the grandkids and their kids will find it delightful. Anyway, Boubalé isn’t meant for her own children, now too old for this. On the two evening that I dined here (once as a guest*, once as a host), the majority of the crowd appeared to be under 35. There’s a good, upbeat vibe if you don’t mind the rising music and voice level as the evening progresses.

A 3-course meal, with challah (10€), will run about 75€, without drinks. I leave it to you to decide if that’s “oy vey” pricing.

The Bar

As someone who enjoys the atmosphere of hotel bars, I found the playful kitsch-chic décor of the little ground-floor bar quite to my liking as a place to wind down the evening. Here, I had my first taste of the Tunisian fig brandy Boukha, a drink with an Ashkenazic-Sephardic history of its own. The basement club/bar, is intended as a no-cell phone space to wind up the night, wasn’t yet open when I visited.

Le Grand Mazarin and the restaurant Boubalé, 17 rue de la Verrerie, Paris 4th arrondissement.

Le Grand Mazarin is the latest of the Pariente family’s slowly growing collection of distinctive 5-star hotels under the umbrella name Maisons Pariente, including Crillon Le Brave in Provence, Le Coucou in Méribel and Lou Pinet in Saint Tropez.

* Disclaimer: As many readers know, I wear various professional hats: travel writer and editor of this publication, travel and tour advisor for agencies and individuals, and organizer/guide in Paris and throughout France. I have worn all three with respect to Le Grand Mazarin: 1. In writing this article. 2. In first dining here as a guest on a site visit with a luxury travel agency, then second dining here on a tasting tour that I organized and hosted for visitors to Paris. 3. Subsequent to that first visit I was hired by the hotel to give a tour of the Marais to visiting journalists.

© 2023, Gary Lee Kraut

The post Paris Hotel & Restaurant Report: Le Grand Mazarin and Boubalé appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Let’s talk about your Champagne education. No, not the neighborly kind offered at your local wine shop. Nor the delightful kind that you can get on a wine bar tour with me in Paris. I’m talking about the well-advised independent kind that a curious traveler—you—can get by visiting the vine-growing area and production zone of the world’s most famous sparkling wine. Yes, I’m talking about your Champagne daytrip or overnight.

For most destinations in the Champagne wine region your coursework on the making and variety of tastes and styles of Champagne requires a road vehicle, whether a rental car, a taxi, a car service or an organized car/van/bus tour—in any case a designated driver.

Let’s say that you’re either setting out from Paris or heading to the Champagne region directly after arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport. A driving tour can start with the Marne Valley producers around Chateau-Thierry, a zone where pinot meunier vines dominate or by going directly to the heart of the region that lies between and within the two capitals of Champagne: Reims, the historic regional capital, and Epernay, the capital of bubbly itself. Beyond Epernay there’s the Côte des Blancs, especially known for the prestigious chardonnay grapes that grow in its chalky soil. Then there’s the lesser traveled southern portion of the growing area in the department of Aube, specifically the Côte des Bar, with its much-desired pinot noir vineyards.

Each of those areas has its particularities and benefits as destinations to enjoy and learn about Champagne. But how to obtain a good Champagne education without a car or driver? Château-Thierry and Reims are reached easily enough by train, but for the former you then need to hit the road to get credits for your survey course, and for the latter you’d be one weary (though probably happy) foot traveler if you didn’t call for some kind of transportation during the day.

Epernay is the DIY Champagne destination with the best car-free outlook, whether on a daytrip or an overnight.

Not only can a sparkling excursion to Epernay be car-free but carefree as well since little logistical planning is necessary. Most days you can even purchase your train ticket at the last minute at Paris’s East Station, Gare de l’Est, for the one hour and twenty- or thirty-minute ride to Epernay. Greater planning is necessary to climb the Eiffel Tower or visit the Louvre than to explore Epernay on a daytrip.

From the Epernay station, your entire learning campus can easily be covered on foot. Within one mile of the station, you can visit any of a dozen Champagne producers, examine a terrific museum that’s dedicated to regional archeology and the wines of Champagne, see the former mansions of Champagne merchants, and have a choice of restaurants, Champagne bars, pastry shops, and cafés. You can even rise 492 feet in a tethered balloon or climb a 217-foot tower for a view over the valley and out to the vineyards. All within one mile of the train station.

The agro-industrial business of Champagne production dominates in Epernay (pop. 23,000), so if you’re a single-minded traveler looking for an intensive introduction, continuing education or master class in Champagne—without recourse to a car—read on.

Avenue de Champagne

The essential strolling grounds for a visit to Epernay is Avenue de Champagne, Champagne Avenue. Sparnaciens, as local citizens are called, like to tell visitors from the capital that Avenue de Champagne is the Champs-Elysées of Epernay. Indeed, there’s just as much branding going on. But there’s also deep know-how along, around and beneath Avenue de Champagne. Epernay has nearly 70 miles of cellars underfoot, holding about 200 million bottles of bubbly. The avenue is bordered by the former mansions of Champagne merchants, many of them dating from the 19th century. They’re mostly on the left side as you rise the avenue, while on the right side are production facilities, with plenty of Champagne know-how and marketing expertise on both sides of the street. All of that allows Avenue de Champagne to be among the elements that entered UNESCO’s World Heritage List under the title “Champagne Hillsides, Houses and Cellars.”

You can easily spend half a day or more along the first half-mile of the avenue. Thanks to its many opportunities to learn, see and taste, Champagne Avenue could be your sole destination on a train excursion from Paris. Yet you’ll undoubtedly also enjoy a walkabout in the compact heart of the town with its bakeries, pastry shops, restaurants, cafés and tasting rooms.

The Epernay Tourist Office, at 7 avenue de Champagne, is conveniently located near the bottom of the avenue, so it can be your first stop on arrival. Reservations are recommended to visit a production facility and cellars, especially on busy weekends and in summer, but it’s also possible decide on an Epernay daytrip on a whim, in which case the tourist office can help direct you to an available cellar tour. Your Champagne curriculum calls for at least one such tour, particularly if you aren’t aware of the grapes, their classification and the Champagne method. Other than a formal tour, tasting opportunities are easy to come by, both on the avenue and in the heart of town.

Beyond the tourist office, the first major former mansion you’ll come upon was built for the Auban-Moët family in the second half of the 19th century. You may not know the Aubans but you’ve certainly heard of the Moëts, as in Moët & Chandon, whose installations can be visited right across the street. The mansion has served as City Hall since right after the First World War, which explains the monument to war dead that greets visitors entering on its avenue side. The estate’s park (feel free to enter) has a near replica of the Temple of Love that stands in the Trianon park at Versailles. (When arriving by train, you can actually cut through the park to reach Avenue de Champagne.)

Château Perrier: The Museum of Champagne Wine and Regional Archeology

A 3-minute walk further up the avenue you’ll come to the Château Perrier, an eclectic and ostentatious 96-room mansion built in the 1850s by local architect Pierre-Eugène Cordier for Charles Perrier, heir to the Perrier-Jouët Champagne House. The Perrier-Jouët cellars are partly beneath the mansion. They were dug to connect directly with the railway line that had been inaugurated in 1849. The estate was purchased by the Town of Epernay in 1943 to house its museum collections and library. Closed in 1998 for massive rethinking, reorganization and eventually restoration, it reopened in 2021 as the Museum of Champagne Wine and Regional Archeology.

If arriving by train in the morning, consider the museum as your first stop before lunch or a visit one of the Champagne Houses.

I know, I know, you’ve come for cool bubbles not for a dry museum. But let your curiosity draw you inside. First, to admire the grand staircase and the gold-leaf décor of the ground-floor reception rooms and to take in the view out to the park of Château Perrier and beyond the Marne River to the vine-planted slopes of the Mountain of Reims. Then it’s on to the geology section. Geology? What’s that got to do with my Champagne education? As with all prestigious wine regions, an awful lot! Just ask the roots of the vines and the minerality in your glass. An awareness of the formation of the region’s chalky sub-soil here is an integral part of your Champagne education as is, naturally, the section on winemaking that comes later. Yet the most fascinating part of the museum is the archeology collection (choice Neolithic, Celtic and Roman finds), one of the largest in France. The informative audio-guide, available in English, is especially useful in viewing that section.

Musée du vin de Champagne et d’Archéologie régionale, 13 avenue de Champagne, Epernay. Entrance (includes audio-guide): 9€, 6€ for ages 13 to 25, free for under 13. Closed Tues.

Continuing along the avenue and nearby

Among the most accessible producers for tours and tastings are Moët & Chandon, de Venoge and Boizel on the primary strolling portion of Avenue de Champagne; Alfred Gratien, Jacquinot & Fils and de Castellane on nearby streets, and Mercier and Comtesse Lafond beyond the first half mile of the avenue. Others are further afield but also reachable on foot (e.g. Charles Mignon on the opposite side of town). Still others allow you to pursue your education in their tasting room or bar, e.g. A. Bergère, Leclerc Briant, Elodie D., Les 3 Domaines (which presents the wines of three winemakers).

Whichever you visit, enjoy a stroll along the mannerly first half-mile of Avenue de Champagne to view the mansions and villas along the way. Don’t hesitate to enter an open gate and to inquiry about the bubbly of a producer you may never have heard of.

One of those that I visited on my recent overnight to Epernay was Champagne Boizel. I asked Lionel Boizel, who oversees the Champagne house with his brother Florent, to give readers a virtual tasting. His presentation of three Boizel Champagnes follows my introduction in this video.

Eventually, at a round-about, you’ll come to the turn-off toward the de Castellane Champagne House on the left and the Mercier facility built in the 1980s on the right. Mercier is a major producer with a family-friendly cellar tour. De Castellane, along with its own cellar tour, welcomes visitors of all ages able to climb the tower’s 237 steps for a view over the town and along the River Marne and out to the vineyards along the slopes of the southern side of the hill known as the Mountain of Reims. For an alternative or additional overview, you can lift off (weather permitting) in a tethered balloon (you’ll see it near the start of the avenue) while sipping a glass of bubbly at just under 500 feet.

Develop your Champagne curriculum freestyle

Obtaining a proper Champagne education when in Epernay or anywhere in the winegrowing region requires getting beyond the branding and the marketing in order to truly taste and understand the variety of sparkling wines called Champagne.

Major brands do dominate the avenue, including major assets within the LVMH wine portfolio, while smaller family-operated and independent producers also have a presence. All can be enjoyable and instructive. If you do opt to visit a big-brand producer, also visit one that’s lesser known or unknown to you. There are thousands of different Champagnes available, so try to discover what defines your taste and style.

Did you say thousands? Yes, I did.

There are nearly 370 producers known as Champagne “houses,” those that control the resources requires for their own production and market internationally. (See here for more detailed definition of a Champagne house.) These houses represent more than two-thirds of Champagne sales and more than 85% of exports. Each has its own style or styles and produces a range of sparkling wines. Many are referred to as grandes marques (big-brand) producers but of the 370 you may have only heard of how many? Six? Maybe a dozen tops? Some are small, even tiny. Most of the world knows Champagne through the marketing and availability of just a few dozen of the houses.

Here in France, however, we naturally have more access to the varied world of Champagne. Beyond those few dozen and beyond producers designated as “houses,” there are dozens of cooperatives marketing Champagne and hundreds of independent producers, and grapes are grown by more than 16,000 growers. Some producers without a presence on Avenue de Champagne have shops in town where you can get acquainted with their winemaking craftsmanship. (In Epernay you won’t necessarily come across all of the major brands that you’d find at home. Reims is the other major hub for international brands.) If you only focus on brand—even if your choices are limited at home—without tasting a great many, you risk being a sparkling wine snob, proclaiming admiration for a favorite brand without being able to explain why. Better to be a sparkling wine snob with the knowledge to back it up, whether you’ve got a favorite brand or not.

Just think how impressed your friends will be when you say, “I tend to like a Champagne that’s 50% pinot noir and 50% chardonnay, with no more than 5 grams of sugar. At least with certain hors d’oeuvres. As a straight aperitif I prefer a blanc de blancs. But I did once encounter a charming pinot meunier rosé that I’ve been looking for ever since. Of course, I’ll be happy with whatever you’re serving—I do like a good Champagne.”

Well, maybe your friends won’t be impressed, but I will.

In the town center, a few blocks from the start of Avenue de Champagne, the wine bar and shop Les Grands Vins de France can serve as a beyond-the-brand Champagne education in and of itself or a good place for your final exam. Ask for a tasting according to grape variety and/or sugar content to find your preference, then ask for the brands that correspond with that preference.

Use your time in Epernay to visits several producers, whether glitzy and earthy, mineral or fruity, from different areas of the region, for blanc de blancs, blanc de noirs, blended (and in various percentages), rosé, with varying amounts of added sugar, from this part of the vine-growing region or another, with some oak-barrel ageing or (more likely) not, organic, biodynamic or whatever, vintage or not.

Do I have to drink all of those for coursework? Certainly not. Drink with moderation, of course, and pace yourself. You don’t have to finish every glass. But isn’t it reassuring to know that you won’t be driving today and are unlikely to get lost in a town this size?

Which reminds me of something my friend Guillaume once said when we were leaving a wine fair in Paris: “How much wine can you really drink without just wanting a beer?” A lot, was my answer. But if a member of your travel group is anything like Guillaume, note that Epernay has a craft brewery, Tête de Chou, 1 bis avenue Foch, a 10-minute walk from the center. It may sound sinful to mention beverages with bubbles other than those in Champagne if you’ve come this far, but there you have it, craft beer served in the brewer’s taproom Thurs.-Sat. 5:30PM to midnight.

A pink pastry break: le moelleux champenois

Personally, I’d seek out pastry in Epernay before looking for beer. As a break from Champagne tasting (or to accompany it), Epernay and the surrounding region offer the opportunity to enjoy a pastry or cake that you won’t find elsewhere. It’s called the moelleux champenois. Moelleux means soft and champenois means from Champagne. The soft pastry from Champagne is therefore a nod the dry harder pink biscuits (aka Champagne biscuits or pink biscuits of Reims) that are traditionally associated with high tea Champagne and after-dinner delicacy.

In 2019 by a group of six boulangers-pâtissiers belonging to the Bakery Federation of the Marne came together in an effort to create a pastry that would be distinctly regional. The result is the moelleux champenois, made of eggs, sugar, almond, butter, flour, marc de Champagne (a brandy made from the residue of Champagne wine grapes after pressing), baking powder, with crumbled pink biscuit on top (egg whites, sugar, flour, baking powder, coloring). Only members of the Bakery Federation are authorized to use the recipe to make moelleux champenois under that name. Currently, about 40 do. On our trip, it made for a nice pairing with de Castellane rosé both for taste and for color, but it also goes well with coffee or tea.

Ours was actually a triple pairing of moelleux champenois, De Castellane rosé and an encounter with Loïc Maingre, who was among the original development team for the pastry. He and his wife Céline operate the pastry shop Au Bonheur des Papilles. 31 Rue de la Porte Lucas, on the western edge of the inner town. Closed Wed. and Thurs.

Maingre explained that since pink (Champagne) biscuits have long shelf-life, the Bakery Federation wanted to create something that did as well. The moelleux champenois, he said, has a shelf-life of 11 days, but I can’t imagine anyone holding onto one for very long. Immediate consumption is more like it, especially if you purchase an individual portion (3.50€) but even a full cake (13€) if traveling with friends. (Admittedly, I did hold on to one individual portion to enjoy with breakfast two days later when back home in Paris.)

As to the recipe for pink biscuits, Vincent Dallet, a well-known pastry chef and chocolatier in Epernay (who is not among the group making moelleux champenois), shared it with me for this article a while back.

Restaurants and Eateries

La Banque, 40 rue du Général Leclerc. In a former bank building, a polished and classy brasserie, well situated for either lunch or dinner. Open daily.

La Cave de l’Avenue, 5 avenue de Champagne. An easy-going restaurant at lunchtime and a wine bar after 6PM, La Cave belongs to the Bergère family, owners of Champagne A. Bergère. Closed Sun. and Mon. While the restaurant and wine bar naturally serve the family Champagne, a cellar tour and formal tasting can be had further up the avenue at #40.

La Cave à Champagne, 16 rue Gambetta. An Epernay institution for hearty traditional fare. Closed Tues. and Wed.

Le Théâtre, 8 place Mendès France. Traditional gastronomy by the theater at the circle near the train station. Closed Wed. as well as evenings Tues. and Sun.

There are numerous easy-going options for a meal or a snack in the compact town center, including bakeries, cafés and pizzerias.

Accommodations

There are three reasons that Epernay makes for a nice overnight for slow travelers: 1. To take a pre-dinner nap in your hotel or B&B after an afternoon of touring and tasting. 2. To enjoy a leisurely dinner (with more Champagne tasting) in town. 3. To take a genteel stroll along the avenue after nightfall.

Since this article concerns Epernay as a carless Champagne excursion, I’ve only selected accommodations that are within walking distance of the train station. Luxury accommodations and other worthy options are also found in the surrounding villages and by the vineyards.

Hotels

La Villa Eugène, 84 avenue de Champagne. Epernay’s only 5-star hotel, is located several hundred yards beyond the main stroll way of Avenue de Champagne, just past Mercier. It occupies a 19th-century mansion that once belonged to Eugène Mercier himself. Traditional rooms with a touch of elegance. Bar. Small outdoor heated pool. A wooded park behind the house. The hotel is a mile from the heart of the town and the train station, so while it isn’t far from the action, travelers on a car-free overnight may feel that they’re slightly off-center. Without discouraging a stay for Epernay-only foot travelers, I see this more as a place for settle in for two or more nights while also visiting the villages and vineyards in the vicinity with your own car or with a car service, taxi or organized tour.

Hotel Jean Moët, 7 rue Jean Moët, a well-situated 4-star in heart of town, a 4-minute walk from the train station, with a Champagne bar next door.

Hôtel de Champagne, 30 rue Eugène Mercier. A nice and simple inexpensive 3-star near the center of town, a 7-minute walk from the station.

Le Clos Raymi, 3 rue Joseph de Venoge. A 15-minute walk from the station, behind Avenue de Champagne, this pricier 3-star is a 7-room hotel of character in a 19-century mansion that once belonged to the Chandon family.

B&Bs

Epernay is actually more of a B&B destination for now, though not all will allow guests for only one night.

Le 25 Bis by Leclerc Briant, 25 bis avenue de Champagne, situated 500 yards up the avenue, about mid-way along the strolling zone. The Leclerc Briant Champagne house (200,000 bottles/year) has since 2012 been owned by the American couple Mark Nunnelly (from the world of finance) and Denise Dupré (from the world of hospitality management). They’re associated with Frédéric Zeimett, a French partner native to the region, for the production of their wines. The couple also owns the 5-star Royal Champagne hotel that overlooks the southern portion of the Mountain of Reims. Their chic B&B in Epernay has five large, formally elegant rooms and more service possibilities than a typical B&B. Priced accordingly. Options include taking over the entire house with a group of friends and, in that case, hiring a private chef, and, of course, a tour of the Leclerc Briant production headquarters which are situated on the western edge of Epernay where the vineyards begin.

Le Bubble 8, 8 rue des Berceaux, an excellent location on a calm street near restaurants, bars, bakeries and other shops, just a 3-minute walk from the start of Avenue de Champagne. Owner Pascale Lelong-Macra had a career in finance before purchasing the honorable solicitors’ Maison des Notaires and transforming it into five apartment B&Bs. The spacious, well-appointed studios and apartments with clean lines and character have kitchens or kitchenettes and so are especially adapted to a stay of several days or more. It’s nevertheless also a welcoming place for a short stay (there’s a 2-night minimum). Without the pretentions of a full-service B&B such as Le 25 Bis, Lelong-Macra’s son Clement is quite capable, with advance organization, of driving guests out to the villages and vineyards in the surrounding area for Champagne visits according to his itinerary or your own. (His is not a taxi service but a touring service for those staying at Le Bubble 8 and other apartments rentals managed by the family.)

Parva Domus, 27 avenue de Champagne. Parva domus magna quies is Latin for “small house, big rest,” which is what I enjoyed in the attic bedroom at Madame Rimaire’s plain, old-fashion, friendly B&B quietly located midway along the prestigious avenue, a 10-minute walk from the station. Magna Quies is the name of a sister B&B up the avenue at #49.

La Cave de l’Avenue, 5 avenue de Champagne, noted above as a lunchtime restaurant and evening wine bar belonging to the Bergère family (Champagne A. Bergère), is also a B&B with an excellent location for strolls day or night along Champagne Avenue and in the heart of Epernay.

Further logistical considerations

As I’ve said, a day trip to Epernay requires little advance planning, perhaps just a reservation for a cellar tour or two if you want and a hotel or B&B reservation if you intend to spend the night.

While this article is especially intended to describe an easy-walking, car-free Champagne excursion from Paris, whether as a day trip or an overnight, before returning to Paris, you can see on the map above its proximity to Reims, the historic capital of the Champagne region.

Nearly hourly trains link Epernay and Reims, a 35-minute ride to the opposite side of the Mountain of Reims. So after a day or overnight in Epernay it’s possible to continue car-free to visit the sights of Reims (cathedral, basilica, Roman arch, a great food market, and more) as well as tour other big-name Champagne houses (Taittinger, Ruinart, Pommery, Veuve Clicquot) with their impressive cellars occupying Gallo-Roman and medieval limestone quarries. As mentioned earlier, fully visiting Reims requires far more walking than in Epernay, but they are world-renown sights. From Reims you can catch a train back to Paris or continue eastward on a rail-based tour. It’s also possible to begin with a train to Reims (from either Paris or Charles de Gaulle Airport) before continuing on to Epernay then returning to Paris.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

The post A Carless and Carefree Champagne Daytrip or Overnight to Epernay (Video) appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

A food lover, I worked my way through the Breton catalog of culinary wonders during my first few months in Brittany. I ate delicately spun buckwheat crepe-like galettes, my favorite filled with a perfect balance of musky smoky sausage and briny seaweed. I feasted on piles of mussels coaxed to open their shells in a savory brew of mellowed alliums, wine and then the sea broth given up by the crustacean, a baguette there to soak up every single drop of buttery, tangy broth. At my friend’s cottage by the roaring gray ocean, I slathered slices of dark buckwheat bread with the famous brilliant-yellow Breton butter salted by the sea and ate it alongside razor clams we had just dug up from the sandy beach. And my cheeks got round with weekend brunches ending in flaky, caramelly kouign amann pastry.

Those first few months I don’t know if I ate even one potato. “Earth apple” in French and Breton: pomme de terre, aval-douar. I wondered where the produce from all the fields of green went if not to the Breton table. In fact, my introduction to those potatoes – Amandine, Charlotte, Marianna, to name just a very few – began not à table but on the streets of Brest. Literally on the streets.

I was on my way home from school one evening, later than most commuters. It was a typical drizzly gray spring but the eerie silence was more like a city after a winter storm. Farmers protesting low prices had dumped tractor loads of potatoes at major intersections. The piles were now a whispering soft mush like when you add too much milk to the spuds.

Cars quietly shushed through the slush or got stuck, like me, in a foot of puree. A tall lusty gendarme, in the normally menacing all-black uniform, directed traffic with the glee of a child on the first real snow day in December. He lifted up my car’s back right rear where the tire was spinning in the muck with a hearty, “Hop là!” The thrust sent a spray of potato up the front of his jacket and his feet slid out from under him on the slippery sliding mess. He fell flat on his derriere, laughing up at the sky; I half expected him to make a snow angel in his delight. “Oh, la, la, quel bordel!” he laughed.

My introduction to the importance of potatoes to Breton chefs happened at a small café on a blustery winter day, the wind roaring in off the Atlantic. The waitress standing at my table, a round older woman with remarkable posture, tapped a pad with her pencil. Her apron was pristine, white and pressed, a towel tucked on the side to give a table a quick swipe. She was all business and waiting for my order. The special of the day? Lapin chasseur – rabbit, hunter-style. With potatoes.

It sounded lovely. But in my bright-eyed and bushy-tailed naïve American way, I asked in my clumsy French, “What is there as vegetables?”

The waitress, a bit like my stern second-grade teacher, Mrs. Bodfish, who said a lot with a little, stared silently. She must have realized Americans can be dense. “Potatoes,” she repeated.

Not to be deterred I went on, “Well, in my country, potatoes are not truly considered as a vegetable.”

She continued to stare. I matched her ability to be frugal with her words, with my ability to go the extra mile. “It’s like the rice or the pasta? How do you say, a ‘starch’?”

Nothing. Surrendering, I ordered the lapin that the hunter had slaved over with the potato vegetables. The rabbit was tender and fell away from the bone with a simple touch of a single fork tine. Mushrooms melted away on my tongue in a caramelly brown sauce and a medley of herbs teased my palate. And with each bite? A bit of potato to perfectly bind and carry the woodsy meat, mushroom and sauce without disturbing the delicacy of the flavors.

The waitress came by and asked brusquely how everything was. “Très, très bon – délicieux.” She gave a short and sure “of course” nod and went back to the other customers. My stomach gloriously warm and full, the bill paid, I was calling my farewell when the waitress remembered something and gestured for me to wait.

She called to the chef in the kitchen. He appeared at the window where orders were placed – tall and thin, eyes quick and gray-blue like the Breton sea, cheeks red and glossy with the heat of the kitchen. She presented me ceremoniously with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “This,” she emphasized, “is the woman who said potatoes are not a vegetable.”

He looked me over from head to toe and back again. He enunciated. “C’est le légume de baaaaase, madame,” which translates to “Lady, it is the foundation on which all other vegetables rest, on which all food rests, in fact.”

There it was. The reason for the glorious green and rolling fields laying down a carpet from the city to the sea as I passed on the drive to work each day. And from that moment on, I began to see them everywhere. Humble, unassuming potatoes – the necessary support to the dishes that stole the culinary thunder but were not complete without them.

There was Kig ha farz – buckwheat flour dumplings cooked in a linen sleeve alongside boiled meats and vegetables – with potato cooked in the salty, savory broth. Not a restaurant dish but a simple stick-to-your-ribs meal meant to gather family around the table after Sunday mass. Poulet à la Bretonne, simmered on the stove in a Breton cider as fine as any dry white wine, only became a full dinner when served with golden roasted potatoes. Historically, the fisherman of Brittany took potatoes with them for long days out on the water and would add a medley of fish from their catch with a bit of water and sea brine to make the working man’s cotriade, a nourishing soup at sea. And every Breton village had its own recipe for the fisherman’s soup perfectly suited to the many many rainy, windy days of Bretagne.

In 2023, I will be heading back to revisit the land of pommes de terre. I know I can expect some rain, I can expect drives through lovely countryside, and I can expect some incredible meals with the essential foundation of potatoes.

© 2022, Francesca Cannan, for first publication on France Revisited.

The post The Potato Chronicles: Memories of Brittany appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.

Even though I had much to learn back then, and still do, Le Grand Véfour became my gold standard for experiencing the culinary trifecta of setting, service and cuisine, with a bonus of history if I care to learn it, which I typically do. Two Michelin stars then three (2000) then the third withdrawn (2008)—the nuances of rating systems didn’t matter, for me; Le Grand Véfour meant an exquisite restaurant experience. Over the years, when advising travelers on where to go for an exceptional dining experiences, Le Grand Véfour stayed on my list as other restaurants came and went.

In 2021 the stars went out on Le Grand Véfour as Guy Martin steered his ship away from high gastronomy. Destination: elegant bistro. Travelers with or without a highly-garnished financial portfolio can now enjoy a seat at the historic table. But having history isn’t sufficient reason to recommend a restaurant to anyone who isn’t primarily interested in that history.

After two meals this year at Le Grand Véfour, do I keep it on Gary’s Restaurant List?

Le Grand Véfour holds a singular place in the diningscape of Paris as a participant in and witness to the origins, evolution and vicissitudes of restaurants in the Palais Royal area. The chic Café de Chartres, created in the 1780s, gave way in the 1820s to a posh restaurant run by Jean Véfour, which soon became Grand to distinguish it from that of a rival with the same last name. Le Grand Véfour survived, even thrived, through the rise and fall of kings, emperors and republican governments throughout the 19th century, only to become far less grand for much of the first half of the 20th century. Its modern revival in 1948 was led by Raymond Oliver, then continued with the Taittinger family, who eventually brought on board Chef Guy Martin, who is now in full command.

Dining at Le Grand Véfour today is not all about looking back. Diners can also look forward—to passing through its peristyle entrance, where, weather permitting, there’s outdoor seating, and into its precious décor. Whether seated on a red velour banquette or across from one, mirrors ensure that everyone in the main historic room has the best seat in the house (though for me the very best remains a 2-top in the corner of that room).

During the restaurant’s high gastronomy days, I appreciated that the tables at the Grand Véfour were relatively close together because that tended to discourage gatherings of businessmen while an intimate atmosphere for couples and friends. I used to find it among the most romantic of the high gastronomic venues of Paris, a place to go with one or two or more no more than three intimates. Nowadays, there’s more seating, the noise level is less hushed, the pace more sustained, the diners less well dressed, and the bewitching culinary slights of hand and pricey gourmet ingredients less present than in Le Grand Véfour’s starred days. Still, much remains of the restaurant’s superbness.

Guy Martin’s high gastronomy would strike a delicious balance between inventive and neo-classic excellence. Now, the food has been simplified to that of polished bistro excellence. The chef makes even the more rustic of the classic dishes (e.g. duckling fillet with mashed turnips or slow-cooked pork cheeks) seem refined and gastronomic. Yes, the stars have gone out, at least temporarily, and the “wow” moments of high gastronomy set aside, yet Guy Martin’s cuisine and the overall experience of a meal at Le Grand Véfour shine on.

The conversion from a 320€ epicureanism to 58€ graceful bistro has not in the least reduced the level of service. This is what has surprised and impressed me the most this year since service is typically the first thing to go with the lowered prices. Sommelier Romain Alzy and all-watching Hervé Delaunay have maintained their amiable grace; they took the time to chat and explain at our table and others, while the young staff holds up its end as though still reaching for the stars. And while you don’t come to eat history, there’s plenty to savor in a restaurant that’s steeped in it.

One of the occasions of dining her this year, we selected its 3-course fixed-price “weekly” menu at 58€ per person without drinks, an astoundingly good deal for the quality, service and setting. The other time, we chose from the à la carte menu at 90-100€ without drinks, more a treat than a splurge.

With the fixed-price meal, our bill for two, including a nice lower-range bottle of wine and mineral water came to about 100€ per person.

On the à la carte night, the bill for our table of three, also with a bottle plus several more glasses of nice but non-splurge wine, came to about 150€ per person. (There’s still an exceptional wine list where the sky’s the limit.)

Keep Le Grand Véfour on Gary’s Restaurant List? Not as the archetype of classy, elegant fine dining, but as Paris’s most exquisite bistro.

Le Grand Véfour, 17 Rue Du Beaujolais, 1st arr. Tel, 01 42 96 56 27. Open Tuesday to Saturday.

For a glass of wine before dinner, there are two notable wine bars around the corner: The English-accented Willi’s Wine Bar, 13 rue des Petits-Champs, and the French-accented Legrand Filles et Fils, 1 rue de la Banque.

© 2022, Gary Lee Kraut

See this Ode to Guy Martin published on France Revisited in 2009.

The post Paris restaurants: Le Grand Véfour, Starless yet Still Stellar appeared first on France Revisited - Life in Paris, Travel in France.