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.

Seventy-five years after the Liberation of France, a visit to the D-Day Landing Beaches and the WWII memorials, museums and cemeteries of Normandy remains high on the wish-list of Americans and other international travelers to France. Yet few are aware of the French role in the Liberation of Paris.

A new, free, highly informative museum, partially located in an air raid shelter used by the Resistance during the liberation of the capital, provides insights into the history of Paris and Parisians during the Second World War.

The Liberation of Paris

By mid-August 1944, as the Allies were breaking out from Normandy and simultaneously gaining a foothold in the south of France, General Charles de Gaulle, who had led the Free French in exile, disagreed with the Allies as to the urgency of liberating Paris. For the Americans and allies, Berlin was the prime objective in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany. Paris, of little strategic value, could be bypassed on route to the German capital. But for de Gaulle, liberating Paris was essential to the country’s future unification and independence, and that required securing military and political French control of the capital sooner rather than later.

The issue was soon forced. Strikes had formed on August 10, growing to a general strike on August 18, and the insurrection began the following day. Skirmishes broke out and barricades were set up as a scrappy, lightly-armed Resistance fighters, policemen and civilians emerged from the shadows in an attempt to take on some 20,000 German soldiers and 50 tanks. On August 22 General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, gave permission to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by Free French General Leclerc, supported by the American 4th Infantry Division, to enter the city.

On the evening of August 24, Leclerc’s men entered Paris from the south and southwest, including along the road that would later be renamed Avenue du Général Leclerc. In the afternoon of August 25, German military governor General Dietrich von Choltitz, aware of the futility of fighting for control of the city in the face of advancing armies and unwilling to follow Hitler’s orders to leave the city in ruin, surrendered German forces in the Paris region. After four years of German occupation, the capital was free again.

De Gaulle entered Paris that afternoon. He proclaimed at City Hall the continuity of the French Republic and the restoration of Paris’s lost nobility with a phrase famous in the capital to this day: “Paris! Paris outragé! Paris brisé! Paris martyrisé! Mais Paris libéré!” (Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated!) He went on to say that Paris was “liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the assistance of all of France…” with little mention of Allied efforts other than to acknowledge “the help of our dear and admirable allies.”

Had Paris been strategically important to the Allies and the Germans, there would have been far greater material damage to the city in an effort to dislodge the occupying forces, so, thankfully, little direct help was necessary from those “dear and admirable allies.” The museum gives them more due, yet this is appropriately and above all a French affair, and as such it offers foreign visitors insights into the German occupation, the French Resistance (and collaboration), the liberation of the capital and several of the homegrown heroes of the war.

General Leclerc and Jean Moulin

Located in the 14th arrondissement, across the street from the entrance to the Catacombs at Place Denfert-Rochereau, the museum partially occupies an underground air raid shelter that was used by Colonel Henri Rol-Tanguy in August 1944 as a command post to direct the Paris Resistance during its uprising. (The segment of avenue in front of the museum bears his name.) The command post presents period newsreels along with displays about its functioning during the uprising, including the critical role played by Rol-Tanguy’s wife Cécile.

The museum, actually three related museums in one—it’s full name is the Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum / Jean Moulin Museum—highlights the roles of General Leclerc and resistance organizer Jean Moulin, two French heroes from very different backgrounds who helped liberate France from within and without.

When France fell to the Germans in June 1940, General Leclerc, a military officer from a Catholic aristocratic background, escaped the country and over the next three years helped assemble and lead Free French forces in Africa, North Africa and Europe. Born Philippe de Hauteclocque, he changed his name to Leclerc to protect his family in France from reprisals. He eventually assumed command of the 2nd Armored Division, integrated into Patton’s Third Army.

Jean Moulin, meanwhile, was a Socialist and a rising prewar civil servant, the youngest prefect in France at the time of his nomination. After the fall of France, Moulin refused to become a pawn for the German occupation and focused on coordinating General de Gaulle’s activities and those of various Resistance groups within France. His work required clandestine travel (including a hazardous nighttime parachute jump) during trips back from London to meet with de Gaulle. Under constant threat of detection by the Germans, he negotiated with and unified most groups of the French Resistance in a single structure, becoming the first president of the National Council of Resistance in the spring of 1943. In June, several weeks after the council’s first official meeting, Moulin was arrested. He was tortured by the Germans—notably by Klaus Barbie, the “Butcher of Lyon”—and died of his wounds on July 8.

Visiting the museum

While the museum exhibits are heavy on archival material (letters, government decrees, posters, etc.), there are poignant historical objects, such as Moulin’s matchbox for concealing microfilm, Leclerc’s desert uniforms and a graffiti fragment from a Jewish family deported from Paris’s Drancy transit camp.

The museum also offers a variety of multimedia exhibits and interactive maps which show the location of key buildings requisitioned by Germans during the Occupation, Resistance strongholds and sites of fighting during the Liberation. At Barbès metro station, for example, a Resistance commando team, led by Colonel Fabien (after whom another metro station on line 2 is named) assassinated a German soldier in the summer 1941. The Hotel Lutetia housed the Abwehr, the German counterintelligence service, during the Occupation and then at war’s end was a processing site for the few returning French who survived German concentration camps.

Sections of the museum are punctuated by short films (all with English subtitles) presenting visions of life in Paris during the war, from pro-German propaganda newsreels condemning Allied bombing raids to instructions for women how to paint their legs in the absence of silk stockings. The final sections include extensive footage of outgunned Paris Resistance fighters battling the German Army and of de Gaulle’s famous Liberation speech (“Paris outraged!…”).

Spartan grey walls and a realistic soundscape give the interior the sound and feel of a military bunker. The subterranean command post resounds with the clack of invisible typewriters, ringing telephones and the whine of an air raid siren. As the exhibits progress to the darkest period of the war for Paris, the visitor descends into the basement of the building, and later, after the Liberation story, one emerges into a sunlit atrium adorned with French flags and offering views of the neighborhood where Leclerc’s American M4 Sherman tanks rolled to the center.

Other wartime memories in Paris

The Liberation Museum adds an important voice to the city’s extensive historical narrative of World War II. Elsewhere in Paris, memories of the Second World War can be viewed from other angles at the Army Museum at Les Invalides (sections devoted to de Gaulle, to WWII, and to the Order of the Liberation); at the Shoah Memorial in the Marais; at the Deportation Memorial behind Notre-Dame; on plaques commemorating Resistance fighters and deported Jewish school children, and in the form of pockmarks from fighting during the Liberation of Paris.

Evidence of damage can be seen on the southeastern corner of Luxembourg Palace (the Senate building), on the southeastern corner of the Palais de Justice (the central courthouse on Ile de la Cité) and on the wall of the Tuileries next to the Place de la Concorde, as well as elsewhere.

The material damage in Paris was limited during the war, but the city’s liberation brought about the death of 1000 resistance fighters, 156 soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division, 588 civilians and 3200 Germans, along with thousands of wounded.

Since 1945 the Cross of the Liberation, an order created by General de Gaulle, has been a part of the arms of the City of Paris.

Post-museum R&R

The museum draws visitors into its subjects so well that the curious traveler could end up spending over an hour and a half here (while the rest of the family visits the Catacombs?) before emerging to contemporary café life in liberated Paris. Numerous cafés are right nearby, but consider heading away from the bustle to a stroll and a sit one block away on Rue Daguerre, the neighborhood’s wonderful pedestrian food market street.

Practical information

Museum of the Liberation of Paris/ General Leclerc Museum/ Jean Moulin Museum
Place Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris. Metro Denfert-Rochereau.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10AM to 6PM. No entrance possible after 5:15PM.

Tickets are free for the permanent exhibition, where displays present texts in English as well as French. The free ticket gains entrance to the command post in the air raid shelter, however only a limited number of people are allowed into the post at any one time, so visitors should request a timed reservation (not available online) to visit it as soon as they enter the museum in the hopes that tickets remain for the following hour.

The 100 steps down to the command post are steep, so a visit to that part of the museum could be difficult for visitors with small children or limited mobility. For those unable to access the command post, a virtual tour can be viewed on tablets available at the reception desk.

© 2019, France Revisited

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That’s my motto when selecting restaurants for many visitors. And there’ve been a lot these past few weeks: friends, relatives, friends of friends, friends of relatives, classmates, fundraisers, writers doing research, travelers taking most excellent tours. We’ve had lunch together, dinner, we’ve been to wine bars, had picnics, stopped for pastries, chocolate, Bertillon sorbet.

“How do you/they stay so thin,” they ask, causing me to suck in my gut, “eating like this all the time?”

Now here’s a secret the food-bloggers won’t tell you: We don’t. At least I don’t.

Paris can be visited as a perpetual all-you-can-eat deluxe buffet but it’s lived as a city with countless venues for a shared meal or drink with friends, colleagues, clients and assorted visitors. Eating well implies choosing well, ordering well, buying well… enjoying good company. There is a form of Parisian self-control in matters of food and drink. One gets a hang of quickly enough. Spending two hours à table doesn’t mean consuming four times the amount of someone who sits for 30 minutes. And we actually eat at home sometimes. We have access to good fresh produce. We walk to shops. We do our 10,000 steps, including frequent staircases. We cook in our little kitchens. We may even exercise, gently.

However, there are times when some combination of visitors, work obligations, journalist events, birthday celebrations and ordinary social life lead me on an extended period of wining and dining. And no matter how much I protest when the dessert menu is handed out, there are quite a few crème brulées, moelleux au chocolat, pies and tarts placed on the table with an extra fork or spoon. “I’ll just have a little taste,” as my grandmother would say.

That period of indulgence can last a few days or a week or, with my most recent schedule of visitors, events and travelers on most excellent tours, a month. Indulgence, however, is not the same thing as overindulgence. Indulgence is a knowing pleasure. Overindulgence is loss of control. Admittedly, there’s a fine line of distinction at times.

A friend, in Paris for business, unsure of which side of the line we were on, said during our third straight high calorie wine-infused meal together, “My wife’s gonna kill me for putting on weight. I’m gonna tell her it’s your fault.”

If shared good living is my fault then guilty as charged. I don’t know what you’re during this afternoon, Scott, but I’m going for a run as soon as I finish this article.

10 Venues for Shared Good Living—Simple Food, Simply Good

What follows is a selection of simple, simply good restaurants and shops that have been on my eating trails of the past few weeks during this most recent bout of shared good living. It’s my food diary of the past few weeks, minus the less appealing, the less well served and the more gastronomic meals consumed along the way.

Simplicity is the theme, meaning relatively straightforward fare, meat and potatoes and the like yet unmistakably French. Some will call this restaurant fare “borrrrring,” others will call it “just what I was looking for.”

All are moderately priced, here meaning 25-50€ for 2 or 3 courses without beverages. All have good to excellent service. None require much, if any, advance reservation, though no harm calling ahead.

1. Le Sully
6 boulevard Henri IV, 4th arr. Metro Sully-Morland.
Tel. 01 42 72 94 80. Closed Sunday.

It’s easy to overlook this daytime café-brasserie (it closes at 8pm) because the intersection out front appears to be a place of transit only and not of pause. But here—between Ile Saint Louis and the Arsenal quarter of the Marais, between old blocks from the Bastille and a statue of the poet Arthur Rimbaud, between an equestrian center for the Republican Guard and the Center for information, documentation and exhibition for urban planning and architecture of Paris—Le Sully is a place with roots. The same family has operated it since 1917 and their roots still run deep into the Aveyron region of central France. Le Sully is old reliable when it comes to enjoying the café-brasserie experience in Paris thanks to the generous spirit of Robert and Dany Vidal and their son Romain and to their sense of quality. Le Sully proudly sports the government label Maitre-Restaurateur, which signifies that dishes are made in house essentially using fresh ingredients. Aubrac rump steak and other nice lunchtime brasserie fare, Languedoc wines. We linger into the afternoon.

2. La Poule au Pot
9 rue Vauvilliers, 1st arr. Metro Louvre-Rivoli
Tel. 01 42 36 32 96 Open 7pm-5am. Closed Mon.
Ever true the bistro tradition, Paul Racat has for 40 years now maintained this relaxed yet classy home for rustic bistro classics, attentively served, and an atmosphere of unpretentious chic that develops as the evening and the night move on. Come the later the better. Soupe gratinée à l’onion, blanquette de veau, white Sancerre. We linger into the night.

3. Boucherie Roulière
6 rue des Canettes, 6th arr. Metro Mabillon or Saint Germain des Près.
Tel. 01 84 15 04 47. Open daily.

Having long associated this street between Saint-Germain and Saint-Sulpice with creperies, pizzarias and pubs, I thought it a bit risky to head here for beef. But the risk paid off: the sliced rib just right, attentive service, elbow-to-elbow seating that offered up a mix of good cheer and Parisian sophistication. Mille feuilles de tomate et artichaut à l’huile de truffe; côte de boeuf, bone marrow and steak fries; Saint-Estèphe (Bordeaux).

4. 750g La Table
397 rue de Vaugirard, 15th arr. Metro Porte de Versailles.
Tel. 01 45 30 18 47. Open daily.

If I lived on the southwestern edge of the city or frequently attended trade shows at Porte de Versailles, I’d be happy to consider Damien Duquesne’s Table my neighborhood restaurant for good chicken, good beef, homey side dishes, much freshness, a judicious wine selection and friendly service. But I don’t, so I consider 750g La Table as a sign that no quarter is immune to honorable food and wine.

5. Les Petites Ecuries
40 rue des Petites Ecuries, 10 arr. Metro Château d’Eau or Bonne Nouvelle.
Tel. 01 48 24 02 90. Open daily.
Walking by on a sunny day, it was the sight of the pleasantly odd alcove lined with a living green wall that gave me pause for coffee. Though suspecting that the place might be too young and hip for the food or service to be anything but an afterthought, I nevertheless returned for dinner with a visiting friend the following evening. And good thing, too: my duck was delicious, my friend enjoyed his steak, we were kindly served and we barely noticed that we were among the oldest ones there.

6. Le Plomb de Cantal
3 rue de la Gaîté, 14th arr. Metro Edgar Quinet.
Open daily.
Why waste your waistline on the meat and potatoes at an ordinary greasy spoon when you can do some delicious gut-busting in this joyful restaurant in the Montparnasse quarter with Auvergne comfort food, from deep in the center of France? Sausage served with aligot (mashed potatoes with cheese and garlic) or truffade (sliced potatoes, cheese, garlic) is king here, but duck, tripes or beef are also options. Hearty salads as well. It’s simple, it’s delicious, it’s caloric, it’s cheerful, it’s Paris without needing to be hip or sophisticated. There’s an extension around the corner and another outlet across the city near metro Strasbourg-Saint Denis, but come evening the greatest joy is on aptly named theater- and restaurant-filled rue de la Gaîté.

7. Terminus Nord  
23 rue de Dunkerque, 10 arr. Metro Gare du Nord.
Open daily.

While the Auvergnats accompany their sausages with cheesy potatoes, brasseries of the north, wonderfully exemplified by this large and brassy restaurant across the street from Gare du Nord (the train station that links Paris with London, Lille, Brussels and Amsterdam), serve theirs with sauerkraut. But upon returning from Amsterdam (Café Loetje for lunch) we came here for the other specialties of northern brasseries: fish (cod, sea bass, salmon, sole) and seafood. A reminder that simple fare, simply good, isn’t just a beefy affair.

8. Le Village Ronsard
47 Ter Boulevard St Germain, 5th arr. Metro Maubert-Mutualité.
Tel. 01 43 25 07 95. Open daily.
There are many like it, but when in this quarter come lunchtime I’ve always felt comfortable at this perfectly, excellently ordinary café-brasserie in the Sesame Street of Paris market areas. Poulet-frites, steak-frites, salads, omelets, etc.

9. Fil’O’Fromage
12 rue Neuve Tolbiac, 13th arr. Metro Bibliothèque François Mitterrand or Quai de la Gare.
Tel. 01 53 79 13 35. Open 10am-7:30pm Mon.-Wed. 10am-10:30pm Thurs.-Sat. Closed Sunday.

Past the loud brasseries, the cavernous cafés and the undesirable restaurants that first assault the rare explorer of the new Rive Gauche quarter of the 13th arrondissement, Clément Chérif Boubrit (“I’m the Sheriff,” he says), philosopher, photographer, cheesemonger, oenologist, operates an off-beat wine and cheese shop and eatery where I recently organized a tasting for a group of eight bloggers/writers. Don’t worry, you needn’t be eight or even organized to enjoy the Sheriff’s approach to tasting wine, cheese and cold cuts vertically, horizontally, blindly or what the hell let’s just share-ingly.

10. My kitchen. Leftovers from last night’s party. Open 7/7, by invitation only.

© 2015, Gary Lee Kraut

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So subtle is the interplay of surveillance and performance that it took this reviewer several minutes to grasp the true significance of the abundance of security personnel. As I visited the allocated space within the glass and steel building designed, I was increasingly enthralled by the way in which the foundation’s curators, financiers and merchants have create, inadvertently perhaps, a choreography of security personnel that offers deep insights into the work of the artists and the working of the foundation itself.

We spectators, arriving on Sunday afternoon with invitations and those invited to pay at the gate, were like shadows milling about, an unobtrusive audience leaving free range to the gestures, expressions and movement of the security personnel, themselves circumscribed by the work they “guarded.”

Dennis Oppenheim’s Table Piece, 1975, acquired by the foundation in 1996, occupies the larger of two rooms downstairs, where the presence of the vigils turns an examination of public discourse into a curatorial tour de force, however unintentional that may be. Oppenheim’s table organizes the space like the basement ping-pong table of American suburbia. Two doll-like figures, resembling Paul Simon circa 1969, sit on chairs at opposite ends of the long narrow table. One is gold and is dressed in a black suit, the other silver with a white suit. They call to each other “black, white, light, dark.” Evocative enough on its own, the installation is given greater presence thanks to the foundation’s decision to place a guard at each end, the one stout and vague in his gaze, the other a slight brune with glasses. But the overall effect would be narrow were it not for the presence of yet another guard in a corner of the room. Long jet black hair, an apprehensive stillness over a poised stance, she approaches after a moment the corpulent fellow and mouths something unheard as the Paul Simons quicken their dialogue of “black, white, light, dark.” (Performers will likely change through the length of the show.)

The French word for security guard is vigile. Linguistic “false friend” though it may be, I cannot help but think of the performers here as “vigils.” Their presence made for a tremendous performance piece in the eyes of this reviewer. Removed from the spectator yet one with him they stand near walls at the juncture of surveillance, witness, patience, participation.

Each work revealed itself in its dialogue with the vigils, and those interactions are so seamlessly spread throughout the space that one feels no dead zones of the they type that one might feel in, say, the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Indeed, it’s unlikely that a public museum could achieve the intensity of what is best called Dance of the Vigils.

A most extraordinary dialogue between the “vigil” and the artwork is found the smaller room in the basement. The room is dominated by Ron Mueck’s In Bed, 2005, created for the Ron Mueck exhibition of 2005. A stunning piece on its own, a giant figure lies as though in bed, knees raised, and watches visitors enter the room. Ill? Depressed? Psychotic? Dreamy? Expecant? Renounced?, the viewer wonders before noticing the guard standing awkwardly nearby, anxious witness to both the expression on the face of the figure and the wondering gaze of the viewer. But no? He is not witness; he is protagonist, a man caught between two worlds—the reality of the viewer and the unreality of the sculpture. He now skirts the room, entrapped, a man who cannot escape his larger-than-life wife or mother but aware that he must perform his “duty.” This is my favorite of the vigil scenes.

There are many others worthy of attention. A vigil at the bottom of the stairs, standing against a canary-yellow wall, is doomed, it seems, to watch visitors descend the final 6 steps after the landing. What, one wonders, is he watching, is he waiting for, is he expecting? He appears to be counting our rise and descent: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I went up and down several times trying to grasp the nature of his performance. The rest rooms, I discover, are to his left down the hallway, one wall of which is bordered by transparent installations echoing the glass and steel of the building. The vigil against the canary yellow wall, counting our steps, therefore stands as ironic commentary on the transparency of numbers: years, dates, visitors, costs, etc. Fascinating.

The foundation’s anniversary exhibition opened against a backdrop of rain clouds, sun showers, bright blue sky and May greens. It is dense with quiet staging of the apprehensive gaze of the personnel and the works on display. These “vigils,” each with a subtle mix of attentiveness, sexuality and distraction are dressed in black suits, black shoes, black ties and white shirts for the men, narrow black slacks and prudent blouses for the women. Some wear an ear piece, but for what?, the viewer wonders. In anticipation of Godot? of a bejeweled donor? of the entrance of an artist with “vision” or “plastic wit”?

One male performer touches his earpiece as though to wonder if an organization so well-funded and clear-goaled a man might stand alone, apart, disconnected, perhaps abandoned. It’s a wonderful echo of Il Cavaliere di Dürer, 2011, by Allessandro Mendini, the work beside which he stands.

No sooner does that brief action take place than our—my— attention is drawn to that of two vigils standing together the playscape towers of Bodys Isek Kingelez’s Projet pour le Kinshasa du troisième millénaire, 1997. Approaching, I hear that they are discussing New York. Brilliant.

Inside, Raymond Hains’ Brise-lames de Saint Malo, plage du Sillon, 1994, and Jean-Michel Alberola’s Eclairage en groupe, 2014, serve as timid reminders that we are in France, otherwise the dearth of works by French-born artists draws attention to the lonely thumb in the garden by sculptor César, that seems to say that the new realism of the past 30 years is how little attention living French artists get (deserve?) on the international market. The panels describing the individual works are in French while the “vigils” are unnamed, undated. A brave curatorial approach, that.

I visit the garden, as is called the greenery that surrounds the glass box of the building. Through the transparent wall a vigil checks her phone. She is standing behind the brightly colorful partition “OMG!” by Allessandro Mendini and Peter Halley, 2014. How wonderful this illusion of hiding behind the bright wall while seen through the transparent wall, as though the latter were coverage by the mere fact of being an enclosure. Archictect Jean Nouvel should be pleased by this homage to his work.

At the food shack by the garden café, its chairs empty but for the rain, a vigil, the only “client,” stirs his coffee, his red umbrella by his side. “Les photos,” he says, “sont interdites.” “Il est interdit,” he says, “de fumer dans le jardin.” His tone is light, apologetic yet clear, an magnificent articulation of the use of the word “interdire” (to forbid) in contemporary art foundations, where freedom of commerce encounters freedom of art under the complex gaze, at once placid and anxious, biding and operational, in need of coffee or a smoke or a message from the world beyond, of a dozen security figures. A celebration of artistic freedom circumscribed only by the forbidden and the unsaid.

I return inside, drawn still to this extraordinary performance of the security personnel. At times the “vigils” don’t seem to watch as much as they do to submit to the space, the sound, the color, the movement. I look up to the bookshop balcony. There, arms crossed, stands a vigil with shave head—an excellent choice of figures since we think of him as the most guard-like. He stands as straight-faced commentary on the hinge of the conversation between commerce and art; the vigil against the canary yellow wall stands between foundation and basement; the vigil furtively checking her phone stands between the opaque and the transparent; the vigil by In Bed acts out the works emotions in a confrontation between display and (in)security; a vigil stretches discreetly from the back of the screening space, loosening wrists, stretching shoulders.

Is this planned or unintentional or inevitable? No matter. I cannot imagine a better way to celebrate the foundation than with this Dance of the Vigils.

1984-2014: 30 Years at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, May 10-Sept. 21, 2014. 261 boulevard Raspail, 14th arrondissment. Metro Raspail or Denfert-Rochereau or RER Denfert-Rochereau. Open daily except Monday 11am-8pm and until 10pm on Tuesday. 10€; 7:€ for students and those under 25; free for children under 13 or on Wednesday for those under 18. For further information see www.fondationcartier.com.

© 2014, Gary Lee Kraut

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Like any good doctor, veterinarian Dr. Jean-Francois Quinton is chronically late for dinner appointments.

He called as he was leaving his thriving group clinic in the 12th arrondissement to say that he’d been delayed by a canary, and as he walked to the metro he told me the heart-rending story of a 10-year-old boy and his mother and a bird wilting in the doctor’s hands. It had otherwise been a good day, with only one death (“a rat, but put to sleep”) and the usual parade of rabbits, ferrets, and chinchillas.

Dr. Quinton is a specialist in exotic pets, particularly small mammals and birds. I’d enlisted him to test with me the restaurant Monsieur Lapin (meaning Mister Rabbit) for the simple reason that both he and the chef are highly skilled specialists working with rabbits. The encounter of Doctor Rabbit and Monsieur Lapin.

Should any of Dr. Quinton’s patients be reading this, I note that he truly does care deeply for the health and longevity of rabbits. Furthermore, he feels a great affinity to rabbit owners since, like him, they tend to be anxious and sensitive people.

Your Dr. Quinton was in fact initially hesitant about accompanying me to test a restaurant specialized in rabbit. But his hesitation sounded as disingenuous as a gynecologist refusing to enter a singles bar. And he so he accepted.

As to Monsieur Lapin’s chef and owner Franck Enée, he has nothing personal against rabbits either. His son actually owns a pet rabbit, had it even before his father took over Monsieur Lapin in 2005. The rabbit once escaped from the apartment upstairs and ran through the restaurant during mealtime—but that’s another story.

Despite his restaurant’s name, Mr. Enée should not be pigeonholed as a rabbit chef. In fact, he halfheartedly took on the moniker Monsieur Lapin when he purchased this restaurant. It was the previous owner who had been completely immersed in rabbit dishes, whereas Mr. Enéehe’s admits to a preference for working with fish, perhaps due to his Norman origins. Yet once he decided to leave the restaurant’s name untouched he developed a fondness for preparing rabbit as well.

The menu reveals the wide scope of his polished talents and quality provisions—baked scallops, grilled tuna, monkfish, brill; roast lamb, sweetbreads and foie gras, roast pigeon. Appetizing words on a menu can be illusory, but to hear Mr. Enée’s enthusiasm (in a subsequent interview) in describing his various preparations is to hear the passion he has for his craft. And to taste them is to share that passion.

Dr. Quinton and I nevertheless feared upon entering Monsieur Lapin that we were in for a stiff, inexpressive evening. Though the seating for 40-45 diners is comfortable and well-spaced the atmosphere initially struck us as overly mannered; while being led to our table we passed polite groupings of diners sporting ageless hair styles and well-pressed clothes, whereas Dr. Quinton had the marks of a man who has recently watched a rat and a canary die and I, well, I’m a bald writer.

Yet the welcome was warm and the décor has quirkiness going for it due to the contrast between the cantankerous (temporary) exhibit of artwork and the rabbit tchotchkes niched here and there around the dining room.

We could only take as a good sign the amiable politesse of Corinne Enée (whom it would be boorish to think of as Madame Lapin but difficult to resist) and her dining room staff.

But nothing reassures more than a well-prepared appetizer. For the purposes of this review Dr. Quinton and I both selected lapin for the main course. In choosing an appetizer I’d elected to stay with the theme of small animals with strong hind legs and so ordered what turned out to be among the tastiest, freshest frog’s legs I’ve ever had, sautéed with a mix of sate spices. Dr. Quinton’s scallops marinated in lime and heightened with herring caviar gave rise to an I-can-finally-relax sigh and the comment, “Good choice!,” referring to either the scallops or the restaurant, possibly both.

Restaurant reviewers pick specific restaurants to write about for many reasons, the main one being because someone else has, but having chosen to have dinner with Dr. Quinton at Monsieur Lapin for its name alone the restaurant had the added feel of discovery, a feeling that only increased as the evening progressed.

It isn’t solely Dr. Quinton’s occupation that brought me to invite him to co-test the rabbit, for Dr. Quinton grew up in hospitality business. He is originally from Dinan, Brittany, where his parents ran a hotel and restaurant cheffed by his late father Georges Quinton, who earned and maintained a Michelin star for about twenty years beginning in the early 1960s.

The son, born in 1958, dates his interest in veterinary medicine to his childhood and tells about two watershed moments of his budding curiosity. One occurred at the age of eight when he attempted to operate a pet hamster that had been mortally wounded by a cagemate, only to put the animal to definitive rest with excessive ether.

The other occurred when even younger when he would visit his father’s kitchen and watch him open rabbits and empty chickens. He recalls asking his father what various innards were and how they functioned and his frustration at having his father answer, “It doesn’t matter how they function, I’m going to show you how the animal’s cooked!”

By the time he was in his early teens he was caring for up to 26 rabbits (without attempting another operation) and various birds.

As a veterinarian in Paris, however, Dr. Quinton largely treated cats and dogs until a renewed passion for less familiar pets led to his professional readjustment in the late 1990s.

The turning point came in 1995 when the clinic he was then working for became a top seller of a brand of cat and dog food. As a prize the brand of nibbles paid his way to a veterinary convention in Orlando, FL. Since he’d already visited Disneyworld and environs while vacationing there only six months prior, he actually went to some of the lectures at the convention, including talks on the treatment of rabbits and ferrets.

While rabbits and ferrets were then largely considered as barnyard animals in cosmopolitan areas of Europe, Dr. Quinton discovered that some American veterinarians were busy treating them as household pets and that Americans were willing to pay significant medical bills to keep them healthy and at home. Above all, Dr. Quinton rediscovered in Orlando the passion and intellectual pleasure of learning about the animals of his childhood.

Back in Paris he then continued to study up on those and other small mammals, and a year later he set off on a two-month internship in Westchester, IL, outside Chicago, to learn more about the field from Drs. Susan Brown and Richard Nye, American pioneers in creating a clinic specialized in exotic pets.

In 1997 he began teaching and consulting about birds and small mammals at the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire at Maison-Alfort, an eastern suburb of Paris. The turn of the millennium then saw a boom in such pets in France. In French these pets go by the acronym NAC, nouveaux animaux de compagnie, indicating new or modern pets.

Dr. Quinton has since published two books (a reference guide to small mammals for fellow veterinarians and a popular guide to carrying for pet rabbits) and written many articles on the subject. He is now an occasional guest on a morning television talk show.

In 2007 he joined three other veterinarians in opening a new clinic, where he is fully devoted to NACs.

As we were finishing our brief interview, two plates of lapin arrived before us. As noted earlier, one should in no way feel limited to choosing rabbit as a main course though for the purposes of this review Dr. Quinton and I both did.

In the hands of an inexperienced chef rabbit tends to be a dry meat that’s dolled up with a chasseur or mustard sauce. But Mr. Enée’s preparations bring out more succulent flavors.

While the croustillant de lapin with dried fruit and wild mushrooms, served with unctuous mashed potatoes, is a delight for the knowledgeable rabbit man (Dr. Quinton), the less experienced rabbit eater looking to taste a range of rabbit possibilities (me) is well-advised to choose the trilogie de lapin à la niçoise.

The trilogy is made up of saddle (râble) wrapped around a preparation of kidney and sage, a delicate thigh (cuisse) spiked with rosemary, and roasted rack (carré) highlighted with rabbit stock and balsamic vinegar, accompanied by mini-vegetables and those unctuous mashed potatoes.

Come dessert, the warm praline soufflé, the Caribbean chocolate with caramelized hazelnuts and mango sorbet, and other enhanced classics sustain the uninterrupted quality of the meal.

The complete menu takes the form of a 45€ three-course fixed-price meal (with several supplements possible), which is quite reasonable for the quality of the cuisine and level of service, making Monsieur Lapin well worth the venture into the lesser-known reaches of the 14th arrondissement, behind the Montparnasse Cemetery and the Montparnasse Tower.

Since you’re unlikely to be visiting Paris with your pet chinchilla or ferret, I have little reason to recommend Dr. Quinton’s services to you. So I will simply recommend a meal at Monsieur Lapin, a most honorable, cordial, and delicious foray into rabbit and much more.

Monsieur Lapin – Chez Franck Enée

11 rue Raymond Losserand
75014 Paris
Metro Pernety or Gaité
Tel. 01 43 20 21 39

Closed Mon and lunch on Sat. Also closed in August.

© 2008, Gary Lee Kraut

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