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sancerre bike trip: restaurant la tour, sancerre
The most expensive fallacy of wine travel, to which I habitually succumb, is to assume that, to experience the full breadth of a given region's cuisine, one must dine at least once at a formal...
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oh la honte: ma cocotte, saint-ouen
For a certain class of Parisian, familiarity with the marché aux puces is a basic mark of distinction. It doesn't matter if very few of us do any actual shopping in the stratospherically-priced high...
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rock out: la cantine de la cigale, 75018
A brief moment of on-stage banter at last Monday's Hamilton Leithauser show at La Boule Noire saw the former Walkmen singer - arguably the most compelling rock vocalist of his generation - complaining...
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sancerre bike trip: le square, cosne-sur-loire
Cosne-sur-Loire is not the most exciting place on earth. It's where life goes on surrounding Sancerre tourism. But it's also where many visiting wine guys stay. So I thought for sake of completion,...
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n.d.p. in brittany: domaine joanna cecillon, sevignac
The Native Companion had been hinting that she'd like to visit Brittany for several years. But since no wine is produced there, it never struck me as a high priority. Brittany is like Ireland with...
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a family affair: ma cave fleury, 75002
I used to complain often about a dearth of actual wine bars in Paris. I defined them as places where quality wine could be enjoyed standing up, without the obligation to book in advance or consume a...
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ponzu scheme: tsubame, ito izakaya, peco peco, 75009
I'm a bit late in discussing the tsunami of twee Japanese concepts that arrived on my doorstep in the 9ème over the course of last year. I like Japanese cuisine as much as anyone - indeed, I assume...
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consider the perks: restaurant lazare, 75008
Bad restaurants, like the proverbial Tolstoyan unhappy family, may be awful in an infinity of ways. We dislike them accordingly. But how we truly hate restaurants is largely divisible into two...
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n.d.p. in burgundy: la soeur cadette, vézelay
Despite my enthusiasm for the Yonne town of Vézelay, I had, until a few weeks ago, still yet to pay a visit to La Soeur Cadette and Jean Montanet, the area's lone excellent winemaker. He just never...
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harvest moon
I was sitting at Le Bist'Roch in Nuits the other afternoon with my friend R when he brought my attention to a photo of a nude man posted above the bar. "Hey," I said. "That looks a lot like Devendra...
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not idiots: le cave, 75011
I thought it would be bigger news when late last year Inaki Aizpitarte opened a shoebox-sized wine shop between Le Chateaubriand and Le Dauphin. Instead, outside of a few blurbs in the French press,...
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swans' way: aux deux cygnes, 75011
My friend M is a Vietnamese chef in New York. A year ago I was encouraging him to open a restaurant in Paris. Just think, I beamed. Natural wine and Vietnamese food ! It's never been done ! Moreover,...
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insiders: monsieur henri, 75003
I recently lauded fledgling 11ème wine bar Aux Deux Cygnes for bringing a bit of professionalism and style to its gentrification-frontier quartier. If that establishment's location is central to its...
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the price of convenience: la boulangerie, 75020
In trying to descry the origins of the hazy aura known as restaurant hype, we often overlook its simplest element, which is thrift. Patronising restaurants is not a thrifty habit in the first place,...
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the anti-nicolas: squatt wine shop, 75011
A chef friend whose opinions I value highly once raised a sceptical eyebrow when I praised La Retrobottega proprietor Pietro Russano's cooking. At the time Russano, a former sommelier at the late...
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emmanuel lassaigne's "clos sainte sophie"
When the Native Companion and I first visited Champagne winemaker Emmanuel Lassaigne in Aug. 2012, the maestro of Montgueux had tantalised us with the impressive shaggy-dog story of his forthcoming...
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coming round again: à la renaissance, 75011
Like any frequent host in Paris, I've learned to grin vacantly through inarticulate endorsements of "little neighborhood bistrots," those magical gold pots every tourist manages to discover at the end...
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never-ending terrace: les caves de reuilly, 75012
Remember that scene in Wayne's World, where Wayne and Garth do impressions of various US states, before being confounded by the unsatirizable dullness of Delaware? I find the joke applies equally to...
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reborn: vivant cave, 75010
Given that this is a wine blog, I usually avoid posting on chef career moves. The practice risks stoking the already outsize demand in Paris for internationally-trained chefs who can legally work...
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takes a village: le rubis, 75002
When asked what makes a wine natural, I often reply that a wine is natural when it is bought by natural wine buyers. I'm only being half-facetious: Paris is blessed to be home to several generations...
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