John Talbott's Paris

Django in the 9th: Great price-quality; horribly understaffed.

5.5 Django, 24 rue Victor Masse in the 9th, 01.74.64.64.84 (Metro: Pigalle) closed Saturday lunch, Sundays and Mondays is said to be located in an old guitar store 20 meters from where Django himself lived.  OK.  When we entered I asked as usual to be seated at a banquette which turned out not only to be in the dark but unobserveable by the only person on the waitstaff who was covering 50 places in this hot hip place already flooded with young office workers.

The menu is 2-2-2 for 19E which is incredible for this quality of cuisine but...… After a long wait our waitguy finally took our order and replaced a dirty knife.  Colette had a perfect egg with cream of mushrooms that was very good but my journalist friend and my leeks vinaigrette were nothing special.  Then, after another long wait, all three of us had their version of boeuf bourguignon which was not up to Julia Childs one.  To end, after another long wait, we all had very good  mini-chocolate cakes.

Our bill, with a bottle and glass of quite acceptable Pinot Noir and 2 coffees, was 97E or 64.66E a couple.  DB's 87.4 (the level of 500 aircraft operations).

Go? Not until the owner hires another server or rolls up his sleeves and pitches in rather than chatting up the celebrities..

Brasserie Victor Hugo in the 16th: Seb Demorand, we would have had such a discussion about it: peasant food, David Rathgeber twisting our tail, or a step forward in the 16th?

Pre: When I heard that Chef David Rathgeber of L'Assiette, described by Alec Lobrano as "not only the best bistro in Montparnasse, but one of the best bistros in Paris," was opening a brasserie in the food dessert of the 16th, my first thought was "he's crazy" and my second was "Lemme call Sebastien Demorand and we'll go together and see what's up." But Sebastien died a week ago, at 50, and there's no one else I can argue about categorizations, reinventions, revisions or progressions of French food like I could with him.  So I went with my former co-host of the best French food website in the world (second place goes to Paris By Mouth) and my wife of almost 60 years, both of whose judgment I trust.

6.8 The Brasserie Victor Hugo, 4, pl Victor Hugo in the 16th, 01.42.73.30.43, open 7/7, (Metro: Victor Hugo) looks like a tiny spot on the square with maybe 16 chairs outside and then you enter and realize that it's a long railway car space.  I was way early and requested a banquette - they couldn't have been nicer - "Have a seat and when three seats clear out, we will seat you."  And they did.  The ladies entered and we ordered.

OK, it's a brasserie, so I've gotta have some oysters, six of which, "DE MARENNES OLÉRON N°3 Huîtrière de la Seudre Amélie Allais" were top of the line with an excellent sauce mignonette (really, it was better than usual).  Then my former co-moderator, beefing up for a Marathon, had a huge chunk of  beef ribs with January vegetables; Colette had standard scallops in butter; and I went all peasant-food with lentils, escargots and mushrooms. To finish up we sort of shared their "famous" Toblerone mousse and a slice of lemon tart.

Our bill, with a bottle a glass of Bordeaux and three coffees, was 143.50E or 95.66E a couple.  db's = 80.9 at the peak (it got better)

Go?  "What'd'ya say Sebastien?"  I thought so.  Peasant food, right up my alley but not bistronomic.

 

 

Fulgurances l'adresse in the 11th: Killian Crowley is not quite up to Yannick Alleno but he's working on it.

Pre: Well yesterday we ate with Yannick Alleno at Pavyllon and today with Killian Crowley at Fulgurances who was asked by Delicious Magazine "Which cookbook would you take with you, to the desert island?" Ans. "L’enfant qui rêvait d’étoiles by Yannick Alleno."

6.5 Fulgurances l'adresse, 10 rue Alexandre Dumas in the 11th, 01.43.48.14.59, (Mero: Rue des Boulets), closed Saturdays and Sundays is a truly different place in Paris, offering young chefs a  several month opportunity to run a fine-tuned restaurant in a hot part of town.

Colette started off with radicchio and beets with soft cheese under the pretty red beets and leaves and my friend and I had salmon trout ; (I liked the latter); then we had beef with kale and ray with burnt onions.  then we all ended with a terrific cake  with partly baked apples.  Note: after two days of listless Richard coffee, today ours was great.

Our bill, with a bottle of wine and 3 coffees, was 123.50E or 82.32E a couple.

Go?   me, maybe.

Pavyllon by Alleno in the 8th: Beautiful setting, attentive anglophonic service and food worthy of a day old star.

Pre: Last week my friend and I discussed possibilities for today's lunch.  "Pavyllon's a possibility but it's over your usual price range," he said.  "Ok we'll splurge."  And then the news from Michelin came in yesterday - "Alleno got a star for Pavyllon, I wonder if the prices will go up?"  But not yet, the business 2-2-2 lunch was still 68E.

7.3 Pavyllon (de Yannick Alleno), 8 ave Dutuit in the 8th, 01.53.05.10.10, (Metro: Concorde/CE-Clemenceau), closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays is one of three restaurants in the old Ledoyen Pavillion, which we've been coming to since the days of Ghislaine Arabian and Christian Le Squer and it retains its beauty.

After an amuse of spicy bread sticks and cream, all at the table save me had the lunch menu starting with (in their words)  "Scallops quenelle, Stewed and raw white button mushrooms & Spicy aubergine, avocado sauce Lemon balm, mint and lovage."  The bread was superior.

All the others then had the "Red mullet, potato flakes Cep mushroom ragout" and I had what I'd been longing for, for a couple of days and hoped would still be on the carte - pithiviers stuffed with hare and foie gras.  All came with vegetable tempuras.  "Very good" someone said.

Once again, I let the others indulge in the "Salted caramel ice cream double cream, Amarena cherries and roasted hazelnut & Biscuit tuile, pear bits,  Milky foam with vanilla," while I poached off them but then ate my fair share of the excellent crème brulee type cake.

With 2 bottles of wine and three coffees our bill was 395E or 197.50E a couple.  dB's= 77.2

Go?  It certainly goes on my list of celebratory places. And you will be very warmly welcomed by the gentleman outside the door to the restaurant. 

Le 3V in the 8th: A warm greeting, lovely setting and creative ingredients from a MOF: results = "just OK."

6.2 Le 3V, 3 rue de Vienne in the 8th, 01.42.65.55.86, breakfast and lunch Tuesday-Friday, dinner Thursday and Friday (Metro: St-Augustin) was touted as chic and light food brought to you by Chef Julien Baradel,.who went to the Ecole Ferrandi, and was deemed a MOF (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), no small achievement.  The décor is indeed chic, the restaurant completely full of suits and the service very attentive.  But then there's the food.

Colette and our friend from all over started with carrot peels wrapped around goat cheese with a quite nice dark toast; then moved on to chicken with a halo of jerusalem artichoke and scallops with celery rave while I had sweetbreads with a weird mix of salsifis and chestnuts.  Despite the clever mixture of ingredients, there was no wow.

Our bill, with a bottle of Bordeaux and Chateldon and 3 coffees, was 143E or 95.34E a couple.  db's = 83.7

Go?  I'm afraid not.  This is what my late, great real food critic friend would have called "typical 8th Arr. food."

 

 

Chantoiseau in the 18th: A star is born (on Montmartre no less!)

7.5 Chantoiseau, 63 rue Lepic in the 18th, 01.42.51.39.95 closed Mondays and Tuesdays (Metro: Lamarck-Caulincourt/Abbesses) opened Wednesday and already it's clearly a big hit on the Mont. Two brothers, Nicolas et Julien Durand chef and one of their wives, Julia Soto, covers the salle; among them they've put in time at Servan, Capitaine, Gagnaire and the Georges V, which is pretty impressive. I often say a restaurant and carte look the same as a thousand other places - that's not the case here!  The décor is sleek, modern bare stone and wood (which they themselves stripped down and redid) and the menu offers many items which you usually see only one of which elsewhere.

We started off with 4 warm gougeres with comte, sorry, I couldn't help myself); a saupiquet of mushrooms, coques, mussels and enoki with honey, lemon and sapin vinegar and superb Utah Beach oysters with lemon, coriander and ginger.  A wonderful start.

For mains, Colette had scallops with heliantis, sarrasin (buckwheat) and I had chevreuil which was young enough to be easy to chew, with white and red cabbage.  Another wow course.

For dessert, Colette had the millefeuille and I a tart of agrumes; both fitting ends to a superb meal

Our bill, with a bottle of biodynamic Languedoc, 2 coffees and the mignardises, was 146E.  db"s = 80.1  BTW the bread was superb.

Go?  Not since L'Arcane have we seen such cuisine up here! Julia's welcome was so inviting.

Scaria in the 11th: Complex dishes in an innovative setting.

6.0 Scaria, 88 ave Parmentier, in the 11th, 09.83.47.62.66, closed Sundays (Metro: Parmentier) has been open for 2 years but not attracted much press, so when a keen spotter of promising new places, especially in the 11th, gave me a nod, I lined lunch up immediately. It's a coffee shop/épicerie/restaurant that is bursting with local families of all ages.  The carte consists of lots of small plates (which actually were adequate in size for us), each of which had numerous ingredients.

We three started off in completely different directions: with a mushroom and sponge cake (who ever heard of such a thing?) off the vegetarian list, and poulpe and spicy guacamole with radishes and scallops snackee with butternut puree from the fish section of the menu.

For mains, we went for slices of magret de canard with salsifis, merlu with parsnip and beef cheeks with helianthus; all of which had numerous other nuts and herbs added.

For dessert we shared a rice pudding and a ganache of chocolate.

Our bill, with a bottle and a glass of really good, light Sicilian natural wine with sulfates and 3 coffees, was 126.50E or 84.32E a couple.  dB's despite kids yelling, was 82.9

Go?  If in the 11th, this is a great local place to drop into anytime and the complexity of dishes will astonish.

Fleur de Pave in the 2nd: As close to food heaven as one can get (with a little help from Yamashita-San.)

Le Fleur de Pave is cheffed by Sylvain Sendra but he liberally acknowledges the contributions of master vegetable grower Asafumi Yamashita, both of whose products we've followed for years.  Sendra has an astonishing 45E multi-course lunch here which as far as I'm concerned hits all the high notes perfectly.

 

He started us off with a set of amuses with a hot roll and the Rossi family olive oil, moved on to a beef marrow-based puree/veloute, then an intense risotto with salicornes, beetroot sausage with sumac, barbu with mushrooms two ways, mango, cream and meringue and topped this splendid meal off with mignardises to be eaten from marshmallows to nut wafers to flan and macarons. 

Our bill, after a New Year's offering of champagne, with 2 bottles of micro-filtered water, one of wine and 2 coffees, with a "gift" of the sausage, was 153E.

 

Jacques Faussat in the 17th: "That was a really good meal." Indeed it was.

Jacques Faussat in the 17th is one of those places with a plain front in back of which is an elegant restaurant serving star-level food.

Chef Faussat started us off with three amuses: jellied beets, puffs and a soup of potatoes and celeriac, then Colette had a veloute of vegetables, our friend had a perfect egg with autumn sauce and I was treated to a piece of gravlax with chopped winter fruit (unpictured).  Our mains were beef and the chef's famous cognac-flamed partridge with its innards and foie gras and such.  For dessert, Colette got a praline soufflé on her "menu" while we indulged in the mignardises.

Our bill, with a bottle and 2 glasses of wine and 2 coffees, was 205E or 136.66E a couple.

 

Mova in the 17th: Do you think this is what Sebastien Demorand meant by bistronomie*?

Mova in the 17th is one of these places that I think Sebastien Demorand of Zurban, Le Fooding and Master Chef fame, had in mind when he coined the term 'gastronomie' in 2004 (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastien_Demorand) "Grande cuisine servie en petite quantité comme dans un bistrot" according to Wiktionnaire.

 

It has a 2-2-2 menu-carte and we started off with a veloute of sweet potato and incredibly coriander flavored beets with fromage frais.

Then we split again,, half the table going for the succulent chicken with roasted cauliflower and the other half cherishing the mackerel with confited celery with a passion fruit vinaigrette.

We ended, except for coffees, with rice pudding, almond and praline as well as creamy  lemon tart with crumble and meringue.

Our bill, with 1.5 bottles of wine, was 134.50E or 67.25E a couple.