If you ask Judith Cercós why the restaurant she opened with her husband, chef Ludovic Dubois, is called Les Poulettes de Batignolles, she will say it’s because her French friends always call her “ma poulette,” a term of endearment loosely translated as “my little chickadee.”
At last, a meal I could really get my teeth into and enjoy down to the last bite. Where? Louis, the new restaurant of Stéphane Pitré in the ninth arrondissement. The tiny place (seats 24) has been charmingly done up in white and shades of blue. The chef, who personally delivered each dish and explained its ingredients to us, was equally charming.
The invasion of foreign chefs continues in Paris. Not only is chef Hannah Kowalenko at the new restaurant Ellsworth a Canadian, but she is just 22 years old, which makes the quality of the lunch we had there the other day even more impressive.
If you find yourself on the Boulevard de Montparnasse after a film wondering where you can have a good meal, as we did the other evening, first leave the boulevard, with all its chain restaurants (unless, of course, you opt … Read More
The bistronomy movement has given Paris many great little restaurants serving creative, carefully sourced food at reasonable prices, but it has done little to make a mark on the design scene. Most of new bistros are content to cosmetically spiff up the interior of the restaurant or café they have taken over and add a few fancy light fixtures. Here, however, is an exception to the rule: Le Mordant.
This will be a short review, but not as short as the menu at Les Pinces, a new restaurant in the Marais where you can order only three things: a whole lobster, a lobster roll or a côte de bœuf (prime rib), each one priced at €25.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Pirouette, a great little bistro near the Forum des Halles, and now I have tried its new baby sister, Zébulon, in another part of town where it’s often hard to find a reliably good meal, near the Palais Royal.
The working premise of this review is that if you eat at Prémices, you are sure to have an excellent dining experience. The restaurant’s decor is the first sign that you are in for something a cut above: it’s simple but elegant, with bare stone walls, an assortment of variously shaped black light fixtures and crystal shades casting spangles of light around the room, with its white-clothed tables.
The dire dining situation in the area around the Forum des Halles seems to be turning around, or should I say pirouetting, since I recently ate at a good bistro there called Pirouette. The restaurant is located on a small hidden square in a strange one-story structure with high ceilings and big industrial windows that looks as if it had been tacked onto the building next to it. Its large, traffic-free terrace must be a pleasant place to sit in warm weather.
Note, Feb. 14, 2022: L’Office now has new owners and is still great. The owners of the immensely (and deservedly) popular bistros Richer and L’Office in the 9th arrondissement have scored another hit with their new restaurant, 52 Faubourg Saint … Read More
