I work in the French department at Sam’s Wines & Spirits. Because of the French stance at the United Nations, some of the store’s customers aren’t keen on buying French (although there seem to be as many people buying French on purpose to make up the difference).
In my opinion, the French have a point to make about how nations ought to work together globally.And so, primarily because it’s about to be summer travel time, I want to tell you about my favorite Parisian restaurants. If you’re going to Paris, try them out.
For my part, I hardly go to Paris anymore except to eat parts of it. I used to enjoy the gardens of the Musée Rodin, to amble and see The Burghers of Calais and The Thinker outdoors, shiny-slick from a soft April rain. Or to stroll toward the Hotel des Invalides by way of the Champs de Mars and really get a feel for power.
Now I take that route to walk off a meal.
I have a brother who has lived in Paris for 10 years, God bless his soul, and I try to visit him every year. Because I live to eat, over the years I have found several restaurants in this capitol of gastronomy that are superlative touch points for French cuisine.
First, a disclaimer: I am the antithesis of the American foodie, for whom the newest and hippest are best. When in Paris, I revisit the same restaurants, year after year, and I eat the same things.
I dine this way in Paris because I have found no better oysters than the crisp, briny fines de claires at the brasserie Le Suffren. No more delicious andouillette than that sauced in Sancerre and butter at Le Vieux Bistro. No choucroute as heady as the one from the platters at Chez Jenny.
What is better at L’Oeillade? The wild owners or the portions? Who roasts a better chicken than Le Muniche?
And there is a small table for one—just for one—in a deep nook at Le Petit Salé, where you can sit to eat the bistro’s specialty of pickled pork knuckle and its bed of lentils de Puys and feel as though you were back again in a tree house, just little you and what alive a life you had then.
At Le Suffren, a Savoyard with hands as big as hams shucks oysters outside the corner window. He lays the long, knobby oysters portugaises on a bed of shaved ice, like a wheel’s spokes.
They also still stir together a steak tartare at Le Suffren, zippy with capers and capped in a raw egg—something that no restaurant in America would make anymore.
The fromage de tête at Le Vieux Bistro (constructed, of course, in its kitchen) comes with a crock of gerkins as tart as Roman streetwalkers and a perfect lift for this astonishingly rich and aromatic melange of pig’s remains. The boeuf bourgignonne at Le Vieux Bistro is stewed to such depth that it shines as black as a poodle’s nose.
Le Muniche is best on Sundays, for it is in the heart of the Left Bank, near St-Germain des Prés. The crowd is an assemblage not often seen in one place: students working off their hangovers; heavily-powdered dowagers and their wee, velvet-leashed dogs; nurses and doctors from their swing shifts; the tourist or two. Le Muniche is corporate-owned (the Fréres Layrac) and stodgy, but its chocolate-colored leather banquettes house history and that, no corporation can take away.
I like Le Muniche’s overdone leg of lamb and the pan juices that it arrives in. The Capuchin-brown french fries to the side sponge up the mess and become tastier for it.
My favorite white dinner wines are from Alsace and Chez Jenny carries a lot of them. They taste so delicious with Jenny’s jarret de porc or the kitchen’s homemade fois gras or the spit-roast pork shin or the runny, funky, heady munster or, well, just about anything.
Oh, I suppose Paris is Restaurant Le Tour d’Argent and The Jules Vernes, too. But not for me. I want one more go at L’Oeillade’s rillets de porc, slathered across some pain Poilane. One more go.
Le Petit Salé
99, ave des Ternes, 75017
(off Blvd. Gouvion)
Tel: 45.74.10.57
Metro: Porte-Maillot
All cards
Open daily, lunch and dinner
Moderate
Le Vieux Bistro
14, rue du cloitre Notre Dame, 75004
Tel: 43.54.18.95
Metro: St-Michel
MC, V only
Open daily, lunch and dinner
Expensive
Salad with lardons (frisée au lardons), Head cheese (Pate de tête), Beef burgundy (beouf bourgignon), Preserved duck (confit de canard), Vanilla ice cream in puff pastry (Profiteroles), Apple pie (tarte tatin); also wonderful fish preparations and cheese.
L’Oeillade
10, rue de St-Simon, 75007
42.22.01.60
Metro: Rue du Bac
MC, V only
Monday-Friday, lunch and dinner; Saturday, dinner only; closed Sunday
Moderate to Expensive
Amazing portions of country cooking in a modern, comfortable environment; best bets are the one-price menus at around 40 euros; near Musée d’Orsay and Musée Rodin.
Le Suffren
84, ave de Suffren, 75015
45.66.97.86
Metro: La Motte Piquet-Grenelle
MC, V only
Open daily
Inexpensive to Moderate
Near the École Militaire and the Tour Eiffel; fantastic oyster and fruits de mer selection; great fixed menus (look on small printed sheet top inside right side of main menu); for example, roast lamb; bifstek; incredible foie gras cooked with raisins.
Chez Jenny
39 blvd de Temple, 75003
42.74.75.75
Metro: Republique
Most cards
Open daily, lunch and dinner
Moderate to Expensive
Alsatian menu, with great wines from Alsace (pinot gris, pinot blanc, gewurztraminer); highlight of menu is choucroute garni, mild sauerkraut with many sorts of sausages (order the “paysan”) and boiled potatoes.
Le Muniche
7, rue de St-Benoit, 75006
42.61.12.70
Metro: St-Germain des Pres
Most cards
Open daily
Moderate to Expensive
For oysters, roast lamb, Left Bank ambiance; wonderful roast chicken (poulet róti).