Four Paris Restaurants Worth a Metro Ride

Four Paris Restaurants Worth a Metro Ride
By MARK BITTMAN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: April 1, 2011
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/travel/03Choice.html?hpw


FOUR years ago, writing in these pages about Paris restaurants, I mentioned one called Au Boeuf Couronné, called it “terrific” and added that traveling to its location in the 19th Arrondissement was “the rough equivalent of going deep into Brooklyn.”

This was true, psychologically (for me at least), but no longer. Paris is smaller than New York: it’s just over three miles from Île de la Cité to Au Boeuf Couronné, and about six from Midtown Manhattan to the restaurants I like in Brooklyn. And — as has happened in New York — as restaurants in the wealthy and most tourist-laden neighborhoods of Paris have become more crowded and expensive, the areas where one can find a great meal have expanded.

With this in mind, I set out to explore some of the farther-flung alternatives. I concentrated on the increasingly energetic northeast quadrant of the city, namely the 10th, 18th (generally speaking, Montmartre), 19th (around the park of Buttes Chaumont) and 20th (which contains the Belleville neighborhood) Arrondissements. And it wasn’t at all like “going deep into Brooklyn.” In six nights of eating I took exactly one taxi “home,” and even that was because the people I was eating with offered to drop me.

Two additional restaurants worth knowing about: Restaurant Astier at 44, rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud (in the 11th, it’s theoretically out of my range and is owned by a friend), not only does it have one of the best cheese trays in the city, it’s open seven nights, which is unusual and valuable. Quedubon, in the 19th at 22, rue Plateau, is better established than anything I’ve written about in more detail here, but I found it relatively disappointing; still, if you get through this list and want to take a shot, it’s beloved by many of my sources.

The four to follow have this in common: They’re in neighborhoods you might not get to otherwise, the food is good and in some instances fantastic, and the prices are way below average.

Baratin

Just off Rue de Belleville, this two-room place looks as if it put itself together with a design fee of zero. Yet it’s attractive and hip, at least in the style of an older generation. Beige walls sport oil paintings and black-and-white photos; the bar, tables and chairs — maybe there are 30 altogether? — are all of slightly beaten wood; the floor is old tile; the napkins are paper.

There are elegant touches, however, like the lovely water carafes sitting on the bar, and the easy, affordable and instantly likable wine list. Then there is the chef and owner, a hard-working gracious woman toiling in a kitchen that’s not open for style but because the door is ajar, presumably for ventilation and easy access.

After a bit of a hiccup — rather than being greeted we were sneered at by the black-dressed bartender — things settled down nicely. (Eventually, we charmed the owner with ignorance and bad French.) It’s not easy to order here: the appetizers are all about 10 euros (about $13.50) and big enough for a main course; you could easily split one, a main course and a dessert, and others were doing just that.

But duty called, so two of us ordered enough for four, starting with monkfish with red beans and sun-dried tomatoes, an unusual mix but a good one, and then a combo of octopus and potatoes, with pimentón (smoked paprika). Stewed lamb looked fantastic, as did roast pork, but we opted for barbue — a turbot-like fish — the skin crisp, the meat subcutaneously fatty and moist, the plate strewn with buttery root vegetables. (This was a theme of every restaurant we visited, it being late winter and these restaurants were hewing close to tradition, or trying to.) Pintade — guinea hen — was cooked perfectly, the dark meat braised and the white roasted, along with mushrooms and cabbage cooked in butter.

The baguette served with all of this, without fuss or comment, was incredible — crackly crisp and chewy. The pineapple confit with lime was an intense and welcome dessert.

Meanwhile, a guy walked in with a cat and let it loose to roam, which seemed to bother no one. Many people knew one another and stood around chatting. Even the surly bartender warmed up. It became a nearly perfect meal.

Baratin, 3, rue Jouye-Rouve (20th); (33-1) 43-49-39-70. An average meal for two (or, that is to say, a big one) is 70 euros, $97 at $1.39 to the euro, though you could eat much more cheaply. (None of the prices include drinks or tip, the latter insignificant as service is included.)

Philou

While I was in Paris, I told a native I was off to Philou, in the 10th. “Who goes to the 10th?” she demanded, with a bit more vulgarity than that.

At least enough people to fill Philou every night. (Some folks might even live around there; it seemed fine.) About a 20-minute walk from Bastille, Philou is too bright in both lighting and color, and that’s my only complaint. (I’ve read that it’s noisy, but that wasn’t my experience.) It’s unpretentious, with a compelling poster from “Les Enfants du Paradis” featuring the nearby Canal St.-Martin dominating one wall.

The owner, Philippe Damas, owned and sold the wildly successful Le Square Trousseau, reportedly because it was too successful for him to enjoy. This place is tiny — another one with about 30 seats — and he seems to be having a blast.

It’s also pretty inexpensive: 25 euros for two plates, 30 for three. There are several menu items that carry supplements, but at these prices you can’t complain, and you can, of course, avoid them.

The food: wonderful, sometimes perfect. Like the marinated sardines with parsley gelée, apples and horseradish. Also wonderful were a dead-on pâté with a jug of cornichons, pork cheeks in a gorgeous dark sauce with celery root cooked in stock (my mouth is watering at the thought of that); a few chunks of insanely good calf’s liver and poularde de Bresse, with meat that was almost as good as the skin, served with Chinese cabbage.

Imperfect but very good were real frogs’ legs, lots of them with pleurotes (the mushrooms were better than the meat); and scallops in their shells, with butter and puréed celeriac, which was “fine” in the sense that it was acceptable, but unexciting.

I will go back here. So would you.

Philou, 12, avenue Richerand (10th), (33-1) 42-38-00-13. An average meal for two can run as little as 48 euros, or as much as 68 euros.

Table d’Eugène

Found (perhaps with a little difficulty) in a part of Montmartre you may not have previously visited (I hadn’t), Table d’Eugène is the “fanciest” and most attractive of these places, in an old-fashioned way.

I confess that I visited here as an afterthought, for a last-minute lunch with my friend the cookbook author Patricia Wells, with whom I spent the morning visiting bakeries and cheese shops. It was late, I was tired and restauranted-out, and we tweaked our reservation to the displeasure of the proprietors. In other words, it was a setup for failure. Yet the food was so carefully presented and gorgeous — delicious, too — that the restaurant easily made the cut here. Like the others, it’s tiny; we wound up sharing our hastily arranged table with a couple of regulars who made us feel at home.

We started with a Parmesan sable, a delicate pastry that’s essentially a savory shortbread, with artichoke and pata negra, the fine Spanish ham. Rich piled upon rich, but that didn’t make it less enjoyable. No lighter but perhaps more elegant were chicken ravioli, with perfectly thin skins in an old-fashioned cream sauce and a garnish of fried parsnip. Just super.

Main courses were, if anything, better. Pork belly, with a rich, well-reduced meat sauce, was crisp and sublimely tender, cooked slowly and then browned. It was impossible not to polish off the entire plate, an act I didn’t regret for a moment. Our other course was a bar de ligne (sea bass), nicely browned and braised, with similarly treated fennel: simple, but spectacular.

I can’t drink or eat dessert at lunch so no report there. Next time I’ll go for dinner, and soon after I arrive.

Table d’Eugène, 18, rue Eugène Sue (18th); (33-1) 42-55-61-64. Lunch can be as little as 34 euros for two, dinner can run to 68 euros, but you could spend less.

Le Verre Volé

This 10th Arrondissement “eating cellar” is fun and frustrating. As much like someplace on the Lower East Side as you’ll find in Paris, it has mismatched and painted tables and chairs, a painted floor and a teeny tiny open kitchen. It’s funky, immediately likable, loud, brash and inconsistent. I wouldn’t make it your first stop, but its charms are undeniable, though it is crowded and noisy, with erratic service.

There is wine on many of the walls, sold at retail (people wander in, buy a bottle, wander out) and opened for you for 7 euros above that price, which is fine, since much of it is inexpensive. There are also good wines by the glass, like an organic Chablis at 5.5 euros a glass. Given, then, that you can drink cheaply, that a starter and a main course together will set you back just 25 to 30 euros, and that the food is quite good ... well, you can understand the popularity.

We ordered a lot, and enjoyed most of it: shrimp in intense shrimp sauce; steamed razor clams; more shrimp, big and little, steamed, from Brittany; the best scallops of the week; beef cheeks with aromatic vegetables, and an outstanding blood sausage. Some dishes — fish with vegetables, for example — were less exciting. Cheeses, from Jean-Yves Bordier, were fantastic, as was his insanely good butter. (That, on good bread, with a bit of blue ... there’s nothing better.) Crème brûlée was made with tonka beans, which are illegal in the United States (they contain coumarin, which has been found to cause liver damage in rats), and are gorgeously fragrant; that was a treat.

Le Verre Volé, 67, rue de Lancry (10th), (33-1) 48-03-17-34. An average meal for two could be had for 52 euros, but many people will spend more.