Ingredient fetishists will appreciate Sven Chartier’s reverence for product, and devotees of natural wines will love Ewan Lemoigne’s list. The ingredients may be local, but there are nordic influences at play, too, both in the look of the place and in the pristine cooking, which borders — and sometimes crosses into — austerity. Warning: complaints about the service have been circulating…
We don’t expect to be this wine bar to be any less trafficked than its mother ship Frenchie, just across the street. But if you want a taste of Gregory Marchand’s cooking without the challenge of scoring a reservation there, this is where to go. Smallish plates (most priced from 7-11€) include a house-made terrine with pistachios, melt-in-your-mouth hams, plus dishes that bear Marchand’s colorful market signature: A salad of tomatoes and cherries, burrata with golden olive oil and a bright green smush of minty peas, watermelon with feves and ricotta salata, delicate smoked fish, all subject to change with the season, of course. The border-crossing wine list is fun and reasonably priced, with a hefty handful of sub-25€ bottles.
Gregory Marchand’s market cooking, honed during well-documented stints abroad, lives up to the hype. His house-smoked fish, which often appears as one of two starters on the regularly changing 38€ menu, is a revelation. As for getting in, it’s getting easier: Marchand has added a second dinner seating (but is no longer serving lunch), so your chances at night have just doubled.
From the family behind Au Coin des Gourmets comes this polished Vietnamese table, with a wine list to match. There is a 15€ lunch menu, but plan on spending close to 30€ at dinner, before drinks.
This slick little dinette offers pho, bo bun and other Vietnamese favorites. The 13.50€ menu includes a main course and either a dessert or a glass of wine. Closed weekends.
If you really want to lunch as the locals do, visit this old fashioned Auvergnate casse-croute. Queue at the window for one of their legendary sandwiches, or fight your way, elbows out, into a table for a plate meaty grub and a glass of rustic wine. Bad if you’re watching your diet, good if your watching your budget.
This chocolate shop has had a presence on the rue du Bac for nearly 200 years. There’s a tea salon, too, for tasting on the spot.
What was once the quirky and playful sushi restaurant Rice & Fish is now the quirky and playful Mexican restaurant Rice & Beans.
This Sentier address offers a streamlined menu of contemporary cooking, with global accents, and (comme il faut, these days) natural wines.
A popular, old school bistro serving classics like frisée au lardons, jambon persillée, escargot, and tarte tatin.
Lovely Legrand occupies an enviable place off the galerie Vivienne, surely one the most elegant covered passages in Paris. Mainly a shop, there is a room with a bar and a few tables for a drink and a snack on the spot.
This fun and funky sushi bar closed to make room for Rice & Beans, and now has reopened on the same block, serving playful rolls that “pack a technicolor punch”.
Founding chef Pierre Jancou has moved on, but the roots remain. New chef Renaud Marcille is bringing a touch of elegance to the product-driven, market cooking, served, as always, with natural wine, inside the city’s oldest covered passage.
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