*Old News

Here’s what’s new and exciting in the Paris food world this month.

This year’s best baguette in Paris was baked by 26-year-old Taieb Sahal at Saveurs de Pierre Demours – Maison Julien in the 17th arrondissement.

Here’s what’s new and exciting in the Paris food world this month.

In addition to its star ratings, in 2020, Michelin launched a new initiative: a Gastronomie Durable or “Sustainable Gastronomy” distinction bestowed upon fifty restaurants in France to reward their attention to the environment in their practices.

Here’s what’s new and exciting in the Paris food world this month.

Paris gains a new 3-star restaurant and four new 2-stars in this year’s Michelin Red Guide.

Marc Sibard, manager of Caves Augé and wine buyer for Lavinia, was found guilty on July 6, 2017 of multiple counts of criminal sexual assault, sexual harassment and psychological harassment against his female employees.

Coming Soon

• November 24: Juveniles is organizing a tasting dinner will be organized around the Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines from Domaine de la Biscarelle, with the presence of winemakers Jérome & Christelle Grieco. Reserve at 01 42 97 46 49.

• November 24: Thanksgiving will be celebrated at Red House and other locations around town. See our guide to Thanksgiving in Paris 2016.

• November 25-27: The Paris Cocktail Festival comprises several events, including a cocktail crawl on Saturday and a major salon on Sunday with more than 50 producers, brands and cocktails to taste. Check the online program for full details.

• November 26: a free tasting with the winemaker from Domaine Raspail-Ay (Gigondas). From 11am-7pm at La Dernière Goutte, 6 rue de Bourbon de Chateau, 75006.

• November 27: L’Amité Rit will be hosting the Naturisme tasting with the presence of winemakers Thibault Pfifferling (L’Anglore), Elodie Balme, Catherine Bernard, Sylvain Bock, Marie Lottin (Château Bas), Corine et Carole Andrieu (Clos Fantine), Pierre Fénals (En Belles Lies), Yannick Pelletier, Nicolas Réau, and Jean-Pierre Rietsch. From 11am-6pm at 120 Avenue du Président Wilson, 93100 Montreuil (métro line 9: Mairie du Montreuil).

• November 28: the Green Goose will be hosting the first in a series of of Irish Tasting Menus. This new series aims to bring the best Irish artisanal products to the dinner table once a month, and the first dinner for 45 euros features two glasses of Teeling Irish Whiskey paired at different points with grilled oysters & Cas
• hel blue cheese, Irish charcuterie, organic smoked salmon cannelloni, filet of beef with creamy polenta and girolles, a selection of Irish cheeses and a dark chocolate dessert. Reservations are obligatory at 09 82 37 73 41 or info@thegreengoose.fr.

• December 3: a free tasting with the winemakers from Château Pierre-Bise (Loire Valley), Domaine d’Aupilhac (Montpeyroux) and Pierre Moncuit (Champagne). From 11am-7pm at La Dernière Goutte, 6 rue de Bourbon de Chateau, 75006.

• December 17: a free tasting with the winemakers from Domaine Cailbourdin (Pouilly-Fumé) and Domaine Arretxea (Irouleguy). From 11am-7pm at La Dernière Goutte, 6 rue de Bourbon de Chateau, 75006.

Read More »Paris Food & Wine Events

In a depressing, semi-apocalyptic year defined by reactionary responses to globalism, it’s fair to ask ourselves what, exactly, we are celebrating, when we celebrate the annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau on Thursday.

Is Beaujolais Nouveau a symbol of international marketing run amok, an artificial wine-like confection of sugared-up, overproduced grapes, aimed straight at the lower rungs of the world’s supermarket shelves? Or does Beaujolais Nouveau represent rather the opposite: an homage to local tradition, a village fête for newborn wines, fragile and pure?

It depends where one celebrates. In liquor stores, chain wine shops, and supermarkets around the world, believe the worst about Beaujolais Nouveau. But Beaujolais Nouveau in Paris is something else. The city’s traditional bars and bistrots enjoy unparalleled access to France’s natural wine scene, where many winemakers manage to produce unadulterated primeur wines that retain the fleeting, keen flavors of their village origins. So in Paris in 2016 we can raise a glass to the ironic destiny of well-made Beaujolais Nouveau – a simple village wine that, merely by maintaining its simplicity, can become a curious luxury.

What follows is a list and map of the Paris establishments hosting Beaujolais Nouveau parties in 2016, along with whose wines they’ll be serving, and which winemakers, if any, are expected to be present for the occasion. (Nothing is guaranteed. Winemakers are like that.)

Read More »Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau 2016

The imminent annual release of Beaujolais Nouveau – no longer a media firestorm in the best of circumstances – may seem, in the wake of last Friday’s Paris terror attacks, about as pertinent as a rubber duck.

In such troubled times, who needs wine? Who needs cured ham and cornichons? Who among us needs to gather with friends and loved ones? Who can bring themselves to purchase inexpensive bottles of glimmery young gamay and share it liberally with neighbors? Who wants to support Paris’ liveliest tradition-minded bars and bistrots when their business has been threatened?

Well, perhaps quite a few of us. Beaujolais Nouveau, ordinarily an occasion for slightly meaningless fun, can become, in 2015, an occasion for slightly more meaningful fun. Read More »Beaujolais Nouveau 2015

The Rodin Museum re-opens today after a long renovation, its lobby featuring a sweet new installation: A copy of the sculptor’s famous Monument to Balzac, standing nearly 4 meters high, and made entirely from chocolate.

Loving the night of Beaujolais Nouveau in Paris is like loving country music. One is constantly obliged to explain oneself. No other genre of wine has been so rightly derided by the international wine press for its superficiality. And yet, as in country music, there remain practitioners of the form whose work attains a sublime simplicity, particularly when experienced in the correct context. In Paris, at the right party, Beaujolais Nouveau is a transcendental event, a cross between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve, the one night of the year when an otherwise reserved and miserly population abandons its dime-sized, forward-facing café tables to stand around and sing and offer cheers to strangers. Read More »Celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau In Paris 2014

Marc Sibard, manager of Caves Augé and wine buyer for Lavinia, was found guilty on July 6, 2017 of multiple counts of criminal sexual assault, sexual harassment and psychological harassment against his female employees.

Our recommendations for titles that you can cook from and book from this summer in France.

Throughout the week, bars, shops, and brewers will be hosting a wide range of events at locations across the city. With so many events on the schedule – beer tastings, lectures, brewing demonstrations, tap takeovers, beer-pairing dinners and more – there are going to be some tough decisions, but we’re here to help narrow it down.

Read More »Much Ado About Munster: Cheese Names Do Matter

For the second year in a row, the winner of the Best Baguette in Paris competition comes from the 14th arrondissement. Congratulations to Antonio Teixeira from the Délices du Palais for placing first in the annual Grand Prix de la Baguette de Tradition Française de la Ville de Paris!

Read More »2014 Winner for Paris’ Best Baguette

The Michelin Guide has just released its 2014 designations. Here’s a quick summary, for those who are still following the Red Guide, plus links to the reactions from local and foreign critics.

Read More »2014 Michelin Results for Paris

Shopping for Champagne fills me with embarrassment.

Every year, I promise myself I’ll swear off the stuff. There are, after all, dozens of other sparkling wine types available in Paris, all arguably better bargains than the world’s most famous wine. For along with Champagne’s uniquely chiseled acidity and grace, we pay for the fame, the name Champagne. And to find a broad selection of what I’d call serious Champagne – upper-tier cuvées from independent grower-producers, rather than the predictable, cola-like entry-level bottles of the big houses – I’m often obliged to patronise the Paris wine shops I otherwise avoid.

Read More »Champagne: A Bubbly Buying Guide

Having already taken on the unprecedented challenge of publishing (and thereby endorsing) a detailed guide to Paris’ best Beaujolais Nouveau parties, the editorial team decided to put its money where its Mouth is and attend as many as possible in one night.

Meg Zimbeck called it “the Beaujolais Death March”: a tipsy trek from the 14ème to the 11ème. Along the way we met winemakers, shared bottles with strangers, used car roofs as bars, and, completely by accident, obtained actor Willem Dafoe’s opinion on Beaujolais Nouveau (“I prefer full-bodied reds,” he said, before ducking into an anonymous café in an unsuccessful bid to avoid paparazzi).

Read More »Beaujolais Nouveau Death March: Our 2013 Report

Beaujolais Nouveau is rather like gin – people who won’t touch the stuff usually have a legendarily bad story to tell involving a harrowing experience with the worst product imaginable. At its worst, Beaujolais Nouveau is indeed something less than a wine, a creepy under-aged creation of greenish grapes rouged up with sugar and sulfur. But just as the last two decades’ international cocktail renaissance has redeemed gin for many drinkers, so too does Paris’ booming natural wine scene contain the redemption of Beaujolais Nouveau – a quaff that, at its best, is a dashing, sun-dappled débutante of a wine, a pristine and lively beverage whose unseriousness is a big part of its charm.

Read More »The Redemption of Beaujolais Nouveau

“Don’t bother with churches, government buildings or city squares, if you want to know about a culture, spend a night in its bars,” –Ernest Hemingway

The Bar at Mary Celeste. Photo by Meg Zimbeck

Serious cocktail snobs, beautiful bobos, eager expats, and beer geeks alike are buzzing around the octagonal bar at Le Mary Celeste on a weekday night. Bright, airy, young, and fun, the bar is the hub around which the restaurant itself is organized.

Read More »Beyond the Hotel Bar: the Next Generation of Craft Cocktails

At long last, it’s an exciting time to be a beer lover in Paris.

Until recently, beer drinkers in France who wanted to quaff anything with character had to be content with a limited number of foreign-made beers, mostly from Belgium. The Belgian brewing tradition is long and revered, featuring a wealth of brews in traditional styles. But as devotees of craft beer know, there is more to beer than simple tradition. Microbrewers in the US and UK have been bucking tradition for decades now, and in doing so have revitalized an industry and gained legions of passionate customers. In more recent years, while craft beers have taken off in neighboring countries like Denmark and Italy, France has lagged behind, content with its industrially-made Kronenbourg. That’s all changing. It seems that in Paris, craft beer has finally arrived.Read More »Craft beer blows up in Paris

Gail Simmons recently returned to Paris for the first time in a decade and (helped in part by your Twitter suggestions) ate her way through the city. She named the sweetbreads at Spring and Frenchie’s cod with smoked eggplant as two of her favorite Paris tastes. But what else did she put in her mouth?