Encouraged by several friends and family members, I’ve decided to start writing more about food. This also make some sense as I’m also building a company in this space, so naturally I’ve started to think about food a lot.
Last week, I took my first ever solo trip to Paris. It was… how you say… magnifique. Ok, in reality it was also tough. Solo trips are a mixed bag as the initial urge to stuff your face and check off your google maps lists is tempered by the gastrointestinal reality of cramming unreasonable amounts of bread, cheese, meat and wine down your stomach non-stop. This, all while contemplating the nihilism of it all while constantly refreshing Instagram to watch other people doing….the exact same thing. Meh. Food is better when shared.
So, why write about Paris? A city that’s been written about ad nauseam. Because Paris surprised me…in several ways.
Surprise 1.
Well, first Paris was beautiful, not only for its casual bistro’s, alleyways, and grand boulevards. But also, for the people, a real cosmopolitan mix similar to London. The real surprise, everyone I met spoke English! Yes, you heard it right. Five years ago, this definitely wasn’t the case, but it made life for me pleasant.
Surprise 2.
It seems to me that the people in Paris are reasonably interested in eating non-French food. Prior to my trip, I did some research and saw that one of my favorite pop ups, Ha’s Dac Biet, had taken over Bistrot Paul Bert, one of the French bistro institutions, to cook Vietnamese food. The more I learned about Bistrot Paul Bert, the more the weight of that really started to sink in. Given the tremendous diaspora population in Paris ranging from Tunisians, Algerians, Libyans, Vietnamese, Chinese and more, this is exciting.
Surprise 3.
Good finds come from taking risks. Normally when I travel, I’m armed with a laundry list of restaurant recommendations, the result of hours, even days, spent screening Instagram stories, DM’ing semi-famous influencers, and scouring online lists. Heck, I’d even purchased a subscription to Vittles, my favorite food Substack, for their 4 part “Grand Paris” series written by the ever so brilliant Jonathan Nunn, AND paid for Ha’s Dac Biet’s Paris recs on Substack (both were terrific and worth the money).
On the way to Paris in my extremely French BlaBla car (it was a vibe), my mind changed while listening to a podcast from David Chang about lists. Lists, he claims, are fucked. They are for people who want to play life as a video game, only capable of seeing the real world reduced to a few comfortable options. This makes most of us unwilling and maybe even unable to process the real world for what it actually is: chaos that requires taking risks, trying some good stuff and some bad stuff to find real gems. Following his advice, I binned the list the first night, wandered through the 13th arrondissement and stumbled upon El Benna, a family run Tunisian restaurant. Everyone there was Tunisian and the owners, a humble but proud group of men in their late 50’s, were thrilled to serve me a slow cooked Lamb tagine with carrots and peas. The biggest surprise of all, this was my best meal in Paris.
Surprise 4.
Paris is in many ways the home of…gastronomy. Here, fresh produce, croissants, butter, meat, and wine are maybe as important as education or healthcare, dare I say, even more important. The place is steeped in tradition, but even things that seem traditional were at one time considered contemporary. Consider Bistronomie, a term I learned over lunch at a lovely bistro in the 5th arrondissement with my friend and food writer Sophie Brissaud. The term refers to a movement started in Paris by cooks annoyed by the fussiness of Michelin oriented fine dining. Instead, they wanted high quality food, presented in modest settings, almost like your own home, and voila, the bistro was born. Though bistro cooking has been around for decades, fundamentally it started with a group of French cooks rejecting the status quo and demanding something better.
As a diner, I feel a spirit of change in the air, both in London as well as Paris. The hospitality industry is so broken, be it from the spiraling inflation, soaring rents, and terrible working conditions, that some seem to be interested in trying something new. One trend I’ve seen more of recently: rotating chef residencies. Like Oranj Wine in London, Early June in Paris features a wonderful wine bar with a rotating chef residencies. Victor and Camille, the two owners, were most gracious on my visit where I was served an unpretentious and tasty meal by Chef Mitchell Damota, formerly of P Franco. That I travelled to Paris to be sat at a wine bar hosting a chef from Toronto, originally based in London, serving Italian food, tells you all you need to know about the food scene right now. Its fluid and alive. Its weird and sometimes doesn’t make sense. If the 2010’s were about the torched Instagram minimalist aesthetic in food (see The Menu), the 2020’s are about the maximalist counter-culture (see The Bear). A return to the 90’s era of do-whatever-the-fuck-you-want, make it unapologetic, tasty, colorful, and real. There are no rules, and something tells me that these rotating chef residency concepts are on to something. I wonder if they will promote even better, more exciting food over time? Could this model create better working conditions for chefs and people in the industry? I wonder how the Chef’s feel about these residencies? Perhaps a topic for another time.
Regardless, as someone who is mainly a consumer of these experiences, this whole movement excites me. Just like the former generation of French cooks pioneering Bistronomie, throwing out something old to create something new, I’m eager to see where this goes.
Below is a full list of my favorite restaurants, bistros, bars, and things to do in Paris. These are NOT the best places. They are just places I really loved. Recommendations are for paying subscribers. A paid subscription will set you back 3.50/month or 30/year. Enjoy them (or maybe, don’t use them at all and just discover something on your own!).
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