Paris Revealed

by Stephen Clarke

  And in the end, we all survived the bacterial onslaught and chose a winner—number 86, who turned out to be an immigrant from Senegal now working in Montmartre, in a boulangerie called the Grenier à Pain (the bread attic) in the rue des Abbesses. The food professionals approved—they knew him and his work, and were pleased with the choice. Even a foreign novice like myself hadn’t distorted the vote.

  Over the next couple of days, I waited anxiously to see whether I would come out in boils or collapse from a gluten overdose (try chewing on more than fifty hunks of baguette in an afternoon and see what it feels like), but nothing happened. And then I realized—the organizers had no doubt chosen me because I’d been in the city long enough for my immune system to have become acclimatized. Anything less than fifteen years and the competition would probably have been fatal.

  Visitors to the city should not be worried, though. Exposure to small quantities of café-basket baguette over a short period of time is probably not dangerous, especially if they are consumed with a cleansing glass of wine.

  Follow your nose

  There are hundreds of guidebooks and websites recommending eating places, but often the best way to make sure of getting a great Parisian food experience is—and apologies for the pun—to trust your gut feeling. Aided, of course by your senses, and a little local knowledge.

  It’s also useful to have a few yardsticks by which to judge Parisian eating places, which is what this section is going to be about.

  I shall be confining myself to French restaurants—I’m presuming that visitors to the city rarely come here to eat Japanese or Indian food.**** Of course, what we foreigners call a ‘French restaurant’ is just a plain restaurant to Parisians, although they do specify when a restaurant is regional. The most common regional cuisines available in Paris are Corsican, which is peasant food with an almost grudging touch of Mediterranean lightness; Auvergnat, which is a waistline-busting mix of meat, sauce and absurd quantity; and Alsatian, which has nothing to do with eating dogs. Alsatian food—choucroute (sauerkraut) and pork dishes—is common in brasseries, because a brasserie***** is a large café that used to brew its own beer, and Alsace is a big brewing area.

  Like most Parisians, when I go out to eat in the evenings, it’s usually to a non-French place. If I eat out at lunchtime, on the other hand, I usually go to a French café. As anyone who has been to Paris will have seen, there is one of these approximately every 10 metres in every shopping street, so it can be difficult to choose. Living in Paris, however, I have the time to indulge in a lot of trial and error.

  To test a café, I use my own personal yardstick, based on a dish that I first discovered when I came to work in Paris, and which has now become my lunchtime staple. It is la salade de chèvre chaud, or le chèvre chaud as the locals call it for short. Occasionally it’s hidden behind a name like salade bergère (shepherdess’ salad or, more correctly perhaps, goatherdess’ salad), but a quick scan of any menu’s Salades or Entrées section for the word chèvre will reveal it.

  If there is no chèvre chaud, the café immediately goes down in my estimation, because it implies a certain laziness on the chef’s part. There are, you see, several key elements to a successful chèvre chaud that take a lot of skill and judgement to get just right. It’s a challenge, but a worthwhile one.

  First, of course, the chef has to choose the goat’s cheese, which comes in a baffling array of varieties. There is the log, with or without a Camembert-style white skin, and varying in diameter from about 3 centimetres to 5. There is the Rocamadour, a small yellowish disc, which is rare in Paris but very tasty. There’s also the chèvre fritter, a pre-prepared breadcrumb-coated pat of cheese that, for me, is an abomination as scandalous as the screw-top wine bottle or the electronic drum machine—it’s just not the real thing. And then there is the Renault Espace of chèvres, the Crottin de Chavignol. Literally, crottin means turd, but this should not put you off, because it neither looks nor tastes like one. It is a 3- or 4-centimetre-high round pat of cheese, shaped rather like a marshmallow, with, ideally, a slightly yellow skin and whiter flesh. It will vary in hardness according to its ripeness, but is usually pretty soft when cooked.

  For the perfect chèvre chaud, one of these cheeses should be cut into slices about a centimetre thick and melted (though not entirely—the slices should keep their shape) on to toasted bread. Here again, there is a frighteningly large scope for cooking abuse. All too often, the bread will be industrial squares of underbaked white loaf—yes, even in France this exists. It’s called pain de mie and sometimes it doesn’t even have any crusts, so its sogginess beneath a thick slice of chèvre is easy to imagine. Occasionally you will be offered toasted baguette, which is OK when well grilled, but too often undercooked—the sign of a rushed kitchen. Ideally, I find, the cheese should be on a slice of pain au levain—an old-fashioned, dark-floured loaf—or pain Poîlane, a well-known brand of crusty, levain-type bread.

  The key thing is that the bread and cheese should be grilled together. Sometimes, a piece of raw cheese may be put on pre-grilled bread and quickly heated—a clumsy clash of textures. Worst of all, a pre-prepared slice of bread and melted cheese will be put in the microwave, so that the whole thing will come out as floppy as—well, we all know what shouldn’t be floppy.

  There are various schools of thought on whether to add herbs on top, or honey. Personally, I’m a purist. Forget the kinky stuff, and give it to me naked—let the bread and cheese breathe.

  Even once a careful chef has got the ingredients and the cooking right, there’s the quantity to consider. How many slices of goat’s cheese should be on each various-sized piece of bread? And how many pieces of bread will be riding on top of the salad? Anything under three slices of goat’s cheese and you’re being down-chèvred, I feel, unless it’s advertised as tartine de chèvre, which is, in fairness, just a piece of bread and cheese.

  Then there is the salad itself to be considered. This doesn’t apply only to chèvre chaud, of course. Has the chef settled for a straightforward heap of lettuce? Or do you get a variety of leaves, and maybe even cherry tomatoes, walnuts, pine nuts, and pieces of fresh apple? It’s a real test of the café’s generosity and imagination.

  And finally there’s the dressing. One look at a chef’s salad dressing says volumes about him or her. A few well-defined squirts of sweetish, yellowish liquid means it’s probably out of a bottle. Some chefs do mix their own dressings and put them in a plastic container for ease of use, but nothing looks quite like one of those homogenized, starched, monosodium-glutamated supermarket vinaigrettes, and if you get the slightest whiff of an industrial dressing, it’s probably safest to rip the café out of your guide book (perhaps after checking that there’s nothing useful on the other side of the page).

  If, on the other hand, you’re given a homemade dressing, personally I’m happy with anything tangy, especially if I can taste real olive oil. Though I’m not convinced that balsamic goes very well with chèvre chaud. It tends to dominate too much.

  All of which is a very detailed, highly personal way of saying that one dish that you enjoy can tell you everything you need to know about the chef and his or her menu. A café that gets your favourite dish right will probably make a good job of everything else, too. So if you have time for trial and error, it’s the most reliable way of picking your regular eating-place while you’re in Paris.

  It’s also a good idea to try and take a look at the chef. In many cafés, the kitchen opens out into the bar, so you can watch the cook at work. This can be very revealing. Take a look at the menu written on the blackboard and then compare it to what’s going on in the kitchen. Is the chef cutting up cheese for the quiche au bleu? Slicing potatoes for the gratin dauphinois? In this way, even in a simple-looking corner café, you will often see proof that the food is going to be fresh and cooked by a pro.

  In one café where I sometimes arrange morning meetings, the chef is on permanent show, constantly chopping, grating and mixing in hi
s tiny kitchen. And even though this is a modest lunch place for people working in nearby supermarkets and a pensions office, the chef is always dressed in a white jacket and pale-blue checked trousers, and makes almost everything by hand. He is also a highly choosy buyer.

  One morning, I was standing at the bar having a coffee when the butcher’s rep came in with the monthly bill. The two men said their bonjours and then embarked on a detailed conversation about meat-carving. The chef was complaining,

  ‘Le rosbif, le rosbif, why can they never cut it right? Look.’ They went into the kitchen and the chef took a tray of red meat out of one of his fridges and showed it to the rep. They stared and commented, and I overheard the chef ending the conversation with ‘that’s not how my grand-mère used to cut it’. No pre-packed, pre-cooked, reheated food in this place, that’s for sure.

  On another day, I watched the same chef grabbing a handful of red jelly from a pot, melting it in a bain marie, and then slowly painting it over a couple of dozen freshly prepared strawberry tarts. Anywhere else, he might have been adding the final touch to some pre-prepared desserts. But here, his assistant was ladling crème pâtissière into pastry bases to make the next batch, while a bowlful of glistening fresh strawberries was waiting to be set on top.

  And this, remember, is a simple neighbourhood café on a not-very-rich street corner in unfashionable northern Paris. You don’t have to go to famous addresses or obey your guidebook to find good food. Often, it’s just as easy to follow your nose.

  Menu for success

  Leaving out the more obvious considerations such as ‘Do I like the feel of the place?’ and ‘How does the food look on the plates of people eating there?’ here are a few more ways of spotting a good and bad Parisian eating-place:

  Is there a waiter or waitress standing outside, hustling for custom? Bad sign. In any decent café or restaurant, all the waiting staff are busy serving customers.

  How many people are impatiently waiting for their food? A full restaurant can be a good sign, of course, but if there are more people waiting than eating, the place may only be full because it’s trendy, and not because of the quality of the food and service.

  At lunchtimes, does the restaurant look as though it is catering for groups of Parisian colleagues? If so, this is a huge plus point. The general standard of lunchtime cafés and restaurants is far higher in office districts because the chefs have to keep workers happy five or six days a week. (In the evening, though, when the demanding workers have gone home, the same café might bring in a less experienced chef, so beware.)

  An empty café terrace, a tempting sight. But ask yourself—why is it empty? Similarly, if it’s full, take a look at the customers: are they munching merrily, or gazing around in desperation, hoping to spot a waiter? Choosing the right place to eat is a tricky business, which, happily, is explained in this chapter.

  Take a careful look at the menu, which by law must be on display outside the restaurant. Is it translated into several languages? Almost certainly a bad sign. Parisians are inherently snobbish and don’t respect the taste—gastronomic or otherwise—of foreigners, so an establishment that caters mainly for tourists won’t make as much of an effort. As in other countries, a restaurant that offers no linguistic help to foreigners can actually be the best place for foreigners to eat.

  Does the menu have a handwritten plat du jour, either on a Post-It or a blackboard? It should. A short menu with a plat du jour is far better than a long, varied menu without, because the ingredients will have been bought in specially.

  In the Poissons section of the menu, is there a fish other than salmon? If not, the chef is mechanically ordering in salmon rather than dipping into the veritable shoals of fresh fish that flow into Paris. Despite its distance from the sea, it has one of the best fish markets in Europe. Sometimes, chefs will propose a duo de poissons—two fish in the same dish. Again, if one of these is salmon it’s not a great sign.

  All of the above may sound very picky, but if you’re in Paris for a weekend, you may only have time for three or four meals at a restaurant. And in a city so obsessed with good food, and so full of it, there’s really no reason to eat badly.

  And so bon appétit, which, by the way, is pronounced without the final ‘t’—it’s ‘bonapay-TEE’. A snooty Parisian once told me that it is considered slightly vulgar to say this before eating, as though there were some absurd risk that you might not eat well in France. But most Parisians seem happy to say it, and it would be churlish not to do likewise, a bit like not saying bonjour because you’re bound to have a wonderful day in Paris.

  Though the above-mentioned snooty Parisian was partially right—if you avoid the obvious tourist traps and über-trendy places where people go to be seen rather than eat, it is fairly difficult to eat badly here, and easy to eat wonderfully well without risking bankruptcy.

  * The French word mince doesn’t mean English mince, though—that would be viande hachée.

  ** For hints on surviving in Parisian queues, see Chapter 1.

  *** For more ways of spotting a good and bad restaurant, see later in this chapter.

  **** Though I might add here that most Japanese restaurants in Paris are run by Chinese, and that Parisians don’t know enough about Indian cuisine to force the standard up. For authentic Japanese food go to the rue Saint-Anne, near the Palais-Royal, and for great Indian and Sri Lankan, between Gare du Nord and La Chapelle.

  ***** On the subject of definitions, bistro is a general word usually used to mean a small café or cheap restaurant. And the difference between a café and a restaurant is the same as anywhere else—a restaurant is a place where you go for a meal rather than just a drink.

  Worth his weight in chintz. Englishman Charles Worth (1825–95) came to Paris and invented haute couture. And amazingly, Parisians acknowledge their debt to him.

  9

  FASHION

  La mode domine les Provinciales, mais les Parisiennes dominent la mode.

  (Fashion dominates Provincial women, but Parisiennes dominate fashion.)

  JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU,

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WRITER AND

  PHILOSOPHER

  EVERYONE COMES to Paris hoping to witness first-hand the elegance for which Parisians (and especially Parisiennes) are famous. This, though, can lead to disappointment. I often see tourists wandering along the boulevard Saint-Germain thinking, Why are so many men dressed in jeans and sports-brand T-shirts, just like they are at home? And those women in cargo pants and plain blouses—can they really be Parisiennes?

  Well, yes, they are. The sobering fact is that Paris is a fully paid-up member of the global brand conspiracy. Most Parisians wear clothes that could be bought in any shopping mall in the Western world. Even the trendy cultural elite is singularly lacking in creativity. I recently went to a gallery opening in the Marais and thought someone had turned the lights out. Literally everyone in the fifty-strong crowd was wearing black. Fashion itself seemed to have become the victim.

  You do, of course, see some very classy, elegant people walking about the place, but their elegance will probably have a lot to do with the way they wear their clothes, whatever the brand. You might also spot girls who look like models. That’s because they are models—seven-foot-tall female stick insects, their portfolios under one arm and their ears bunged up with headphones to block out comments from passing men. These are the wannabes, pounding the streets from audition to audition, drawn to Paris in the same way as actors flock to LA or zebras to a crocodile-infested waterhole.

  Because despite all the globalization in its shopping streets, Paris is still a capitale de la mode, and home to most of the top surviving haute couture houses. And it’s not only the models who come here wanting a slice of this fashion cake. A large proportion of visitors to the city are willing to spend a small fortune to take home something with a genuine Parisian brand stamped, sewn, engraved or welded on to it. They could just as easily buy it online, but only in Paris can they exp
erience the thrill of going to the shop, founded perhaps by the creator of the brand, and staffed by people so beautiful that it is almost sexually exciting to be mistreated by them.

  The most intense clothes-related sado-masochism goes on in a part of Paris called the triangle d’or (golden triangle), a section of the 8th arrondissement just to the southwest of the Champs-Élysées. Here, along the tree-lined avenue Montaigne, French fashion houses like Dior (at no. 30), Nina Ricci (no. 39), Chanel (no. 42—presumably numbers 5 and 19 were already taken), and Chloé (no. 44) have their showcase Paris stores, housed in some très chic apartment buildings. Casually littering the street, double or triple-parked, there are often Ferraris or top-range 4WDs, apparently abandoned or strategically positioned as décor to heighten the ambiance of luxury (though in fact these have usually been left this way by provocative valet parkers).

  The fashion stores themselves are often set back slightly from the pavement, as if to give shoppers a chance to stop and take in some oxygen after the shock of reading the numbers on the credit-card machine—and, of course, to recover from the breathless thrill of taking part in Paris’s permanent fashion show.

  The experience is similar over on the other side of the Champs-Élysées, near Concorde. The same brands and more sit nose-to-tail along the much narrower rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, which offers Paris’s best chance of being bundled off the pavement by a sublimely dressed and coiffed Parisienne rushing to find a taxi after buying the perfect shoes for her lunch date. Here, the atmosphere of luxury is heightened not by valet parking but by limos ferrying diplomats and politicians to and from embassies and the Élysée Palace down the street.