Meursault: The Quintessential White Wine Village

My final stop along the Route des Grands Crus, Meursault, is a dream for those who love white Burgundy. It’s the quintessential white wine village: picturesque but not pretentious, truly excellent but down-to-earth producers, and heaps of charm and beautiful architecture all surrounded by vines. Although the AOP designation doesn’t include any Grand Crus, Meursaults are world class whites that can compete with any of the other Chardonnays. It’s not a very touristy place, yet there’s plenty to explore. 

I started off at the Hôtel de Ville, which is currently under renovation, in the center of town. The impressive building with a notable colorful tiled roof and decorative fountain was made famous when featured in the old French film La Grande Vadrouille. A stone’s throw away, you have La Petite Vadrouille which is the ideal place to pick up picnic supplies. Whether you want to have a snack amongst the vines, or a full lunch, they’re wonderfully welcoming. The small epicerie has an excellent selection of cheeses, a “cave à saucisse” for all your dried sausage needs, Burgundy grown shiitakes and other produces, chocolates from a Meursault born maker now based in Strasbourg, locally made raw milk cream and butter, and, bien sûr, wine. After we fortified ourselves there for an outdoor picnic, it was time for a small stroll (which is what their name translates to) about town. 

There’s plenty of beautiful architecture to see, like the Romanesque and gothic church Église Saint-Nicolas de Meursault or the Château de Citeaux with its turreted gate house and pigeonnier, and a variety of walled estates that you can glimpse through their fences and gates. There’s even a 12th century leprosy hospital with a very modern zinc addition that you can visit. The former hospital isolated leprosy victims and served the poor, and now serves tourists as the Meursault tourism office with exhibition spaces.  

For a place that looks so traditional in its style, there’s plenty of technology to be found. The town has helpfully set up free wifi where you can find your local winemaker of choice on a map in order to visit, and there’s even a Tesla charging station at Château de Meursault. The Château is a lovely building with a long history, stunning grounds next to a small stream, and a tall dovecote. It’s also the site of a hugely important cultural event each year: La Paulée de Meursault. The Paulée is a lunch that’s traditionally held in November to celebrate the end of the grape harvest. What was historically an informal meal between Cisterian monks and the harvest workers, was revived in 1923 by Jules Lafon, and has become a truly international event for winemakers, workers, writers, and connoisseurs. It caps off the “Trois Glorieuses”: a three-day celebration in Burgundy that starts with a gala dinner at Clos de Vougeot, leads into the famous auction at the Hospices de Beaune, and ends with the grand celebration luncheon of La Paulée. It’s probably the nicest BYOB (bring your own bottle) event one could ever attend with each attendee bringing their most special and prized bottles to share, and the festivities continue long into the evening. Reservations can be hard to come by and need to be made far in advance, but it’s an honor for any wine lover to partake in the conviviality and commemoration of the Burgundian harvest each year.

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. To read more and see others in the series, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.

Aloxe-Corton: A Small Village with a Large Reputation

Aloxe-Corton was the smallest of the villages that I visited on this road trip, with only a mayor’s office, a post office, a church, and a cooperative of winemakers’ tasting cave to its name. When I say tiny... we are talking approximately 134 residents tiny*. The winemaking reputation of this tranquil hamlet looms large and belies the small size of the village, however.

Our journey began in prime Pinot Noir territory in Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges, and will finish with world-class whites in Meursault, but Aloxe-Corton is the only village in Burgundy known equally for both white and red Grand Crus wines. This is the place for equal opportunity drinkers as its unique geographic location straddling the area between the Côte de Beaune and Côte de Nuits regions offers excellent Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alike.

The white Grand Cru, Corton-Charlemagne, is named after the Emperor Charlemagne. Legend has it that the first vines in the commune were red wine grapes planted by the Gauls on their return from Italy where they were first introduced to vinification, and that, in the late 8th century, Emperor Charlemagne was responsible for replanting his hills there with white wine grapes in order to avoid staining his flowing, white beard when drinking. Who would’ve imagined that his vanity would have such a long-lasting impact on the region? 

Corton is the largest Grand Cru in Burgundy overall and encompasses vines from Aloxe-Corton and neighboring communes Pernand-Vergelesses et Ladoix-Serrigny. The famous, round Montagne de Corton hill is worth driving up for a stunning panorama looking out over the valley. Our spring visit was perfectly timed for when the pink magnolia trees blossomed. The sight of the blooming trees, fringed with delicate flowers, couldn’t have been more beautiful. As we wound our way through Pernand-Vergelesses, there’s a small church that’s worth a short pit stop before continuing further up the mountain for the view. You truly appreciate the terroir of the area from the top of the heavily forested limestone hill where you can gaze out upon the slopes of vineyards lower down and the villages below. 

You can see pretty much all of Aloxe-Corton in a matter of minutes so you don’t need tons of time, but architecturally speaking, the village does not disappoint with three different charming châteaus: Château de Corton Grancey (Maison Louis Latour), Château Corton André, and Château de Corton (a private residence). The Château Corton André is particularly iconic in the region as an example of distinct Burgundian architecture with a vibrant multicolored roof. The colorful roof tiles in diamond shapes, aka the tuile vernissée de Bourgogne, are traditional throughout the region, most famously seen at the Hospices de Beaune. The tiles are made of terracotta, then covered in a ceramic glaze usually made of lead or tin. The amazing turreted building leaves a lasting image for visitors as it is visible from a distance along the Route des Grand Crus, its intricate rooftop peeping out across the vines. 

 * As of 2017

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. To read more and see more from the series, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.

Nuits-Saint-Georges: The Namesake for the Côte de Nuits

My next stop on the Route des Grands Crus was another village known for its superlative red wines-- Nuits-Saint-Georges. Although there are no Grand Crus from this commune, there are some great village and Premier Cru level wines. It’s a well-regarded appellation known for red wines that take a bit more time and require a bit more age than some others in the region. There are a small amount of white wines here as well, but it’s less than five percent of the total production.

You get a sense of the importance of Nuits-Saint-Georges to the winemaking trade in the area from the fact that the region itself, Côte de Nuits, takes its name from the town. Nuits does not refer to the French word for night, however, but it is thought that it comes from the Latin word for walnuts-- a reference to the walnut and hazelnut trees of the area. The wine has such historic significance, that King Louis XIV was told to drink it medicinally and had his bottles of Champagne replaced by Nuits-Saint-Georges.

In comparison to the other villages I visited, the lively town felt like a veritable metropolis... with a population of 5,400 inhabitants. So while still fairly small, it was the largest of the towns we visited on this particular trip and felt bustling with more shops, restaurants, caves, and activity overall.

Nuits-Saint-Georges has enormous importance for its role in promoting Burgundy wines globally as it is where the Chevaliers du Tastevin were founded in 1934. The Chevaliers are an international brotherhood of Burgundy wine connoisseurs. Originally intended to revive interest in the Burgundian wine industry during the Great Depression, the organization now celebrates the magic and conviviality of Burgundy wines worldwide in over 120 countries. Their headquarters have been based at the Château Clos de Vougeot since 1944, but walking around Nuits-Saint-Georges, you can see a small unobtrusive plaque highlighting their humble origins at the Caveau Nuiton.

There is a walking trail that highlights many of the major sights in the town-- you need only to look for small metal triangles with a buccaneer standing atop a wine barrel. One major site to visit would be the Cassissium which is an entire interactive museum and factory tour devoted to the blackcurrant. Grapes are not the only famous fruit export from Burgundy, after all. Crème de cassis, the local liqueur made from blackcurrants, is commonly used as a syrup to flavor white wine for a sweet aperitif called kir, or, when paired with Champagne, a kir royale. It can be nice to break up all the wine tasting along the Route des Grands Crus with a different kind of tasting.

The belfry, along a slightly touristy strip in the commercial center of town, is an architectural jewel. Built in the early 1600s, the Flemish style belfry covered in vines was a watchtower and served as the town hall until 1833. There’s a monument to the local sculptor Paul Cabet on one side of the facade as well. The clock chimes were restored in the 1980s so visitors today still benefit from the local song punctuating the day’s events. A short stroll away is the Église Saint-Denis which has a distinctive tiled roof and sits next to the banks of the Meuzin. Just a small trickle of water now, the river used to supply drinking troughs, communal washhouses, mills and tanneries. Inside the church, there is an organ by “celebrity” organ maker Aristide Cavaillé-Coll who famously made the organ inside Notre-Dame de Paris.

Although technically not in Nuits-Saint-Georges, it’s worth a small detour to the Cîteaux Abbey just east of the town. Famous today for their Cîteaux cheese, which you can and definitely should stock up on in their wonderful small store, the abbey has been around since the 12th century and the Cisterician monks were instrumental in the wine-growing success of the entire region. The history of the climats and terroirs of Burgundy cannot be separated from the history of the monks of Cîteaux who built their own winegrowing estate, acquired land across Burgundy, and systematically increased and improved winemaking and production in the area. There are guided visits of the abbey, a silent walking path laying out the long scope of history there, and the small shop filled with monastic made goods.

For Château de Pommard aficionados, perhaps the most interesting site in Nuits-Saint-Georges is the Saint-Symphorien church which features historic wooden pews including one by the entrance inscribed with the name Marey-Monge. It belonged to Ernest Marey-Monge and his wife Sophie, one of the eight children of Nicolas-Joseph Marey et Emilie Monge who purchased the Château de Pommard premises from the founding Micault family.

This article is one of a series that I wrote on the Route des Grand Crus. For more info and to check out the other pieces, please see Chateau de Pommard’s blog.

Gevrey-Chambertin: The Origin of Burgundy Wine

The Route des Grands Crus is one of most picturesque driving routes in France that winds its way through some of the best villages for Burgundy wines. Created in 1937 as the first tourism route in France, the full road trip encompasses a narrow strip of land that spans 60 kilometers from Dijon in the North, to Santenay in the South. The journey along the route traverses through 30+ different wine-oriented villages in the famed Côte de Nuits and Côte de Beaune regions and affords visitors plenty of opportunities for taking in the architecture, learning about terroir, and drinking the world’s best burgundies along the way. For me, it’s the total package when traveling through France: incredible food, wine, and small-town scenery.

Although you have your pick of charming villages along the route, for me, it was fitting to start in Gevrey-Chambertin Not only is it the capital of Grands Crus in Burgundy with nine Grand Cru vineyard designations to its name, but it’s also where winemaking plausibly began in Burgundy during Gallo-Roman times. Archaeological excavations done at Au-Dessus de Bergis in 2008 have found evidence of winemaking there dating back to the first century. Although the wines from that time would taste nothing like the profile of today’s wines given the changes in agriculture, vinification, and the heavy use of spices historically, it’s where Burgundy wines as we know them began, and thus my journey.

I wanted to understand the deeply rooted history of the village as much as possible so my first stop was to head to the Château de Gevrey-Chambertin. Currently under renovation, the chateau is a medieval fort originally built for the Cluny Abbey. From 1019-1790, the chateau and its accompanying winemaking were managed by Clunisian monks. The square tower is still in excellent condition and has a stunning view overlooking the sweeping pinot noir vines below. Turning the corner from the chateau, I loved the viewpoint from the Clos Saint-Jacques where I could glimpse the rolling fields, the local church, and vines as far as the eye could see.

Heading back to the center of the village, I popped into the Halle Chambertin which opened in 2020 with exhibits on oenotourism and local history, and where we received enthusiastic guidance from local tourism officials. It was a great way to get a broad overview of the region and its history before heading out to explore the town on foot. It’s a pretty tiny village so I didn’t need to go far to see some of the stone houses, tiled rooves, and wine caves. Close by, in the center of town, there is a metal sculpture called Les Portes de Saint-Vincent that highlights some of the most beloved aspects of Burgundian life: the escargots, the local poultry, the terroir, the harvest, and more. It’s a simple metal structure the size of a wall, but it was moving to see a physical representation of the community, tradition, and agriculture that makes life in Burgundy so special. It was originally erected for the festival of Saint-Vincent Tournante-- a yearly event honoring the patron saint of winemaking that takes place every January and sounds like a massive local party with tasting sessions, parades, and charity events in various villages along the route.

No visit to Gevrey-Chambertin would be complete without stopping by a few of the domaines and caves to taste some of the famous red wines of the village. That’s what a road trip on the Route des Grands Crus is all about: wine and understanding it within the context of place. The most notable appellation here is Chambertin, the favorite wine of Napoleon the first, and one of the most well-known and respected red wines in the world today. Although Gevrey-Chambertin is most noted for its Grands Crus, it’s also rich with excellent premier crus and village wines.

Last, but certainly not least, if you, like me, are planning to spend all week driving through Burgundy, indulging in local delicacies and (safely) drinking as much pinot noir and chardonnay as you can, it’s well worth visiting the Combe Lavaux. It’s a beautiful nature preserve that is popular with hikers and rock climbers where you can head into the forest to work up a sweat to off-set the time spent in the car and at the table. The extraordinary terroir of the area is what makes the wines so magnificent, and there’s no better place to appreciate the unique geography and specific terroir of Gevrey-Chambertin, than from the cliffs overlooking the Combe Lavaux.

This is part of a series I wrote for Chateau Pommard. To read more, check out their website.

Eater: Mastering the Art of French Dining

From childhood, the French are raised to appreciate the art of dining, and the many rituals that accompany it—even public school lunches include a cheese course. Part of the reason you’re traveling to France is, presumably, to tap into that gastronomic reverence. But knowing how to do it right is tricky, particularly if you don’t speak the language. Here’s everything you need to know about Parisian restaurant etiquette, including some helpful phrases. Do as the French do, and you’ll have a much better experience in Paris.

Say Bonjour, Always

Whether it’s at the post office, a boutique, or a fine dining restaurant, say bonjour to every single person you interact with. France is formal in this respect, and it’s considered rude if you don’t acknowledge and greet people. You can use bonjour in the evenings as well, but some people will switch over to bonsoir around 5pm. The only hard and fast rule? Don’t forget to say hello. A few pleasantries can go a long way naturally so don’t forget to say thank you with merci or bonne journée for have a good day or bonne soirée, if it’s evening.

Make Reservations...

For restaurants that accept reservations, reserve. Even a casual corner bistro can easily book up. It can be hard for diners to tell if a place requires reservations or not, so unless a restaurant specifically states on its website that it doesn’t accept them, assume you’ll need to book. How far in advance you’ll want to reserve depends on the restaurant. For hotspots like Septime or Frenchie, you should call or check online weeks ahead; for more casual dining, call a day, or even just a few hours, in advance. French restaurants close more often than American ones, so making a reservation is also a good way to find out if they’re open before you cross town.

Most reservations will require a phone call—restaurant websites in Paris are often just an address and a phone number. More often than not, you won’t be able to book online, and you’ll almost never be able to view the menu in advance. To phone in the reservation yourself, always begin with bonjour. If you’d like to reserve a table for two people on the 15th at 8 p.m., then the French phrase would be:

Je voudrais réserver une table (I would like to reserve a table)
pour deux personnes (for two people) 
pour le quinze octobre (on the fifteenth of October) 
à vingt heures. (at 20 o’clock.)

It’s important to use the 24-hour clock to avoid confusion, so remember to add twelve!

...And Keep Them.

If you make a reservation, honor it. Many restaurants in Paris do only one service a night, because the French like to linger. This means that for a small restaurant, a no-show can have real economic ramifications. If you must cancel, give as much notice as possible. (And definitely don’t double book: Tourists are becoming infamous for making multiple bookings at hotspots on opposite sides of town, then deciding at the last minute which one they’ll keep. This is poor form.)

Restaurants will want a phone number in order to confirm your reservation a day or two in advance—remember to give your country code, too. If you don’t pick up when they call to confirm, you may show up only to find that your reservation has been given away. If you’re worried about missing the call—or concerned about international roaming charges—be proactive and call the day beforehand yourself to confirm.

Know Which Days To Go...

Many restaurants and shops will shutter for the day on Sunday or Monday. Lots of travelers go wrong here by not planning accordingly. Take a look at your list of places to eat, and if any are open on Sunday and Monday, take advantage and visit them on those days.

...And Which Months

In August and, increasingly, the second half of July, Paris can be a ghost town. It often feels like the entire city has gone on vacation, with many restaurants closed for anywhere from 2–6 weeks. So if the goal of your visit is to eat your way across the city, consider visiting at a different time of year. The end of December, also popular with tourists, is a better bet, but can still be a little risky: Many restaurants close for Christmas and New Year’s, which are family holidays when most people cook at home. If you opt to eat out, you’ll most likely end up paying premium prices for fairly mediocre tasting menus. Rent an apartment with a kitchen instead, and shop in advance like the Parisians do.

Eat At The Right Time Of Day

Set eating hours are still firmly entrenched in French society. Lunch is generally served from 12:30 pm to 2:30 pm, and most restaurants will serve dinner from 8 pm to 10 pm. Some restaurants may open earlier for dinner to cater to an international clientele, but most French people won’t step foot outside a minute before. For meals outside those time frames, less formal options are a better bet. Wine bars tend to have more flexible hours, catering to patrons seeking a drink or a snack before or after their main meal; brasseries are open all day, with continuous service; and bakeries and patisseries are good options for late-afternoon snacks. It’s fine to sit in cafés for hours as well, although it’s good practice to pay rent for your table, so to speak, by buying a round of coffees or drinks every so often.

Give Up Some Control

In France, the customer is not always right; in fact, the customer is usually wrong. The chef is an artist welcoming you into his or her studio, not a sycophant eager to please your whims, and restaurant professionals in both the kitchen and the dining room take pride in their expertise. Enjoy the guidance of the talented team in charge.

Don’t Expect Too Many Accommodations

If you have dietary restrictions or food allergies, let the restaurant know about them when you book, as Parisian kitchens are cramped and frequently don’t have a lot of alternatives on hand. You’ll have a better meal—and the restaurant will be more accommodating—if they can plan ahead.

Order Like A Parisian

On French menus (cartes), the word entrées means starters, and main courses are called plats. This is often confusing to Americans, for whom an entrée is a main course. While Parisians might keep it simple when dining at home, when they go out to eat they tend to commit to the full three-course formule of entrée-plat-dessert. It’s frowned upon to order just two starters, or just a main course.

If you’re not hungry enough for a three-course meal (although remember, portions tend to be smaller here than at home), it’s better to head to a wine or tapas bar, where you don’t have to follow the standard formula. The options at wine bars range from ambitious, high-end food to rustic platters of charcuterie or cheese.

It’s perfectly acceptable to request tap water. If you go the bottled route, you can often end up spending more on water than you do wine. For tap water, ask for une carafe d’eau.

Don’t expect bread and butter as an automatic starter. Bread will often arrive with your main course, to sop up sauces. Unless you’re at a very high-end restaurant, it’s unlikely that your table setting will include a bread plate—the expectation is that you’ll put your bread directly on the table. This can feel strange at first, but you’ll get used to it.

Cheese, if offered, tends to come at the end of the meal, right before, or in place of, dessert. Sometimes you might encounter a fresh cheese like a burrata among the entrées, and at a wine bar you’re of course free to order cheese at any point.

Thanks to a relatively new French law, restaurants must now allow patrons to take their leftovers home, but it’s still not common custom. You might get some weird looks if you request a doggie bag.

Pay—And Tip—Like A Pro

In France, it’s considered rude to bring the bill (l’addition) before a customer has specifically requested it. Whether at a corner café or a fine-dining establishment, you’re allowed to linger for as long as you like. The only downside? When you’re ready to go, you may have to be a little assertive to catch your server’s eye.

The price of a meal in Paris includes service charges, so tips aren’t required—but they are appreciated. Most French people wouldn’t leave more than 5 percent, or 10 percent for very good service. There isn’t a tip line on a credit card bill, so be sure to have cash on hand.

Check out the original article on Eater.

Eater: If You Love Food, Heaven Is Paris's 11th Arrondissement

It will shock no one that the best dining in Paris isn’t clustered around the morass of tourist attractions (and traps) in the center of the city. Rather, the most dynamic restaurants can be found in its northeastern neighborhoods, particularly the historically working-class 11th arrondissement, where lower real estate prices have allowed entrepreneurs to flourish. The sheer concentration of destination-worthy bars and restaurants makes the 11th an ideal home base for the food-focused traveler, whatever else may be on your agenda.

Martin: The overflowing terrace here can best be described as "chaotic," but that’s part of the fun at this wine bar near Oberkampf. Chef Peter Orr arguably serves the best bar food in the city, and at reasonable prices. On any given night, you’ll find oozy runny Scotch eggs with mustard-tinged piccalilli served alongside homemade pastas, or liver parfaits that truly are boozy, buttery perfection. 24 Boulevard du Temple | +33 (0)1 43 57 82 37

Clown Bar: Eating poached brains in a clown-themed restaurant sounds like the stuff of nightmares, especially lately, but Clown Bar is positively dreamy. This historic spot near the Cirque d’Hiver is as elegantly decorated as a place covered in murals of clowns can be, while the terrace is wonderful in warm weather. Most important, the food is excellent. Chef Sota Atsumi’s intriguing offal dishes will entice even the most timid eaters, and the pithiviers de canard, a flaky puff pastry stuffed with foie gras and duck, is the most soulful meat pie imaginable. 114 Rue Amelot | +33 1 43 55 87 35

Aux Deux Amis: Unpretentious small plates, great wines by the glass, and a raucous, fashionable crowd that pours out into the street. You can make a meal out of the excellent charcuterie, while natural wine geeks will be delighted by the selection. Be prepared to get a bit sweaty and make some new friends. 45 Rue Oberkampf | +33 1 58 30 38 13

Le Petit Keller: It may look like a super-traditional bistro, but the food is anything but. Kaori Endo, formerly at Nanashi, is serving Franco-Japanese fusion for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Think mackerel donburi bowls with marinated, poached eggs, followed by chocolate quenelles with Armagnac-soaked figs and cream. You’ll leave feeling not just full, but healthy and refreshed—what you imagine all of the beautiful people drinking natural wine at the formica tables feel like all the time. 13 Rue Keller | +33 1 43 55 90 54

Check out Eater for the full article. 

Eater: A Culinary Guide to the 20 Arrondissements in Paris

Spiraling outward from the center of the city, the twenty civic regions of Paris's numbered arrondissement system are a series of zoned administrative districts. They largely overlap with the city's organically formed neighborhoods, though some straddle arronidissement boundaries—the Marais, for instance, encompasses both the third and fourth. But the arrondissements aren’t just bureaucratic designations; each has its own identity, from the spectacle of palatial boutiques and actual palaces in the premier (first) to some of the city’s best Chinese cuisine and the unmissable Père Lachaise cemetery in the vingtième (20th).

While most tourists stick to the central arrondissements along the Seine—the 1st, 6th, and 7th in particular—the best neighborhoods for eating and exploring lie elsewhere. Every arrondissement has something to offer; it simply depends on what you're looking for from your trip. While staying in the center makes for easy access to the main tourist destinations, if you're interested in sheer proximity to good eating and even better nightlife, you're best off in the Marais, the 9th near Pigalle, the 10th near the Canal, or , the 11th—our top choice for food-focused Paris. Here's the lowdown on every neighborhood, from iconic to underrated, with quick-hit intel on the best places to eat in each.

For more info on each of the neighborhoods, check out the original publication on Eater.

Extra Crispy: What The French Know About Breakfast That Americans Don't

You’ll get strange looks at the patisserie if you try to order a quiche for breakfast. Those, and other famed egg dishes like oeufs cocottes, are usually reserved for lunch and dinner. French toast (pain perdu) is a dessert, and the croissant isn’t even French—it’s Austrian. Instead, the most common breakfast items are brioche, a buttered baguette, or even Zwiebeck-like packaged toasts. And they’re all just vehicles for jam. Besides bread and pastries with butter and jam, there’s usually just a glass of orange juice and a coffee, drunk from a bowl. Everything you thought you knew about French breakfast is wrong. 

Read the full article on Extra Crispy. 

Tasting Table: Paris City Guide

The more things change, the more Paris stays the same. Although many of the city's best restaurants now have young, foreign chefs shaking up the scene, French diners still expect them to respect seasonality and be dedicated to terroir even as they embrace more freedom and flexibility. There are classic silver platters heaped with oysters and shaved ice at the new L'Avant Comptoir de la Mer, but instead of serving them on a white tablecloth under a stained glass dome, diners stand at a bar filled with French rugby players and elbow their way to reach communal slabs of butter.

After a chaotic year in the City of Light, there's a return to foods that are anything but. Pot-au-feu, steak frites, frog's legs, escargots—these much-dreamed-about but rarely available dishes are no longer the stuff of Francophile fantasy. Newcomers like La Bourse et La Vie or Mensae have young chefs reviving lost dishes and turning their obsessive focus on sourcing great ingredients for Grand-mère's cuisine. In other words, put away the shaved vegetables and microgreen garnish. The bistro is back.

For my booze-and-butter-soaked guide to the best restaurants, bars, and shops in Paris, check out the full listing on Tasting Table. 

Tasting Table: Vive la Breakfast

Paris has never been much of a breakfast town.

The French typically start their day with a small bite, something light and sweet, like yogurt or a bit of baguette with butter and jam, eaten in the privacy of one's home alongside a coffee. But chefs at restaurants like La Bourse et La Vie, Ellsworth, Holybelly and Ob-La-Di are taking inspiration from their time abroad and mixing it with classic French ingredients like buckwheat, foie gras and cultured butter to invigorate Parisian breakfast. We're calling it France's breakfast revolution.

Should you be heading to the City of Light or just want some petit dejeuner inspiration, here are four breakfasts around Paris worth getting out of bed—and saving the patisserie visit until the afternoon—for.

To read up on the best ways to start your day in Paris, read the full article on Tasting Table. 

Paris by Mouth: Sculpture with Taste

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. With this new installation – entitled “La Sculpture a du Gôut”, or “Sculpture with Taste” – Patrick Roger, the French chocolatier most famous for his giant chocolate orangutans, will prove that he isn’t monkeying around. 

For more on the artful chocolatier, read the full article on Paris by Mouth. 

Paris by Mouth: Havens of Hospitality and Small Acts of Heroism During the Attacks

“Be not inhospitable to strangers, lest they be angels in disguise,” is painted above a doorframe in the bookstore and café Shakespeare & Co. It’s a motto that the iconic address certainly took to heart on Friday evening when Paris went into lockdown following the most deadly attacks on French soil since World War II. Shakespeare & Co’s staff sheltered roughly 20 people during the lockdown, many of whom ended up spending the night among the bookshelves and coffee machines. Owner Sylvia Whitman, however, is reluctant to be singled out as a hero. “This wasn’t exceptional,” she insists. “There were many places that closed with customers inside.”

Sadly, she’s right – it wasn’t exceptional. Many shops, restaurants and bars ended up sheltering patrons for hours on end. What was exceptional were the actions of staff who went above and beyond the call of duty on Friday evening to ensure that guests were taken care of.

For details on how one of the best cocktail bars in Paris became a Red Cross headquarters during the terrorist attacks in Paris, see the full story on Paris by Mouth. 

Paris by Mouth: Bringing Chocolate Home from France

The French have had a love affair with chocolate since 1615, when Anne of Austria (confusingly, actually Spanish) married Louis XIII of France and packed cocoa beans for drinking chocolate in her Paris-bound valise. 400 years later, French chocolates are some of the finest in the world and among the best souvenirs to take home.

Chocolate smuggling can be a delicate operation, but with enough care in selection and packaging, you’ll successfully be able to share your sweet Parisian memories over sweets with friends and family back at home… or not share. We won’t judge you.

For more tips on buying chocolate in France, read the full article on Paris by Mouth. 

Five Great Spots for Hot Chocolate in Paris

Baby, it’s cold outside. Falling temperatures call for a mug of chocolat chaud. But where to find the real deal? When it comes to hot chocolate, Paris generally isn’t a cocoa powder town; a true chocolat chaud tends to be real melted chocolate blended with warm whole milk, which is often deceptively creamy, or, for further decadence, a mixture of milk and cream. Here are five of our favorites for hot chocolate in Paris. 

Berthillon

In the summer, crazy crowds gather on the Ile Saint-Louis for Berthillon’s famous ice cream, but in the winter, this old-fashioned ice cream shop is almost abandoned. The emptiness belies one of Paris’ better-kept food secrets: It’s hard to imagine a more decadent cup of cocoa than the chocolate affogato here. You receive a silver platter with a scoop of the ice cream or sorbet of your choice (you can’t go wrong with the salted caramel or classic vanilla) alongside a pitcher of melted dark chocolate, another of frothy hot milk, and a bowl of whipped cream. Then you mix it yourself for a cup that is as chocolate-y or creamy as you like, though guaranteed to be completely over the top. If that wasn’t enough, it’s garnished with a crunchy nut cookie. Be sure you head to the original Berthillon, however, as there are many other spots nearby that will advertise that they sell the brand and are frequently mistaken for the ice cream shop.

For more spots for a decent cup of cocoa, read the full article on Paris by Mouth. 

A Snapshot of the Paris Cocktail Scene

Trends I hope we’ll see in 2016: clear signage, preferably with neon letters, so that I can know whether I’m at one of the best bars in Paris or an abandoned crack den (I’m looking at you, Le Syndicat). Also, if one is forced to spend 15€ on a single cocktail, one should not be forced to squat on a low bench or ottoman that feels like a birthing stool built for a dwarf. Tiny furniture is adorable, but who wants to drink with their knees pressed to their chest?

For more on cocktail trends we actually like, see the full article on Paris by Mouth. 

Five Great Cocktail Bars in Paris

The craft cocktail scene is exploding, but with more options come more difficult choices. Here are our picks for the best spots to imbibe in Paris right now. 

Le Syndicat

Keep your phone out. You’ll need your GPS to find this hidden-in-plain-sight speakeasy… and to look up the names of the obscure French spirits once you’re settled inside. Romain Moueillic and Sullivan Doh have dredged up a lot of forgotten Gallic liqueurs. The crowd is young and intimidatingly cool, but don’t let that get your spirits down. You’ll find spirits here that you won’t see elsewhere. 

For more, see the full article on Paris by Mouth. 

Paris by Mouth: First Look at Lobster Bar

I have a lot of sympathy for the lobster.

Walking through the door of Lobster Bar, a trendy new joint devoted entirely to the crustacean, was like being greeted with a fat, wet slap of steam. Waiting in a queue eleven people deep on a Saturday afternoon, it was not hard to reflect upon the similarities between my sweaty plight and that of the lobster destined for my plate.

The stylish dining room on a calmer weekday afternoon. Photo by Meg Zimbeck. 

This twenty seat restaurant had opened only a week earlier to great media fanfare. Although we had been invited to a pre-opening lunch along with virtually every other food writer in town, Paris by Mouth stays away from such cattle calls, preferring to arrive anonymously to get a better sense of what the experience will be like for our readers.

That experience might begin, as it did for me, with time spent crushed between well-heeled strangers. If my sympathies were not with the lobster during the hour-long wait, then they certainly were with a can of sardines. As the time dragged on and diners waited interminably for their dishes, I found myself wondering what could possibly take so long?  

Were they boiling and shelling the lobsters to order? It seemed like the only logical explanation for what could possibly take so long to get the roll from kitchen to table. They could potentially have skipped the boiling step entirely and left them to steam in the ambient air of the restaurant.

A lobster roll is, at its best, the essence of simplicity. There's a reason why the shellfish sandwich is a staple of packed summer towns. It's cold lobster, diced and dressed lightly with mayonnaise and perhaps a little celery on a toasted buttered bun. There are lobster roll partisans, naturally, who prefer the Connecticut style, served warm with drawn butter, but I’m from Boston which is mayonnaise territory, and where even the addition of a few herbs can be considered fancy.

When a sandwich finally emerged from the kitchen, I could see it was the size of a baby’s foot and snuggled between a handful of overcooked fries and 3 small wedges of lettuce. At this sight, the french foursome ahead of me left their place in the line, declaring that the frites were too fried.

The rest of the lingering crowd remained eager and jovial, even when owner Mathieu Mercier announced to those waiting that they had run out of over-cooked fries and were substituting Tyrell's potato chips. The crowd remained, spirits and armpits slightly dampened, but still hopeful. However, when Mercier returned thirty minutes later to announce that they were also out of lobster,  all hell broke loose. The French couple behind me were furious, declaring that Mercier should have known better and turned people away much sooner rather than let them stand there for over an hour. The rest of us shuffled out around 3pm, too late to get lunch anywhere else.

If I hadn't been assigned to review this restaurant, I can assure you I would never have returned after the first experience of leaving hangry (hungry+angry). But I was. And so I steeled myself for a return like the heroic eater that I am.

This is the tale of two lobster rolls. The first, as described above, was a horror show. The second, a mild redemption story.

Rillettes d'ormeaux (abalone) served as a starter

On second go-round, we were seated within a few a minutes at a table by the fun and funny waitress. This late weekday lunch offered us the opportunity to see that the quirks were mostly worked out, with the sweltering room being noticeably the same. The feverish feeling subsided with a cool glass of Sancerre and our starter of a small dish of rillettes d’ormeaux, a pleasant enough paste of abalone with a zip of fresh lemon served with bread. The lobster rolls arrived shortly thereafter.

It’s a universally acknowledged truth that foods from different cultures are transmuted as they are transported. Quality and price generally suffer at the expense of novelty. This is nothing new and happens worldwide.  I generally find the current French fascination with all foods American (cupcakes, burgers, Tex-Mex) to be amusing and fun. But for me, there’s something about the lobster roll that's so representative of my home state that to see it done poorly would be a personal affront.

The signature dish a Lobster Bar

It wasn’t awful by any means. It just wasn’t what I am used to. I applaud the owner for his careful sourcing of local, French ingredients. In theory, I like the idea of using all-locally sourced products to recreate this foreign food. In reality, I found my expectations and desire for the real thing to be so high that I walked away slightly puzzled. Inherently, the flesh of the Brittany lobster has a different, chewier texture and a more pronounced sweetness. Beautiful pieces of chilled meat, where you could see the outline of the claw itself were larger and chunkier than I normally see. It was a welcome change. The sweet white roll however was another story. Even filled with claw meat, slightly soggy sweet bread just wasn’t gonna cut it. Here a slight but powerful smear of tarragon infused mayo on the inside of the bun takes the place of the traditional dressing somewhat to the detriment of the super fresh lobster.

As I took my lobster roll in hand and shoved it into my mouth like a hot dog, I became aware of the fact that I was the only one using my hands. Everyone else was daintily and preciously cutting up their roll with silverware. The delightful custom designed wet-naps sit on the table unused--a curious decoration.

If neither price (a lobster roll, which is the only dish on the menu, runs 26€ with fries and salad) nor authenticity were considerations, it wasn’t terrible. Truly. I had a nice meal. The flavors were strong and simple. The food arrived quickly. The mustard dressing had real zing and spiciness on the greens. The brownie we finished with was excellent--deep, dark with a rich cocoa flavor and served warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

But Lobster Bar is serving nothing that compares to the lobster roll of my youth, or to the rolls that Mercier encountered along the Maine seacoast as a teen. I can’t recommend the place for anyone with knowledge of what an actual East Coast lobster roll can taste like. There’s something about consuming it in such a chic environment that takes away from the beauty of the lobster roll, which at its best is simply a crisp, warm buttery roll filled with cool, sweet salad, held in hand and shoved in face. I can, however, recommend it for the fashion set who might like to see and be seen in a beautiful space without consuming much.

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For practical information, including the address and hours, plus links to other trusted reviews, see the page on Lobster Bar in Our Guide to Paris Restaurants.

Originally published on Paris by Mouth

Paris by Mouth: Eating Oysters in Paris

In a half shell, here's everything you need to know about buying, ordering, and eating oysters in Paris

Oyster Season:

Oysters are in season (i.e. available and excellent) during any month that has an R in it (September-April), but you're not likely to see the best on menus until October. Oysters naturally spawn in April and will spend the summer fattening up their plump little selves, plus you're less likely to have bacterial issues with oysters in the chilly winter months. They feature  prominently in celebrations for Christmas and New Year's - roughly half of all oysters eaten in France will be slurped up between these two holidays.

Read more on Paris By Mouth

Paris by Mouth: What to Expect When You're Cupping

Cupping is an intimate act.

Sniffing, slurping, then spitting one’s coffee in a room full of strangers is an easy way to look crazy, unless one is standing at the tasting table at Belleville Brûlerie. Then it is not only acceptable, but encouraged as part of the cupping process.

The table plays a key role. Cupping, the process coffee professionals use to evaluate the quality of coffee beans and analyze flavors and aromas, requires a lot of glasses and therefore, a lot of space.

The slim mustachioed men behind Belleville Brûlerie, David Flynn (formerly co-owner ofTélescope), Thomas Lehoux (Ten Belles) and Anselme Blayney (Ten Belles and Le Bal Café), commissioned their handmade table in Serbia specifically for this purpose. Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, they open up their bare bones production space for cupping sessions with baristas from the various cafés they supply, including (but not limited to) Kooka Boora Café, Holybelly, Le Bal Café, Ten Belles, Fragments, and Fondation Café. Starting November 16th, on Saturdays, they’re cupping with the public, too.

Imagine a wine tasting. Then imagine a wine tasting on crack. Or rather, caffeine. That’s cupping. But unlike a wine tasting, where the product is ready for consumption and merely needs to be poured into a glass, coffee tasting requires preparation and scientific attention to detail. The beans are thus freshly ground and brewed with scientific precision in front of your eyes in a lengthy but rewarding process. One that requires a lot of cups.

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Paris by Mouth: Percolating in Paris

For a long time, the prevailing opinion of visitors to the French capital has been that the coffee in Paris is terrible. Well, it may be time to revise this long-running truism to “coffee in Paris was terrible.”

This Fall has seen a veritable avalanche of openings (Holybelly, Belleville Brûlerie, Fragments, Fondation, Coutume Lab) that have enriched the city’s specialty coffee scene with brews that are crafted by trained baristas using freshly roasted high-quality beans. And the local offer promises to get even better with upcoming launches of Lockwood and Rêves des Abyssines. So why are our cups of good coffee now running over like never before?

While researching this story over the past couple of months, I found myself sipping cup after filtered cup of Belleville Brûlerie coffee in shops with minimalist decor and nibbling anglicized baked goods (typically from Emperor Norton, one of the best purveyors in town). So the curious thought began to percolate in my head that the more the Paris coffee scene has changed, the more it’s stayed the same. When asked what made their shops unique, the constant refrain from owners and staff was high-quality filtered coffee, locally roasted Belleville beans (usually paired with a few other well-respected international roasters) and great cookies and/or pound cake. A notable exception was Nico Alary of Holybelly who passionately expounded about the virtues of the osmosis filter he keeps in the basement to purify his water, which makes sense in view of the fact that espresso is 95% water. But is it possible that in their effort to create a seriously good scene, Paris’ new coffee masters have ended up creating one that’s just as homogenized as the milk they use in their specialty coffees?

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