Emily in France 🇫🇷 How to Pick a Restaurant
Is a good restaurant in the eyes of the beholder?
It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one who reads this newsletter (or, basically, anything I write) to learn that I spend a lot of time thinking about restaurants... one side effect of which is that I frequently find myself fielding the question:
"Where should we eat in Paris?"
But in a city rife with such a variety of restaurants, the answer isn't always easy... much to my chagrin.
Nine times out of ten, I point people to my ever-evolving list of my favorite restaurants in Paris, or to Meg Zimbeck's selection over at Paris by Mouth, which I've been trusting for recs since long before I could afford to dine at many of those spots. But something about a list irks some people, who want a more tailored approach. And so I ask a series of questions I hope will help me home in on the answer: What sort of food would you like? What's your price point? What neighborhood?
Only to often be met with another question in response:
"Well, where do you go?"
Usually I hem and haw, but, dear readers, I've finally decided to be honest.
I go to a little alimentation near the American Library, which oddly makes perhaps my favorite banh mi in the city. I go to Martin, though more often than not to drink rather than to eat. (I go to El Guacamole when I'm very hungover and Los Gueros when I'm slightly less hungover.)
I go to Dong Huong for pho and Ipuddo for ramen. (For Indian food, I go to London.) I go to Plan D when the weather is nice, because I love their sandwiches but I don't love sitting inside, and I go to Ten Belles and order lunch as a procession of items to fuel me all afternoon – a salad, a half-sandwich, a morning bun in the middle of the afternoon – because I do love sitting inside.
I go to Le Saint-Sébastien a fair amount, because I can sit at the counter, and because I love the people who run it, and because it's criminal how well Chris Edwards messes with French classics like steak tartare and charcuterie just enough to make them wholly fresh and new.
I go to a lot of new places, many of which are not worth writing about, and many of which really, really are.
(Then again, when I'm not eating professionally, nine times out of ten, I'm eating a salad of leftover roast vegetables with some sort of extremely chile-spiked tahini situation, standing at the kitchen counter while watching Try Guys. So... am I really the person you want to be asking?)
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Cheese of the Week
Of the over 1,000 French cheeses out there, not all have their own name, which is why you see the word tomme bandied about quite a bit: The term simply refers to a pressed cheese without another moniker. Tomme is often appended by a milk type – brebis (sheep) or chèvre (goat). (If there is no milk type given, you can safely assume it's cow.) Tomme au foin is usually made in Picardie, though there are some producers in Savoie. It sees the pressed cheese lightly washed and aged in hay (foin, in French) which provides more moisture and a lovely grassy aroma.
Picodon is a pocket-sized goat cheese from southern France. Its name is a reference to its piquant character, but many iterations are surprisingly mellow and not at all sharp.
To discover more of my favorite cheeses, be sure to follow me on Instagram @emily_in_france, subscribe to my YouTube channel, and tune into the Terroir Podcast, where Caroline Conner and I delve into France's cheese, wine, and more one region at a time.
What I'm Eating
Le Maquis offers the ideal prix fixe for unpicky eaters: a copious no-choice menu that's frankly a steal at 55 euro. So do as I did and grab your favorite adventurous omnivores before high-tailing it to this hidden bistro in Montmartre and dig right in. More on the blog.
Discover more of my foodie finds via Instagram @emily_in_france and on the blog.
Where I'm Going
1. Back to the Louvre for the first time since the pandemic. (And for the first time since they began limiting the daily influx of visitors.)
2. To le Garde-Robe – the very first natural wine bar I ever visited – for wine and planches afterwards.
3. To Paris Wine Expo, for many things, but perhaps chiefly to hear what is sure to be a scintillating talk on B Corp certification.
What I'm Writing
1. I interviewed the last mustard maker in all of Dijon for Atlas Obscura.
2. One Miami chef shares what it was really like to work at Noma. For InsideHook.
3. Chef John Shields says his steak Diane is “rich, indulgent and deeply satisfying with every bite.” And I've got the recipe. For InsideHook.
What I'm Saying
Nature can mean natural, or one's nature, or even "plain," but when it comes to wine, it means way more. Here to explore the ins and outs of natural wine, including its reception among older French people and why it's never marketed as a healthier option in France is Aaron Ayscough, author of "The World of Natural Wine."
What I'm Reading
1. Everyone loves a clickbaity title about French work ethic, but Lauren Collins gets to the heart of a lawsuit where a Frenchman was after legal recognition of his “right not to be fun,” and as a fellow un-fun person, I am ever-more convinced I live in the right place. In the New Yorker.
2. Do you know which cheeses you're allowed to transport back to the States? Janet Fletcher does.
3. The evolution of words is ceaselessly fascinating to me, so it's one of the reasons I so loved this story on the benefits of a good bookstore, which offers, among other things, a line tracing the roots of the word browsing in agriculture to its current reference to reading, which surfaced in the 19th century. In the New Yorker.
A bientôt !