What’s new in Paris?
Ninety-nine per cent of people who call or email me about restaurants have one of three questions.
1. I need a nice place for two evenings, simple but good food, near my hotel that’s in/near ……
2. Can you send me your current top-ten list – which only later they tell you ½ of were “too far away” – translation 20 minutes on the Metro.
3. Price is no object, what’s the best place now in Paris?
While I always can come up with #2, usually can do a reasonable job on #1 but am lost as to #3, because it’s simply not my beat. But few folk pitch to my strength: what’s new.
So I’ve concluded there are only a few nuts like me who would rather take a chance on a place that usually is mediocre, sometimes awful and rarely spectacular as opposed to a sure thing that one knows inside and out: vide a brasserie, fish bistro or favorite with tourists. Those are the places people refer to as “we’ve been going for 20 years and have never been disappointed;” P.S., when I go on their recommendation I never have a great meal.
So this is written for a select and probably deranged group that does want to stretch a bit, try something new and even take the RER or Metro out a bit to say, Issy-les-Moulineaux, Levallois-Perret or Boulogne-Billancourt.
John’s Rules for finding out “What’s New:”
1. Read “C’est nouveau” (trans What’s new?) in Figaroscope each week on line at http://www.figaroscope.fr/restaurants/c_est_nouveau.html
2. Read l’Actualité (News) in les Restos.Com on line at http://www.lesrestos.com/news.htm
3. Read “Quoi de neuf” (trans “Whassssup”) in Eat in Paris at http://www.eatinparis.com/EatinParis.woa/restaurant/fr/quoi_de_neuf
4. Read the “Digest: 200x Paris Restaurant Reviews” and “Restaurant, Food and Chef News” in the eGullet Society of Culinary Arts and Letter France Forum http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showforum=10.
5. Read the blogs written by everyone from the big newspaper boys ([Francois] Simon Says and Les Gourmandises de Philippe [Toinard]) to the book stars (Sophie Brissaud and Clotilde Dusoulier who respectively write Chez Ptipois and Chocolate and Zucchini).
6. Keep your ears and eyes open – I just saw a new place spring up on my running-walking-limping route without advanced notice.
These thoughts were prompted way out in Boulogne-Billancourt at:
Ducoté Cuisine
112, ave Victor Hugo in Boulogne-Billancourt (Metro: Sembat)
T: 01.48.25.49.20
Closed Sundays and Mondays
80 € a la carte, 2-course lunch formula 35, 3-course lunch menu 43 €
©by John Talbott 2008
