Abri Soba, Paris 10eme

I recently received this question from a reader named Brian:

“Our son and his girlfriend will be in Paris for 3 nights this spring. They both enjoy great, shareable meals at memorable restaurants with good cocktails, and breakfast places with great coffee. Any recommendations for a couple in their 20’s?”

First off, thanks for this question and for following my blog, Brian.  Glad to hear that you still enjoy Le Pichet. If anyone else has questions I can answer, please feel free to leave them as a comment on one of my posts, I will get back to you as soon as practical.

What in the world do people in their 20’s want these days?  That is a question that strays into thoughts about mortality and aging in this world.  Deep sigh…  Food, cooking and dining are all so wrapped up in trend and fashion that recommending a restaurant to a 20 year old is sort of like talking about music that I loved in my youth to a nephew or niece.  They just give you a slightly sad look. I eat out in Paris as often I can and try to keep up on restaurant news and reviews. But, at the risk of sounding old, many of the rave reviews I have read recently concern restaurants that I find completely unappealing.  Such is life.
At the same time, making restaurant recommendations is always tricky, as what a person enjoys in a dining experience is so, well, personal.  Everyone has different expectations.  However, since you asked, I will do my best to hazard a few suggestions.

Source:  A good place to start would be the French TV show called “Très Très Bon”, which is all about what’s new in the Paris culinary scene.  It features not only restaurants but street food, coffee roasters, micro breweries and distilleries, wine bars, cocktail bars, caves, boulangeries and patisseries, pretty much anything that involves eating and drinking. The attitude leans decidedly young but even I find  many of  the places featured interesting. We watch on a channel called Paris Premier but it has a very good website, with a food map, clips from the show and even an app.

Arrondissement:  In recent visits to Paris, I have really enjoyed spending time in the 10th arrondissement, which has an energy that reminds me of Belleville 20 years ago. Formerly avoided as that kinda ugly area that surrounds most train stations (the 10th is home to both the Gare de Nord and the Gare de l’est), the 10th is now loaded with bars, cafes, restaurants, organic stores, wine bars, coffee roasters, street food places, it even is home to le Passage Brady, a kind of mini Indian district.  It still feels a bit scruffy, which helps to keep out the chain stores that are the surest sign of gentrification.

Abri Soba:  One of the restaurants we really enjoyed in the 10th, this tiny place is run by a chef who’s first restaurant had one Michelin star. He closed that place to focus on more traditional Japanese food, notably handmade soba noodles.  But there is also an interesting selection of izikaya-style dishes and sashimi.  No reservations, arrive 10 minutes before opening or figure at least a 30 minute wait.

Try a bouillon: I think that it is fair to say that one of the most recognizable trends in Paris dining in the last 5 years is the revival of the Bouillon,  working class restaurants, many of which date fromthe early 1900s, and are sort of a cross between a brasserie and a cafeteria.  The combo of well prepared traditional food served without fuss and prices that are borderline philanthropic, have been rediscovered by euro-conscious Parisians who still want to dine well. Think œufs mayo, leeks vinaigrette, veal blanquette, gratin of macaroni…almost like eating in a  museum of French culinary arts! My favorite bouillon is Bouillon Racines, but to be fair, it is significantly more expensive than the classics of the genre like Bouillon Chartier or newcomers like Bouillon Pigalle. Warning, many traditional bouillons dont take reservations, and, once you make it to the front of the queue, you are often sat at a table with other guests. But then, that is part of the fun.

Classy cocktails: I am not a cocktail person, so I dont have a favorite cocktail bar in Paris. However, almost every high end restaurant in Paris (and many that are less high end)  now  has a fairly well developed cocktail program. And since formal dining is an essential part of the Paris culinary experience, why not blow the budget  at least once?  One of my favorite splurges is Restaurant Prunier.  The room is an art deco dream classified historical landmark, the chef is one of the icons of modern French culinary arts, the food is impeccably prepared and seafood focused and, as high end Paris dining goes, it is not insanely expensive.  Get dressed up and dine like an aristo!

Coffee and breakfast:  Coffee is not one of the things that the French do extremely well. In fact, most of the French people I know will say that there is better coffee in Italy than in France. I had the best coffee I have ever tasted in Vienna.  That having been said, boutique coffee roasters are an up and coming thing is Paris.  Check out “Tres Tres Bon” above for recommendations. As to a breakfast with good coffee, I can recommend  l’Atelier des Sœurs on the lovely little place Franz Lizst in the 10th.  Or, try L’Endoit in the Batignolles neighborhood in the 17th. I love their soft boiled eggs with toast soldiers. However, I am not sure that I would make a trip to try either of these places, as there are likely good options close to where you are staying. Ask someone at your hotel what their favorite place is for breakfast. Or, if not in a hotel, ask the bartender at a bar near where you are staying. A good friend says that bartenders and hairdressers always know the best places.

Preparations are underway for les Fêtes d’Orthez, which start this Thursday and run through Sunday.  At La Maison de l’Horloge, a restaurant we appreciate for its dignified ambiance and accomplished food, looks like they are getting in 30 kegs of beer, 9 cases of Get27 (a mint flavored liquor) and 6 cases of Clan Campbell whiskey! So what the heck are the Fêtes of Orthez and why do they require so much booze?

In theory, many French cities have an annual Fête to mark it’s saint’s day.  If the Fêtes in Orthez  are connected with a saint, I have yet to learn which one.  Here, the party is vaguely centered around La Corrida, or bull fighting in the Spanish style, a tradition that has a long history in southwestern France. Over time, bull fighting has become more controversial in France (efforts to have it banned a few years ago barely failed) and, as a result, its role in the Fêtes has diminished. One day of the Fêtes is still dedicated to the Corrida and all the ceremony, eating and drinking that surrounds it. Not my cup of tea, so we give that a pass.

These days, the Fêtes of Orthez have become a four day excuse for everyone to cut loose and go a bit bananas.  There is a carnival, with rides, booths, games of chance, hawkers and food stalls; it snakes all the way through town.  There are several music stages, music in bars and restaurants and wandering groups of musicians. The most popular are les Bandas, sort of drum and brass orchestras who go from bar to bar playing traditional music of the southwest in exchange for drinks.

Most of the bars and restaurants block their entryways with temporary wooden bars and sell wine, beer, cocktails and snacks to the passing crowds.  On the weekends, bars stay open until 4am! Many local charitable associations set up “bodegas” sort of open air restaurants serving traditional dishes and tapas. Each bodega features a different dish:  huge beef rib steaks cooked on the plancha;  squids or prawn grilled with garlic and parsley; all sorts of pork from charcuterie to grilled chops and much more. There are even bodegas featuring burgers (thanks, USA).

During the day, there are family friendly events throughout town.  There is a featured concert each evening at 10pm on the main stage in front of the church of Saint-Pierre and a late night concert on the “Insomnia” stage near the Place de Foirail.  Without a doubt, it is the biggest event on the Orthezian social calendar.

So back to those 9 cases of Get27…what in the world are they going to do with all that mint sirop?  Well, one of the most popular festival drinks is beer with flavored sirop added.  Beer with peach sirop is a “pêche”. Beer and grenadine is a “Monaco”.  Beer with mint sirop, a very popular choice, I have heard called “une valse” but here, most just order a “demi-menthe”.  There’s a bad hangover going somewhere to happen!

The mountain valleys of the French Pyrenees  are a paradise for hikers.  There are routes for just about every level of hiking expertise that offer splendid views of the mountains, and often interaction with the wandering herds of cows and sheep that pass the summer in the high pastures.  The Vallée d’Ossau, just south of Pau, follows the river Ossau (a river is called a “gave” in the local dialect) as it tumbles down from its source in the high mountain lakes near the border with Spain and eventually joins with the gave d’Oléron.  If you feel like the name is familiar, it may be because the region is famous for Ossau Iraty, a sheep’s milk cheese that we often featured on our cheese board at Le Pichet and  Café Presse.

We spent 3 days hiking in the Vallée d’Ossau last week and  were lucky enough to have excellent weather: warm but not hot, cloudy but never cloudy enough to interfere with a nice view. The highlight was a hike up to the col de Peyrelue, a mountain pass into Spain at the crest of the Pyrenees.  The pass itself is a wide prairie with a few small lakes and a stunning view onto the Spanish sierras. Our path up skirted the pic du Midi d’Ossau, one of the most distinctive peaks in the Pyrenees Atlantique.  Wow!

When we got to pass, we were greeted by a herd of about 40 Béarnais cows lounging in the tall grass and wildflowers.  The bull seemed very lethargic despite his ferocious looking horns,  the lyre-shaped spread typical of the Béarnais breed.  He left us to the view.

A beautiful fall day in the lovely little village of Sare.  Located in the heart of the French Basque Countries, perched on a hill overlooking rolling green countryside and facing the Pyrenees, Sare is considered on the of most beautiful and most typical of Basque villages.  On a crisp day in November, the town is nearly empty of tourists, who flock there in the summer.

Following our dream of an extended stay in France has been a long, long road, but finally we are so close that we can feel it!  Since the sale of Le Pichet in September of 2022, my time has been filled with getting us ready to move to our house in Orthez.  You can imagine the nearly endless list of stuff to take care of:  Visas, banking, transportation, packing, shipping, it goes on and on.  We have literally had a 5-page To-Do list posted on the living room wall for the last 4 months!  Every time a page was completed, a new one was added.

I think back fondly to our first move to France, in 1990, when we left Seattle for Paris so that I could attend culinary school. At that time, I was young and strong like a donkey, we packed all we could carry, got rid of the rest, and headed for Paris on a TWA flight with no real idea what lay ahead.  This was pre-internet, so the tiny apartment where we would live had been rented sight unseen. It all seemed so fun and exciting and free of worries and doubts.  What’s to worry about?

Obviously, 30 plus years later, the planning process was much much more involved.  But all that was wrapping up by the end of January.  By the first of February, the last list was all alone on the wall and most the items were crossed off.  As our flight date of February 12th approached, the main task remaining was to prepare our First Hill condo for sale.  This was a bit of a tricky dance, as much of the deep cleaning, painting and floor refinishing could only happen after everything was out, but lets face it, we still had to have a bed to sleep in and a couple pans to cook with.  In the end, we arranged to spend our last couple nights in Seattle at a downtown hotel (thanks Bryan!) so that we could clear out the last few remaining items.

Here is what our condo looked like on our last night!

Of the long list of things to accomplish before we can move to France, getting approved for  a Long-Stay Visa is one of the most important.  We took the first step in that process earlier this month when we made an appointment with the French Visa office in San Francisco. We had already filled out the preliminary forms on-line but the next step is an in-person meeting at the nearest office.  Here we go!

The process of getting my Student Visa in 1990 taught me a couple things about dealing with French bureaucracy.  First, be patient, don’t get upset and keep an upbeat attitude. Second, remember 1) when your application goes way off track and you feel like going over the counter at some annoying clerk.

I remember arriving in Paris in August 1990 with my temporary visa in hand and excited to start cooking classes at Ferrandi.  As instructed by the French Consulate in Seattle, during my first week in Paris, I headed to an address out past the last metro stop at La Chapelle where I was to request and receive my Carte de Sejour, the official document that gives students the right to live in France.   The interior of the building was what I imagine a first view of Ellis Island must have been like in the 1880’s, a vast hall with row after row of benches filled with visa seekers from every part the the world. There must have been 500 people in front of me in line!  Fortunately, after waiting for 20 minutes in line, I discovered that there was a special window for student visas, where only about 20 people were waiting.  Long story short, when I got to the front, the list of documents demanded by the woman working was completely different than the list I have been given to bring.  I trooped off to seek the new list of documents, only to return a week later and be told by a different clerk that I needed still different documents.  I finally asked the name of this person so when I came back with the list they had requested, I could speak to them directly and not risk someone else’s list.  Whew!  Then I still had to travel across town for a medical exam, but that is a whole other story!

With high hopes of a Much Simpler process this time, full of optimism but also prudence, we headed to San Francisco.

We arrived 15 minutes early for our Visa Application Appointment, which was in a lovely neo-Gothic building located at 110 Sutter Street.  The staff was friendly, but no nonsense;  it was clear that, if you didn’t have all the documents requested, things would turn much less friendly quickly.  I have to say, as a technology skeptic, I love the old school way that French bureaucracy works…there is an obsession with having hard copies of everything and one could believe that the process hasn’t changed that much in the last 200 years.   The clerk filled out longhand a number of forms that described why we were requesting a visa then gathered all our accompanying documents.  She then pulled out a brand new dossier folder (you know the kind with the fold-over flap that is secured with an elastic band) to it all.  The final file, which would be sent to the French Consulate in Washington DC, must have weighed four pounds. She finished by putting a sticky label on the front and filling it out by hand with a felt tip marker.  I can only imagine that there must be a French government warehouse somewhere filled with row after row of shelves holding the millions of such dossiers representing every person who has ever applied for a French visa.

The final step is fingerprinting and having photos taken.  Our dossiers were complete.  Now we wait and see if we get our Visas.  The official line is that we should have our visas in 15 business days, but the person who filed our application warned us that not much gets done during the holidays, so we should be prepared to wait longer. Very French.

I like this photo from a hike we took in December 2017 for two reasons;  firstly because it shows the halfway point (almost) on the Chemin de Saint-Jacques between Vézelay in Burgundy and Santiago de Compostella in Spain. Secondarily because it gives the false impression that we actually hiked that entire way.

The spot, just outside Sauveterre de Béarn, is marked by a pretty little chapel dedicated to St.-Martin

A rainy Sunday in Orthez with plenty of time to prepare and enjoy a leisurely diner de dimanche.  Sunday dinner in France, especially in the countryside, is a late lunch that serves as the main meal of the day.   The PM meal will usually be something simple, like soup and salad or an omelette.

Although fish is not traditional for Sunday dinner  (un rôti would be more common, roasted chicken, for example or a roast rack of pork), I make it a rule to follow my instincts when shopping…when I find an ingredient that grabs me, the menu de jour has to follow along.

The finished main course:  Pan-roasted monk fish tail, artichokes, peppers and spring onions sauteed with white wine, and brown rice.

If you have any hesitation in answering the above question with a resounding “YES!”, please check out this article by Paris based food writer Alexander Lobrano.   Alex brings the old time religion, seriously thumping the bible of French culinary excellence.

And I couldn’t agree with him more.