Brasserie Balzar, Paris

Food is changing everywhere all the time. That’s life, and that’s a good thing, in the main. You’re as likely to find Scandinavian inspired haute cuisine in Paris now as a soufflé, so it takes a little research to find somewhere that does the old school classics and does them well.

Brasserie Balzar, Paris

When in Paris, and especially when in Paris in January. I want French Onion Soup. I need French Onion Soup. I need it’s comforting rich beefy stock and sweet sleepy slippery onions beneath their heavy cheese blanket. I need to pierce that cheese and bread with my spoon and drag some soup out, savouring every gentle spoonful before diving back in.

Brasserie Balzar, Paris

It helps if I can then follow this with a fresh rich steak tartare, sharp with mustard and capers, and creamy with egg. Spreading it on toast, all the while not really wanting to talk but to watch everything going on. Watching the waiters, the other tables, sipping some wine, soaking it all in. Enjoying Paris, enjoying the characters, the families eating Sunday lunch, the solo diners, not many tourists but a few, although I expect they are academics from the Sorbonne next door. I continue, eating more tartare, sipping more wine, and loving Paris and my little January escape.

Brasserie Balzar, Paris

Brasserie Balzar, next to the Sorbonne, is a Paris institution since 1898. Previously home to Sartre & Camus and their argumentative lunches, it is now more likely to house lunchers from the Sorbonne, and in season tourists, but don’t let this put you off, it is well worth a visit.

I need to get back there soon.

Brassierie Balzar

www.brasseriebalzar.com
49 Rue des Ecoles
75005 Paris, France
01 43 54 13 67 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            01 43 54 13 67      end_of_the_skype_highlighting
Nearest metro: Cluny – La Sorbonne

(Ps – apologies re slightly blurry photos, I was more focussed on my food than my camera, which is how it should be :)

Les Papilles, Paris

When I travel, one of my first pit stops is twitter, where I ask the hivemind for recommendations. Results are mainly successful, sometimes bizarre, but always a brilliant starting point when travelling and wanting to eat well. Particularly when you want to eat as locals do and off the tourist track.

When I recently asked for recommendations for Paris, two people I really rate resounded “You have to go to Les Papilles”, so I took that as an order and I did.

Les Papilles is part epicerie, part wine shop, mainly restaurant. It is wooden and warm with a big round table in a bay window / alcove at the back and all other tables seemingly proceeding towards it, lining a long counter and shelves of wine with occasional food bits lining the walls.  There is also a downstairs area with a huge table, and lots more wine.

The menu is fixed, you have it or you don’t, although a vegetarian friend in Paris has told me that they can prepare a vegetarian menu if informed in advance.

I love the confidence of a fixed menu. There is little worse than a menu that reads like a bible, and a haphazard one. I like that I can walk in and say, I will have what you’re serving, and can I have this wine please? Especially when choosing the wine involves cruising the wine shelves and plonking it on your table for the waiter to open. Speaking of which, prepare yourself for the occasional visit to your table if you are sitting next to the wine.

We went for lunch – we were too late to get a dinner reservation – and were presented with a blackboard with the menu written on. The food was hearty, precise, full of flavour and very French. The soup and main course were served family style to share at €33 per person. The portions were very generous and the food beautifully executed. I would hop on the eurostar solely to go back.

Les Papilles, Paris

Les Papilles, Paris

Set Lunch Menu at Les Papilles

terrific leek & potato soup

Large tureen of soup served to share

Large copper pot of overnight cooked ox cheek stew to share - delicious

Tender, hearty & delicious beef cheeks in red wine with carrots, potatoes & thyme

Forme d'Aubert with date in a red wine reduction - divine

Terrible photo of a delicious dessert - apples, panacotta and caramel foam (which has made me rethink my moratorium on foams!)

Les Papilles,
30 Rue Gay-Lussac  75005 Paris, France
01 43 25 20 79

http://www.lespapillesparis.fr/EN_index.html

Nearest metro: Luxembourg