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Septime, Paris

It's been said that the long, full-course French lunch is disappearing. For various reasons—among others, health and economic—the French need to eat shorter, hence smaller, lunches. Septime, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, is still a place for long lunches in a decidedly more casual environment. (The picture of three young women across the street having their lunch on a bench, however, is an apt juxtaposition that represents France's changing lunch economics.)

Entering Septime is like walking into a San Francisco or New York hipster restaurant. The waiters all wear white shirts, jeans, sneakers and aprons. The atmosphere is very relaxed and the focus is on the food. The pedigreed chef, Bertrand Grébaut of L'Arpège and L'Agapé, offers in his less formal restaurant a tantalizing and welcoming spareness both in the decor and the food. I sensed that the preparations had this philosophy behind them: the techniques and presentations are mere backdrops for, not the focus of, the mosaic of excellent ingredients. Septime offers a simplicity born out of rigorous and confident training. Ingrained in this and most of the other talked-about restaurants is the art of presentation; many of the dishes we ordered looked like colorful canvases, the sauces impressionistic brushtrokes, the ingredients textured objects that made the plates pop. They're abstract collages with edible ingredients. (Look at the presentations at Agapé Substance and L'Arpège, for example.)

Left to right: a fun-looking, Little Prince–like illustration on the cover of the Champagne cork; bar area; bottled water.
The menu and wine list. Even the well-chosen font, reminiscent of old typewriters, speaks to the readers of the spare and the unadorned.
Below: another view of the bar area. See that sign for saucisson Basque? Order that sausage if you've never had it. It's an incredible experience.
Left: Squid. Right: mulet de St. Jean, carotte, mandarine (mullet, carrots, mandarin salad).
Below: velouté de potimarron, Boudin basque, oeuf fumé (pumpkin velouté, Basque sausage, smoked egg). The color of the pumpkin soup was almost unreal, but even more unbelievable was the star of the dish, Boudin basque. Almost as dark as a morcilla, this blood and pig's head sausage had deep, savory flavors and an ever-so-slightly gelatinous texture that went rioting in my mouth.
Left: Canard, botterare, blette (duck with some exotic-looking chards and an ingredient I can't identify). I found this canard to be better than that served at L'Arpège. The color and cooking was ideal, and there was no mismatched sauce. On the right: Lieu jaune, racines, oignon-citron (pollock, roots, onion-citrus foam)
Left: various agrumes or citrus fruits in different preparations (sorbet, raw, curd). Right: Fromage affiné.
Bertrand Grébaut himself (bearded) in the open kitchen in the back corner of the restaurant.
Lunch is a busy time and no wonder: an "entrée, plat, dessert" (appetizer, entrée and dessert) is 26€ (before wine and beverages), an unbelievable deal for such superb ingredients. A five-course lunch, should you find the time for an even longer French lunch, is 55€. But it's also busy because, more than anything, Septime is about subtlety, about letting the produce speak for itself, about combining food in playful and surprising ways, all of which remind me of quite successful Berkeley/Bay Area dining philosophies, but with a French accent.

Septime‎
80 Rue de Charonne
75011 Paris, France
01 43 67 38 29
septime-charonne.fr‎


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Location: 80 Rue de Charonne, 75011 Paris, France

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