dine•o•crat

My first impression of the restaurant  Les Tablettes de Jean-Louis Nomicos‎  was mixed. One the one hand, the place oozed with cool, its basketweave interior an absolutely stunning marvel of modern precision interlaced with hand-craftsmanship. On the other hand, there was a dog at the table next to us. Granted, it was a small dog, quiet and adorable, a companion to the old madam  whose two younger female dining partners looked like they could be the second and third branches of the family tree. Parisian ladies who lunch? The Chanel jackets told as much. My imagination ran wild: in my mind, the two younger women were trying to save their inheritance because somehow, the old lady got involved with a much younger lothario, an opportunistic gigolo who was about to get half of her millions or billions of euros in assets. But les femmes did it all with such warmth and conviviality, all smiles and bonheur . It was even putting the dog to sleep. Welcome to Paris....

Voilà , pictures of the 7th arrondissement where the restaurant L'Arpège is located. The buildings all look quaintly old, as if by design. Something about the place is ancient yet modern, the arrondissement of Musée Rodin,  Musée d'Orsay and Les Invalides, a quartier close to major tourist spots, including the Eiffel Tower. 3€50 a kilo for tomatoes? Probably reasonably cheap for a place like this. Around the neighborhood, which hums along trying to be oblivious of the touristic throngs around it, the quotidian life is quiet, though like any other big city neighborhood, parking is infernally impossible to find. In fact, my friends and I arrived at L'Arpège a few minutes early and, while waiting outside, saw a car towed very quickly and efficiently. It was a marvel of of technology and elbow grease. Appropriately enough, Rodin's The Gates of Hell is here. The almost uniform paleness (beige-gray) of the neighborhood is sometimes broken up by large, ornate doors pa...