dine•o•crat

It was another cold and gray February day in Paris. Scarves were out and my dining companions and I were wrapped up like babies in a manger. However, to make up for the gloom, we were on our way to a three-star Michelin restaurant. A block away from the Musée Rodin, in the quaint yet posh 7th arrondissement of Paris , L'Arpège blends in with its surroundings, in an almost nondescript building if not for the restaurant's sign, to which you would have to look up to see. It's not exactly hard to find if you're on foot, but I can imagine that if you were driving, you might miss it. The neighborhood looks very uniformly shabby but chic, with the occasional visual shock of brightly colored doors. Inside the restaurant itself, the decor is minimal and understated, with warm wood walls to emphasize an inviting and refined dining area which was simple and quietly elegant and which gave a white-tablecloth impression sans the stuffiness. I understood the location and decor m...

Jean-François Piège was one of the most difficult reservations to get for the Paris trip. You must call ahead exactly two weeks before your desired date. Dinners are almost instantly filled up. Fortunately, they have lunch, which was fine by me. I wanna be in bed by 10 p.m. (22h to the French)!  Piège, together with Les Bouquinistes, probably has the chicest clientele that I saw in our food adventure. The lunch crowd was definitely more casually dressed but Lanvin/Prada casual. Anyway, the Top Chef France judge is quite a presence in the country at the moment. How hardworking is he, though, that he was also present in the kitchen for our lunch? Overall, a virtuoso meal from the Michelin-starred restaurant: technically proficient without sacrificing taste. Go! If you're there, get his book " Best of Jean-François Piège ," which the restaurant sells near coat-check. Beautiful pictures, Piège recipes, hardcover--at €10, it was the true bargain of the ...

Here's a short video I made of some of the Paris dining highlights, with some scenes of the city thrown in (for context and atmosphere). I've already posted pictures from Agapé Substance and Akrame , while those from others will be up on the blog soon.

My dining companions and I had a fine dinner at rising star Akrame Benallal's eponymous restaurant, which had just received its first Michelin star the day before. The three of us were seated in the six-person communal table together with two other people, but the table was large enough that we were sufficently far from our neighbors and didn't bother us at all. Like  Agapé Substance , it's an intimate place with probably no more than 30 seats. Service was all accomplished by one waiter and a sommelier, so expect to linger a bit. There was no rush to get us out. In fact, by the end of the night, the staff had gathered around one of the tables, including Akrame himself, while one kept refilling our water glasses. (Maybe, though, that was a hint for us to leave. Oh, clueless Dineocrat!) The dinner was precise and meticulous, with surprising twists and an occasionally genius dish (oyster, cockles, duck heart in squid ink). David, the sommelier didn't quite know what...