Le Verre Volé

Text: Nick Forrester 

Le Verre Volé, on Rue de Lancry, has a rustic French charm, with relatively simple, but excellent quality food and a vast array of wine. This tiny restaurant doubles as a wine shop - and while you’re eating there is a steady flow of customers coming for take-away wine, selected from the stacks of empty bottles decorating the walls, priced in white Tippex.

The Jambonneau Pané Cuit 60 heurs, is a leg of ham slow cooked for 60 hours and taken of the bone, by which time it’s tender enough to eat with only a fork and nicely accompanied with mashed potato and salad. As I learned over dinner, Jambonneau is also is slang in French for ‘thunder-thighs’, but hopefully not as result of eating this hearty dish.

The ham, along with the Assiette de Fromages and the Saucisse de Toulouse, are staple main courses on the menu. On the plat du jour menu there are often fish dishes, such as the St. Pierre with a purée de pois cases (John Dory and smashed pea puree) or the Queue de Lotte (Monkfish). Each is perfectly cooked and neatly presented.

As well as a seemingly no-nonsense attitude to cooking they have a seemingly expert touch for choosing wine, and from my humble position as wine amateur, I was well aware of this. They charge an additional € 7 on the take-away price for corkage sur place, which essentially makes it better value the pricier wine you go for. 

As far as rouge goes, there is an excellent French Syrah, which is apparently very popular. I also tried some highly recommended Burgundy wines, like the Gevrey-Chambertin and the Arbois Pupillin, from the Jura region of Burgundy, which is delicious. 

When it comes to whites, I’ve even less idea, but there was a Massa Vecchia knocking around for about   € 30, which was forcefully recommended by the house, but rejected. There is a walk-in fridge housing their white wines and champagnes, which is itself quarter the size of the whole restaurant. This gives you an idea of where their priorities lie. There is an impressive variety and quality of wines on offer, from about € 12 upwards, including corkage. 

Bear in mind that if you want to sit-in you need to eat which is where the cheese plates, multifarious starters and terrines etc come in to play (the Terrine d'agneau aux figues et baitia, was especially good).

On a slightly tighter budget, the staff recommend a bottle of Vin d'Oellade, from somewhere near Montpellier, to take away for € 7.50. If you are picnicking by the canal, then Le Verre Volé offers an array wine options, expertly selected and stored, from € 3.50 upwards. 

So, particularly if you’re someone who buys wine judged on how posh the label is, then why not stop off at the Verre Volé rather than the Canal Franprix, which is still trying to get rid of crates of last years Beaujolais Nouveau.

Le Verre Volé

67 Rue de Lancry,

75010.

There is a partner restaurant of the same name 38 Rue Oberkampf 75011