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Cook 'n With Class: French cuisine in Montmartre

Image: Jade Barker

Text: Nicola Hebden

Cooking is at the soul of French society. Whether it’s the morning trip to the boulangerie, a long, convivial lunch with friends to break up your day, or the latest hi-tech gastronomy; love and tradition are the key ingredients.

Cook 'n With Class, a French cooking school based in Montmartre, take the essentials of cooking like a Frenchie, and passes them on to students. Don’t be fooled by the the name - the school was set up five years ago by bona fide French chef Eric Fraudeau, and has gone from strength to strength ever since.

Tous au Restaurant!

Text: Omid Tavallai

Want to eat reasonably at some of Paris' fancier addresses? From the 19th to the 25th of September, you can.

Chef Alain Ducasse may spend more time in boardrooms than in kitchens these days, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. His company's "Tous au Restaurant" initiative – based on successful "Restaurant Week" and "Dine About Town" events in cities around the world – was a success in its own right for its first iteration in 2010, and now it's back for 2011 with even more restaurants covering even more regions of France, meaning there's much great value to be had.

For one week, restaurants from casual eateries to chain-owned brasseries to Michelin-starred hotspots will offer half-priced menus and/or two-for-one offers following the slogan "Your guest is our guest!" Reservations begin at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday 7 September at www.tousaurestaurant.com

To ensure your spot at one of the better or more popular tables, it's recommended you sign up as soon as reservations begin.

Ever your friend in town, VINGT Paris has cherry-picked the restaurant list for the Paris region and recommends the following:

• Au Trou Gascon (Michelin-starred French)
• Benoit (the only bistro with a Michelin star)
• Chez L'Ami Jean (haute Basque)
• Citrus Étoile (California-inspired French)
• Kei (haute Japanese-inspired French)
• Maison Kaiseki (haute Japanese)
• Moustache (contemporary bistro)
• Rech (seafood)

 Bon appetit!

A Taste Of Africa In Paris

Image: Flickr CC emkeller
Text: Ndali Amobi

Home to over 5 million people of African and Arab descent, France enjoys a rich culinary diversity; and where better to experience this than in the cosmopolitan metropolis of Paris.

Stroll around any of the 20 arrondissements and you’re bound to find a restaurant serving up authentic African dishes. Yet despite the popularity of such eateries, it’s difficult to know where to look and what to expect. Online search engines often describe these restaurants as ‘African cuisine’ – a rather oversimplified term for a continent with 54 countries, hundreds of diverse religions and thousands of different languages.

There’s a whole host of Parisian restaurants bursting with African flavour and fragrance and, contrary to popular belief, they are not exclusive to neighbourhoods mostly populated by African communities.

Pousse Pousse - Pushing Paris In A Healthy Direction

Images: Alice-Kate Raisch / Plaza Athénée
Text: Alice-Kate Raisch

Well, the sprouts must be working. Lawrence Aboucaya sits across from me in the famed Hotel Plaza Athénée with painted nails to match the hotel's awnings and a vivacious smile to match her enthusiastic disposition to talk about the current collaborative project at Alain Ducasse's La Cour Jardin. Vivacity is the theme.

Continuing until mid-September, the Hotel Plaza Athénée will continue this inventive menu selection headed by Chef Christophe Marliex. Even though he has a lot on his plate, Chef Marliex and his team mastered the art of the sprout and crafted plates focused on the freshness of spring, with the generous assistance of Aboucaya. 

Puttin' On Ecole Escoffier

Text: Alice-Kate Raisch & Omid Tavallai
Images: Omid Tavallai

Fellow VINGT Paris contributor Omid Tavallai and I bravely approached the red awning, a beacon within the Place Vendôme’s cobblestoned sphere. It’s the Ritz. A-game.

Our purpose for the evening was to attend, alongside some fellow writers in Paris, the famed Ecole Escoffier housed at the Ritz. To ease us into the cooking portion of the evening, the Ritz graciously hosted our class in the Imperial Suite on the first floor of the famed hotel. It did not disappoint. Ruby-coloured silk curtains open up to the plaza below, chandeliers are suspended from the moulded ceilings, and there’s gilded… everything. Like I said before - it’s the Ritz.

Coutume - Paris, Meet Good Coffee

Text & Images: Omid Tavallai

There has been much talk lately about the state of coffee in Paris. Slashing through the images of postcard-perfect zinc counter tops and romantic sidewalks lined with little round tables peddled to the masses, some have started to say it out loud: The coffee here kinda sucks.

But rising above the Parisian sport of complaining sans cesse, there are people doing something about it. Among them are the passionate staff behind Coutume, a roastery and café ready to buck the Parisian tradition of substandard coffee, which finds itself in the highly traditional 7th arrondissement. An unlikely spot for such a mission, perhaps?

Super Marmite - Cooking Near You

Text and Images: Omid Tavallai

On a cold night, one of the finest things one can have to warm up is a tartiflette. The Savoyard dish of potatoes, lardons, and melted Reblochon cheese is a wintertime standard around France, well outside its mountainous region. I tucked into one that was not only warming but absolutely delicious. And best of all, it was made by a young lady just down the street.

There was no overpriced formule with paltry choices. There was no disinterested waiter to ignore me. And the cost was negligible. This was actual, home cooking – from a neighbor who heretofore was a complete stranger.

That's the premise of Super Marmite, a social site that allows you to discover what's cooking in the myriad apartments in each of Paris' arrondissements. And to taste them. And – if you're interested in cooking – to share what you have with others. Cooks can post what they're making, how many portions are available, set a (reasonable) price, and the time and date it will be available for pick-up.

UNESCO Gong For French Gastronomy

Text: Jennifer Choi

Image: Katie Robbins

In an age where the French's love affair with fast food is no longer a secret and frozen packs of supermarket sushi have earned a place in Parisian bourgeois households, UNESCO has given the tradition of French dining a world heritage status. To the rest of the world this may not be news, but for the nation's restaurants and foodies, this is a timely recognition of the glorious idiosyncrasies of its cuisine.

The national press did its bit of chest-thumping, with the naysayers warning against the mummification of French gastronomy in giving it UNESCO status. Meanwhile the snobbier and more puritanical amongst us bemoaned its decline thanks to new found appetites for molecular gastronomy amongst other 'foreign' techniques, and the audacity of people to crave convenience over an 3-hour feast.

It's worth reminding ourselves that the practice of lingering over aperitifs, the transformation of a meal to a ceremony with fromage, dessert, cafe, petits fours and digestifs after ours plats is about so much more than refuelling, nourishing, or even the pure joy of gluttony.

The Soul Kitchen Supper Club

Text: Aidan Mac Guill   
Image: SKSC

It's Thanksgiving night, 25 November, and that first, face-numbing heart-stopping winter cold has finally arrived in Paris. Down a seemingly non-descript street VINGT follows the directions we've been given to a non-descript door, and on into a pleasingly modern looking elevator. We emerge four floors up in front of an apartment marked with a small sign that reads - 'Soul Kitchen Supper Club'. We've found it then, thank god. Pressing the doorbell we stamp our feet and attempt to get some feeling back into our frozen faces. But on entering, the warm greeting we receive from the smiling American couple busy in the kitchen preparing the feast that lies ahead is enough to thaw us out immediately - "Come on in and make yourselves completely at home!"

The beaming Americans are Alexa Wisnoski and J. Christian Guerrero, and the Soul Kitchen is their brainchild. Passionate enthusiasts of art, music and food, they decided to convert their apartment into an exhibition space, and to invite strangers into their home for a weekly supper club. For the price of a half-decent meal in the average Parisian restaurant guests can enjoy a homemade, 6 dish, 3 course meal, drinks, a musical performance and the company of the other guests, all the while surrounded by an art exhibition.

Le Bal Café

Text and Images: Omid Tavallai

Anna Trattles sits across from me at one of the handful of tables inside the high-ceilinged, white-walled, windowed room that is Le Bal Café.

"You've got five minutes," she says, constantly looking past the counter and into the kitchen door, anticipating the prep work for the upcoming dinner shift.

Her co-conspirator Alice Quillet is across from me, going over the evening's menu, marking up typos and picking out spacing inconsistencies with a sharp eye like a schoolteacher.

Their attention to detail belies their youthful enthusiasm. But just as Le Bal – as a museum – is a minimalist, almost stark exhibition space designed to highlight the work on display, its attached restaurant casts the spotlight on what's being served. And when there are no distractions and no frills, the work has to stand on its own.