Paris - eating in Paris is like dreaming anywhere else!

This past week, without any posts, was of pure inspiration, I went to Paris. For 7 days I lunched, snacked and dinned, doing nothing else then contemplating the French biggest treasury: its culinary. Paris is the ideal setting to enjoy such amazing food, I am sure that after one week of random walks through its streets there is nothing like it! Each corner that u turn there is a wonderful surprise of incredible balance and beauty.

I have been flirting with a trip like this for some time now, one week eating in the restaurants of this new movement in the French culinary world, called: Bistronomique. This same movement seems to be arriving in Brazil very strongly now, very appropriate given our crisis mode. Is there anything more charming then a little restaurant, with a clear signature cuisine, for only €38? Signature cuisine is the French’s specialty since Carême – I read this week the wonderful “Cooking for Kings: The life on Antoin Carême” – and these days you don’t even have to be French to have a Bistrô in Paris, as I learned dinning in the amazing Le Timbre.

Paris is a city where even the poor, dirty student bar serves an incredible cheese platter, and a very decent food, as I discovered in Le Reflect, where else in the world does that happen? I have to say that I did not only found good cheap food, Paris is also a city of luxury, as the incredible macaroons from Ladurée can bring you to bankruptcy or sugar poisoning in the most delightful way possible. 

In a city of dreams it is possible to eat the most incredible soufflé that I have ever tasted, to the point of considering if I have ever had eaten this dish before, the cloudy texture of it made me think that only in Paris u can eat a cloud and still be on firm ground, right there at Le Cigale Recamier. Paris is not perfect after all is full of Parisians, but I have to say that this unsual touristy week of mine brought me a more understanding view of them, it must be hard to share that, especially when u are craving the incredible pear ice-cream at Pozzeto,  at the sizzling Marais, after the best falafel sandwich that you will have ever eaten and the L´as the Falafel.

If you are into more edgy culinary you are also in the right place, why not check it out the Chez L´ami Jean for a light touch of Basque cuisine/technique in a classical dark bistro, the mix is incredible, like it is to find the George Pompidou with its crazy architecture blending so well with the beautiful classical Parisian buildings, with its iron balconies.  Eating in Paris is also sitting in the outside and feeling the cold winter chill on your cheeks, while u appreciate a glass of wine, or eat a fantastic terrine at the Le Comptoir de Relaix.

We all must live in Paris before we die, maybe you don’t have to live there for real, but it is necessary to take time and enjoy the city other them the classical touristy attractions, I cramped 15 fantastic meals in one week, but other than that just walked, drove a Velib enjoying the liberty of free time I had, just like the chef of Le Pre Vérre does with his slightly creative bistro food. You must also walk into a boulangerie, a fromagerie and a charcuterie even though you do not know (like me) half of the cheese and sausages that they are so proud of.

The closest to tourism that I did was to travel to Bretagne eating wonderful crêpes at Le Chalet 8eme and to the almost perfect, and almost impossible to get a table, Breizh Café. In the end in the middle of craziness of Refuges des Foundues and its baby bottles and the peace of the idyllic Ille de Saint Louis I found a city for foodies but also for those in search of beauty. The week was completed with amazing company from the ones that can cook Tarteflet to the ones that can´t eta half of the things I enjoy, but in the end it all comes together with a nice bottle of red wine (maybe many bottles…).

 

Ps: Caros 3 leitores, em homenagem aos amigos que estiveram comigo e que não falam português esses textos serão em Inglês, desculpe!