The New Hot Quarters for Summer 2006

Pudlowski refers to the 7th as a well brought up suburb.  Well, it certainly combines tourism, residences and wide expanses.  Its monuments include the Eiffel Tower, The Ecole Militaire and Les Invalides and its strolls include the vast fields of the Champs de Mars and Esplanade des Invalides.

Art is tops here with the Orsay, Rodin and Maillol Museums with often siperb temporary exhibitions at the Army Museum and UNESCO.  I mourn the closing of the SEITA Museum (that featured Austro-Germanic Art of the Klimt, Kokoschka, Schiele era, that is hardly offset by the opening of the new Museum on the Quai de Branly June 23rd featuring arts from Africa, Asia and the Pacific.


Now to food.  If memory serves me correctly, despite the housing stock in the 7th, there were no really great restaurants until Passard came to the Rue de Varenne and opened Arpege in 1986.  The next big name to hit the quarter was Christian Constant, about whom I’ve written before, who started a one-man industry with the Violin d’Ingres, Fables of Fontaine, which he very recently turned over to a trusted lieutenant, and most lastly, Café Constant, all a few steps from each other. Then, Bernard Loiseau of Saulieu fame started opening his Tante offshoots, second of which was Tante Marguerite, conveniently near the Assemblee Nationale.  But that’s not all that makes the 7th hot. A bit back, Joel Robuchon created his Atelier de Joel Rocuchon next to the Montalembert Hotel.  The all souffle restaurant, the Cigale, took over the prestigious Recamier space to create Cigale Recamier with a wonderful terrace on a dead end alley.  More recently, Au Bon Acceuil’s Jacques Lacipiere begat the reincarnation of Chez les Anges, Pierre Gagniare breathed new life into Gaya Rive Gauche, Stephane Mole, after working years at the original Les Ormes, way out in the 16th breathed new life into the old Bellecoeur space and Rougui Dia did the same at Petrossian 144.  In addition, really new places have cropped up, like Cinq Mars and La Ferrandaise and really old places have undergone revivals, like the Restaurant le Club at the Maison des Polytechniciens.
 


The 19th, unfortunately, has no such history or present glory.  Certainly it has great spaces – principally, the revivified old slaughter houses at La Villette now housing exhibition spaces, museums, concert halls and fabulous walking and playground areas as well as the Buttes Chaumont, Baron Haussmann’s quarry turned into a several level park.


But, for reasons unknown to me, it has never participated in the hot new quarter phenomenon.  Sure there’s the Boeuf Courone serving up beef and the last of souffled potatoes near La Villette and for 10 years or so Eric Frechon engineered his dazzling and inexpensive eponymous resto a few meters from the Buttes Chaumont into a internationally known phenom, enabling him to move to the highest upscale possible at the Bristol.  No, the only participant in the hot new quarter movement in the 19th is the good but quirky wine bar cum resto (on Wednesday-Saturday nights only), the Chapeau Melon.


My favorities among the new places in the 7th and 19th:


Cinq Mars

51 rue de Verneuil, 7th (Metro : Rue du Bac)

T : 01.45.44.69.13, Metro Rue du Bac

Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays

Lunch menu 21,50 €., a la carte 35-50 €.


Petrossian

18 Bd de Latour-Maubourg, 7th (Metro : Latour Maubourg)

T : 01 44 11 32 22

Closed Sundays

Gaya
44 rue du Bac, 7th (Metro : Rue du Bac)

T: 01 45 44 73 73

Closed Sundays

A la carte 55 €.


Café Constant

139, rue St-Dominique, 7th (Metro : Ecole Militaire)

T : 01 47 53 73 34

Closed Sundays

A la carte about 30 €.


Chez les Anges aka Les Anges

54, bd de Latour-Maubourg, 7th (Metro : Latour-Maubourg )

T : 01.47.05.89.86

Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays

Around 45-50 €, a la carte €.


Cigale- Récamier

4 rue Recamier, 7th (Metro: Sevres-Babylone)

T: 01 45 48 87 87

Closed Saturday lunch and Sundays

A la carte about 55 E.


Chapeau Melon

92 rue Rebeval, 19th (Metro : Pyrenees)

T : 01.42.02.68.60

Only open at dinner Wednesdays-Saturdays

Menu 25 €


©2006 John A. Talbott