The intro has a quote “No wants tweezer cooking anymore,” but then there’s literally a picture of tweezers.
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Things to do include restaurants:
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Google reports Gregory Renard now permanently closed. 
from a couple of weeks ago in Paris
For steak frites
Le Severo
Highly recommended for steak frites (and their steak tartare as a principal plate looked very good). Old school, small room, basically they’ll only cook it medium rare or lower and not much in the way of sauces for the sirloin (aka “faux filet”) steak. They do a peppercorn sauce for the rump steak. Apparently will get very upset if you ask for ketchup with fries, but that wasn’t me.
Tight but good wine list, with some nice options by 500ml carafe. Low markup also on some nice champagne like Jacques Lassaigne’s 2015 Clos Saint. Sophie.
I really enjoyed the appetizer tête de veau with a light sauce ravigote - deboned calf’s head with dijon mustard, shallots, big capers, and arugula. Very crispy edge, consistent gelatinous center that was between beef tendon and mung bean jelly, with juicy cheek portion that had a texture like fatty brisket.
get this and enjoy with crusty bread and a solid Côtes du Rhône
Good beef with a hard sear, rare in the middle, and excellent fries.
all 10 tables were full of French locals except for me and one Canadian woman.
For wine-focused bistros
Quedubon (19th)
Solid food and wine bistro with a small, changing menu of pate en croute, sweetbreads, a veloute, etc. I reserved dinner on the same day. Food is rather good, wine is nice with rather good prices (bottle of Jacques Lassaigne La Colline Inspiree, less than 100% markup), and this is kind of the comfortable and local wine-focused bistro that you want to return to.
Cerf (red deer) tartare with mayonnaise, crispy shallots, and mushrooms. Nice and light.
Signature ris de veau croustillant, or crisped calf’s sweetbreads. Winter version here had salsify fondant, endive, and spiced pears. The sweetbreads were cooked long and slow then seared fast to get it ultra crispy on the outside. Bouncy and smooth cuisson on the inside. Salsify was very nice as well, but the pears were a little bit too sweet for me.
Burnt clementine tart, like a creme brulee top. Very good.
228 Litres by Le Cave Pigalle (9th)
Excellent champagne list at very fair prices. This is now a crowded spot but I waited for about 15 minutes and snagged a seat at the bar. The food is alright but I hear they do some chef dinners, which look more interesting.
To me, this is a good place to meet with a friend for some wine before dinner nearby.
lamb chops with sunchokes
Le Saint Sebastien
Very good wine bar all around - friendly service, great wine list, and smart food. I got a same day reservation at the bar and had an enjoyable meal later in the evening. The restaurant was slammed nonstop, but the service never missed a beat. They were quite nice, even patient with some argumentative couple nearby who were both late and difficult.
After a complimentary pour of Pascal Doquet’s Arpege solera, onto a bottle of Salima et Alain Cordeuil’s Altitude 350m 2018. I’ve been loving Cordeuil’s wine for the last year, especially the Altitude 320m blanc de noirs, but this Altitude 350m blanc de blancs was even better. The solar 2018 vintage is approachable now and proved great with the poached fish. Sensitive, focused, dry, and balanced, not austere - persimmon, meyer lemon, guava cream, bit of smoke and minerals, and nice structure.
Saucisson of Iberian pork
Limousin beef tartare, hand cut for a chunky texture, with smoked padilla chili mayonnaise, fried sunflower seeds, smoked hay oil, shallots, and capers. Delicious combination and very smart - the delivery of smokiness and heat was latent, because of the mayonnaise and the thick but yielding beef texture. Taking a bite, you first notice the good quality beef, then the crispness of the shallots and fried sunflower seeds, then the smokiness from the hay oil and mayonnaise of padilla chiles they dried in house. The chef from Mexico, hence the touches of Mexcian ingredients here, but whatever its inspiration was, the tartare was a well-composed dish with a smart use of ingredients for how it ate. The balanced smokiness and heat, combined with the quality chunky-cut Limousin beef, kept this feeling refined and not the overtly tangy palette bomb that some steakhouse tartares can be.
Hake with tangerine hollandaise, sunchoke, and white cabbage. Excellent hollandaise, like a sauce Maltaise here, with a gentle sweetness and acidity balanced by the fish’s poaching juices mixed into the sauce. Smooth sunchokes and crisp white cabbage were nice complements.
Buttermillk ice cream, poached quince, and pumpkin seeds
the candle holders are old wine bottles - Nowack, Stephane Bernardeau, Labet, L’Anglore, etc.
My friend (who was a sommelier at a nice French restaurant in Shirokane, Tokyo) also suggested the following wine bars / wine-focused bistrots:
Chambre Noire (11th)
Liquiderie Bar (11th)
Chez Nous (6th)
Le Petit Verdot (6th)
Parcelles (3rd)
For wine stores
There are countless options, but my two go-tos to buy wine for a dinner party and for bottles to bring back home are:
Delicatessen Cave (11th)
Le Cave Pigalle (9th)
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Quick trip that was filled mainly with apéro and casual dinners with friends, but I can still vouch for Le Severo and Le Saint Sebastien in particular.
Le Severo’s pied de cochon. Super crispy on the outside, deboned gelatinous bits nicely composed on the inside. Just slippery goodness, no soft bone/cartilege (the kind with the texture of pig’s ears). Very nice product, but I wouldn’t have minded a slight sauce ravigote. Just with lightly dressed arugula.
The rump steak frites with sauce au poivre. Nicely integrated peppercorn flavor, not overdone.
Liked it better than La Bourse et la Vie’s. Bourse et la Vie is a highly rated nicer bistro, but I think it gets a bit of a push because it’s by Daniel Rose from Le Coucou in NYC. The clientele here in my last couple of visits is almost 100% American, and the service and wine is OK but the food is pretty good (I think there are better places though).
Les Enfants du Marche’s Burgundy snails. Really great product and sauce.
preferred Enfants du Marche’s
rest from Les Enfants du Marche. The cuisine is freestyle. Go during lunch instead of dinner. During dinnertime you get some smells from the sewer/train below and it’s a bit distracting…
Pied de cochon - fried, with a sauce gribiche, mashed potatoes, and potato chips.
This was nice, though - a signature pairing of smoked eel with foie gras and beetroot. This time, it tasted like American barbecue - the smoky eel vs. the fatty foie and sweetness of the beetroot. Very decadent
Allard. This is a traditional bistro from the 1930’s taken over by Ducasse. Weak wine list for my tastes. But overall, not a bad choice if you want a classic bistro feel and menu that’s a little bit upscale and speaks English. Along the lines of Benoit.
Ris de veau, quite good quality. With artichokes barigoule, sorrel, and onions. As far as crispy sweetbreads go, a lighter prep with slight crunch and tartness of the artichokes.
Allard’s frog’s legs from 1935. I was expecting a little bit more.
Le Saint Sebastien. Limousin beef tostada, really nice.
Cod with beurre blanc and pil pil with morita chile.
not pictured - an excellent bay leaf cake with Arbequina olive oil ice cream.
speaking of apéro, one of my favorite rounds when I’m in the 3rd or 11th is to grab a bottle of wine from Delicatessen Cave, charcuterie from Bidoche, bread from Boulangerie Utopie (all just steps away) and then an 8 min walk to get cheese at Fromagerie Jouannault (and any other small items from the Enfants Rouges market or stalls nearby).
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Great intel, mon ami. I feel the brasserie scene in Paris is always in so much flux.
Is the Seine finally swimmable?
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The idea of the Seine being swimmable this summer (or any time) is about as crazy as Jodorwsky’s Dune would’ve been.
Personal current take on Paris:
don’t
- swim in the Seine
- go during peak times
- fall for the newly popular policy of asking for 15-20% tip when paying
- prioritize Michelin and book too many international degustation menus. instead, leave room for apero, lazy afternoons or early evenings, or more traditional bistrots / brasseries. or maybe, just pick one very good one and let it stand on its own (Arpege, L’Ambroisie, Table Bruno Verjus).
- overbook the schedule (traffic can be stressful and you don’t always want to take the metro)
do
- eat oysters - say, L’Ecailleur du Bistrot
- eat seafood - say, Le Duc
- eat traditional, classic bistrot / brasserie - say, Aux Cru de Bourgogne, Le Bon Georges, Auberge Bressane (for a little cozy/homestyle) or for something a little nicer while being classic, Le Griffonier, Drouant, L’Ami Louis, etc. for something elevated and easy for tourists but with good quality ingredients for delicacies like sweetbreads, pig’s trotter, escargot, frog’s legs, calf’s head, cockscomb, etc. - La Poule au Pot (excellent quenelles de bar and riz pilaf), Benoit (excellent cockscomb and foie casserole), Allard. Honorbale mention Le Chardenoux for a stylish room but less interesting menu. for an excellent chou farci, Cafe des Ministeres. Le Mazenay for a very good all rounder.
- eat steak frites and a good tartare - say, Le Severo. don’t expect the steak to be melt in your mouth fatty.
- try a neo bistrot / wine bar with a slightly international menu - say, Le Saint Sebastien, Vivant, Les Enfants du Marche, etc. Frenchie is ok/skippable to me. Septime is good for the Cave, but the restaurant is a bit overrated to me given the popularity/wait. if you want to try a tasting menu, don’t overlook Japanese chefs cooking French food. but I haven’t found Japanese food that I like in Paris.
- eat all the pastry, cheese, and drink all the good wine you can. it goes by area for me. maybe save a little luggage space to bring home a bottle or two. i always leave room for a new bottle of Olivier Horiot or Aurelien Lurquin to take home.
- drink a liqueur when sitting outdoors to take a rest between activities/meals (chartreuse or pastis in summer, calvados in winter, for me)
- eat a later dinner. save early evening for apero or wine bars.
- get to the airport very early.
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I had trouble finding first-rate perfectly ripe raw-milk Camembert, Rebolochon, and the like (the stuff we can’t get in the US any more because it’s aged under 60 days) when I was in Paris last year. Do you have any recommendations? Fromagerie Quatrehomme is excellent but we were staying far away.
Bizarrely we had an easier time finding great French cheese in Rome, at Beppe e I Suoi Formaggi (his wife is French).
I haven’t looked for those in Paris myself, but perhaps Marie-Ann Cantin in the 7th may have what you’re looking for.
If you strike out there, you can still redeem the trip by visiting Lastre sans Apostrophe right around the corner for excellent pâté en croûte and charcuterie and then picking up some wine from Les Grandes Caves on Rue Cler (my go to is Fallet-Crouzet/Gourron/Prevostat when Jerome has it, particularly with Brillat-Savarin).
Alternatively (also in the 7th), Barthélémy.
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We’ve had excellent cheese from Marie-Ann Cantin in the past (going back to the 80s) but we were staying in the 10th.
I haven’t been to Taka & Vermo in the 10th, but my friend likes it. I looked online and they have reblochon by affineur Joseph Paccard.
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make a detour to basel