Nostalgic for French cafés of yesteryear

One of the things I missed the most when I moved from Paris to Chicago in January of 1970 was the cafés. Of course I found some interesting bars in my new town and I spent hours in some of them. The Anvil on Michigan Avenue where many old reporters from the nearby Chicago Tribune told fascinating stories, Ricardo's on Rush where the bartender knew everybody by name, The London House on East Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue, where we would sip beer and have a sandwich during lunch hour while listening to Ramsey Lewis or Sonny Rollins playing live jazz music. Farther away from my office was O'Rourke's on North Avenue where the atmosphere was dark but often intense from boozy dialogues between regulars. I would listen to their conversations, but did not understand half of what they were saying. It was my way of learning the American language that I did not speak at the time. Later on, when I started to feel more comfortable speaking English, I got more involved talking with other patrons, while developing a solid taste for good bourbons. But nevertheless, in those days, except for Melvin on State Street, there were no cafes with a "terrasse" where you could sit on warm summer days, sip "pastis" (an anise flavored yellowish alcoholic drink) while reading "Le Monde" and wait for your friends to show up and sit down with you to discuss the latest French film or the political scoop of the day. Cafes in France play a very important role in your daily life. Whether or not they have a terrasse on the sidewalk, are a simple "bar-tabac" at the corner of two busy steets in a blue collar neighborhood, or a fancy two centuries-old grand cafe in Saint-Germain des Prés in the 6th arrondissement in Paris, you are sure to meet people you know there, or that you will eventually get acquainted with, starting with the "patron", the owner. When we lived on Rue de Seine near St Germain des Prés in Paris in the sixties, one of our favorite patrons of a bar-café was Monsieur Constant. He was a very short guy in his late fifties sporting a bushy gray and yellow mustache and wearing the same old uniform practically everyday: baggy corduroy pants, a tired and dirty grey flannel shirt that looked like the top of old-fashioned underwear and was always full of stains .He walked very slowly, at the rare times when he left his position behind the small real zinc covered counter, in his peasant galoshes. He had the nasty habit, twice per hour, of searching the pocket of his apron for a pinch of snuff tobacco that he extracted from an old leather pouch.He then inserted it into his nostrils and sniffed his snort noisily. But it would not stop him from continuing to serve marvelous wines from the Loire valley (he probably had the best Coteaux du Layon in Paris) in semi-clean old-fashioned small glasses that he would rapidly rinse before drying them with the same dirty cloth that he sometimes also used to wipe out debris from the counter. A few minutes later he proceeded to clean his nose again very noisily in a very large and dirty handkerchief. He had a very strong accent from his native Auvergne and rolled the r's. But he was a beauty of a human being , and some people came from the other side of Paris to drink his wines from small unknown vineyards. His cafe was not decorated, had only a couple of small table and chairs, and was lit by old gas lamps hanging down from the ceiling and one very weak electric bulb. From time to time the smell from the laundry that his wife was boiling every other month in a large tin basin in a tiny backroom behind the cafe's main room would mix with the odor of the cabbage and pork soup that she was preparing on a coal-burning stove in that same backroom. And it would be on some occasions so overpowering that you needed a strong calvados to suppress the gag reflex in your throat.

When you entered Monsieur Constant's cafe the first thing you noticed was a few bags of coal standing up against the wall across from the counter. Because Constant was one of the last authentic traditional ''bougnat'' of Paris who sold wine and coal, like all the other bougnats did before him since they started emigrating to Paris around 1820 from their native poor rural areas of the Auvergne where they could no longer find work or maintain their small farms and feed their families. The majority of them came from 2 "departements" (geographical districts): Cantal and Aveyron in South Central France. These hard-working auvergnats first started to sell coal to Parisian households, but rapidly they expanded the activities of their tiny shops by also selling wine, and later they became full-fledged café owners. Many of them occupied small apartments above the cafe.180 years later the heirs of these "bougnats'' had managed to control the largest share of the lucrative Parisian market of cafés and restaurants. In fact some ''auvergnat" owners of famous cafés and brasseries, like the brasserie Lip, Les 2 Magots, Flo, Le Procope, Au pied de Cochon, Chez Clément, and many others have created real dynasties and powerful groups of restaurants and cafés all over Paris, and even in some other large French cities. It has been estimated that people from Aveyron (there are 320.000 of them in Paris) control 6,000 hotels, restaurants and cafes in Paris and its suburbs. Another interesting community of cafe-owners were the Bretons (people from Brittany). Most of them had their establishments in the area north of the Gare Montparnasse, the train station for railway lines going to Western France, a neighborhood were most "Bretons" lived. In the late forties and early fifties one my favorite sports heroes was the French bicycle racer Jean Robic who was from Brittany. When he retired he got himself a cafe on the Boulevard Edgar Quinet behind the Montparnasse train station. The first time I went to Paris by myself I was determined to go to see that cafe. When I entered I could not see the cyclist and ask a waiter if he was actually there . Of course, he replied, can't you see him behind the bar? All I saw was a head, he was very short, behind that counter and two hands lifting a glass towards the ceiling light to check if it was clean. That was Jean Robic .. Many famous French sports celebrities owned bars and cafes in France in the fifties.

In lower-middle-class districts it is very frequent to observe odd partners standing and drinking at the same time at the counter: the mailman, the local baker, the butcher, the cop whose beat is limited to a few streets around the bar, the drivers of delivery trucks, the local wino or semi-"clochards" (hoboes), and even perhaps a prostitute taking a break between two customers. So, you may engage in a short but lively conversation with an unknown but colorful character at the "zinc", the "comptoir"(counter),which most of the time is covered with a shiny coating of copper that the bartender never stops wiping with his "torchon" (a piece of cloth). People stand at the comptoir to have a quick expresso, or a "demi" (less than a pint) of beer, or a "pousse-café" (after dinner drink) to help them start their afternoon after having lunch in the backroom. These countertops used to be made of thick grey zinc, and the nickname stayed. When a friend or neighbor asks you if you want to have a quick "apéritif sur le zinc", it means drinking a before-lunch cocktail at the bar of the nearby bar-tabac or cafe. And if you are reluctant to accept because you do not have much time you answer: "D'accord, mais sur le pouçe" literally translated: Fine, but on the thumb...which means in fact: "O.K. but let's make it fast". Practically every cafe or "bar" has a counter, except in large old style "grands cafés" or cafés-brasseries in big cities, like The Café de la Paix or Les Deux Magots in Paris, where everybody sits at a table, for two or four, or sometimes for more people in small cities or villages cafes. In traditional cafes you also find long communal seats called "banquettes", most of the time made of colored leather or faux-leather (moleskine). The bar-tabac got its name because, once inside the cafe, the first thing you notice is a special enclosed section at the end of the counter, close to the entrance door, where a person, quite often the wife or a relative of the owner, sells tobacco products like cigarettes, which are distributed by a state monopoly in France and are not sold in supermarkets or out of distributors. You can also buy all kinds of different products at this special "tabac" section of the bar: Candy, lottery tickets and games, lighters, tiny toys, souvenirs, postcards, stamps, knives, pipes, pens, etc. They often stay open late. And at all times of day, people who come to buy cigarettes, also have a quick beer, a cup of expresso, a coke or a glass of wine before going back to their work or occupation. Nowadays sophisticated expresso machines are everywere, but until the early sixties, the only equipment to make coffee in a cafe was the huge "percolateur", a shiny silvery small steaming tower that waiters wiped to a permanent shine with their "torchons" 24 hours a day.

Until the late eighties, every Sunday morning, from breakfast time until noon, all kinds of men and women used to sit at tables and fill out their special forms to play the "tiercé'', a famous horse race which took place in the afternoon at one of the two Paris hypodromes (race tracks): Boulogne and Longchamp. They queued at a table in one of the rooms of the cafe to register their form and place their bet with one of the official agent of the betting agency, which was controlled by the government. The conversations were often very animated since the players drank a lot while preparing their bets. In bars and cafés, lots of workers have breakfast at the counter in the morning, eating fresh croissants, or "tartines beurrées" (a buttered sliced portion of a baguette) that they dip in their "café-crème" (latte) or hot chocolate. But some people feel thirsty even at this early hour and it is not rare to see them drink a couple of demis (a little less than a pint) of draft beer before going to work. In old working class neighboroods you can still find some men having a "blanc limé", a glass of dry white wine tamed-down with limonade (a lemon-flavored seltzer) or even a small shot of calvados, a 90 proof apple brandy from Normandy to help them get energized before getting into the subway to go to their factory or construction site. Many people also have a quick lunch at the counter or sitting down at one of the few tables, usually a paté or ham sandwich with cornichons (small pickles) or maybe a croque-monsieur grilled by the owner or the waiter in a small electrical toaster-oven. Some bar-tabacs and cafés also offer omelettes, "assiettes anglaises" (a platter of assorted cold meats with "cornichons") and sometimes hot dogs. Many of them used to have a special device consisting of a warm steel rod on which they heated a portion of baguette in which they inserted the wiener which was kept hot in a glass steamer. And in old-fashioned cafés you still can grab an "oeuf dur" (hard-boiled egg) from a special egg-holder always present on the counter, and eat it with a glass of wine. The conversations are usually less intense in a bar-tabac than in a regular café where people often sit down at a table to read while they have a drink or meet with friends. But some people take the time to read the morning papers while drinking their coffee at the counter. Some make comments about the political situation or a crime to the waiter or to other customers if they know them a bit, which is often the case since most patrons are regulars and live or work nearby. The traditional cafe also has often a "comptoir" behind which reigns the "patron" who often prepares drinks that the waiters take to the seated customers, and serves standing customers. The "patron" (owner) shakes hands with all his regular customers and calls them by name. Sometimes, in very traditionnal places, his wife, "la patronne" officiates at the end of the counter behind a cash register where she prepares the "addition" (check) and provides the change due that she gives to the "garçons", the waiters.But the major part of the room is occupied by tables and chairs. In most traditional cafés, people come to drink, relax and chat. In the smaller ones in small towns and villages customers also play cards, or dominos and in some establishments in the South of France they stay outside to watch games of "boules" called "pétanque", or to play themselves.. The team that looses the game has to pay a round of apéritifs, often pastis, to the other players. I miss these Southern cafes with a pétanque court outside a lot. Very often the cafe is named after its precise location, street, square, avenue, or because of its proximity with a public building, a train station, a theater, or many stores and shops, or the statue of a famous native son: Café de l'avenue, Café de la Gare, Café du Commerce, Café de la Mairie, Café Napoléon. Sometimes the name was chosen either because it used to be a place where local business owners would congregate, where traveling salesmen would stop, or where sports fans would get together to watch a game on TV: Café des Négociants, Café des Sports. Or it would be named simply Café des amis (friends). But in Paris as well as in many other French towns and villages the cafe is often named after its owner and might be called "Café Langlade" or it bears only his first name or nickname preceded by "chez": Chez René, Chez Jojo, Chez Joséphine. Most cafés used to be full at the time of the apéritif before lunch (11:30 AM to 12:30 PM) or before dinner (6:00 PM to 8:00 PM) and in large cities late at night after the end of a theater show or after the last movie show. The people would get together to drink beer or brandies and discuss what they had just seen with friends. But nowadays in most French cities you find people in cafes practically all day long, especially young people and students, some of them spending hours to talk and organize their evenings. Others like to go there to play electronic arcade-type games.You still can find some old American pin-ball machines that the French call "flippers" In practically every major French town, a few cafés stay open very late at night and sometimes all night long. It is often the case in large cities near the main train station or at the edge of town where the highways start or converge. And in Paris, until the late sixties when the centuries-old "Les Halles" vegetable, fruit and meat central market was relocated to Rungis, a suburb close to Orly airport, there were very lively night-cafés and brasseries open in that incredibly picturesque neighborhood close to the center of Paris. There, workers for the market, purveyors and wholesalers, some of them dressed in white uniforms covered with blood stains from cutting and carrying large pieces of meat, would stand at the counter of these cafes in the middle of the night to eat and drink. They would rub shoulders with tourists, clochards (hoboes), ''putes'' (whores), students and bourgeois Parisians in their elegant outfits, having a last drink or eating something with friends after a party, a concert or a show. The famished and poor student that I was at the time in 1963 used to go to '' Les Palmiers", Rue des Halles to eat enormous "saucisse de Toulouse" (pork sausage) sandwiches with french fries. It was greasy but delicious and comforting after an evening spent working on a philosophy essay due the next morning at La Sorbonne. A couple of years earlier, when Nancy and I were studying in Aix-en- Provence, we loved to go to a seedy bar, The Gambrinus, which was open all night long, at two in the morning to recover some strength with marvelous ''oeufs sur le plat" (fried eggs) that they served in small white individual enameled cast-iron pans. We washed down these frugal snacks with ''ballons'' (round glasses) of red ''Côteaux d'Aix en Provence", or beer. The place, which had none of the atmosphere depicted in Van Gogh's famous "café de nuit" painting, was totally unattractive and very noisy, was in fact not too safe with a client base of rough truck drivers, motorcycle bikers, semi gangsters, cops, and all kinds of strange characters... But the owner, a short and very bulky but friendly fellow who was a former wrestler and did not get easily impressed by drunks or bullies, knew us and sometimes treated us to a free drink.

Most cafés do not generally serve food, except croissants and sandwiches, unless they are clearly marked "café-restaurant" which means that one part of the room or a separate room is entirely dedicated to diners at meal time. The brasseries are relatively large café-restaurants that you find in busy commercial areas of cities, around the train station, or on major avenues. They serve drinks and specific "plats de brasserie" such as steak-frites, choucroute garnie, poulet roti, salade composée, petit salé aux lentilles, andouillette grillée, cheeses, and charcuteries variées, all day-long.They used to specialize in beer, but nowadays offer a limited but often interesting list of "vins de pays" in carafes and by the glass. Even though many French people still say "let's go to the nearby bistro to have a drink", most educated people call bistrots (or bistros) a small restraurant where you eat "cuisine de bistrot", focusing on traditional French recipes including many slow-cooked dishes in sauces. The term " bistro" comes from the Napoleon wars period when Russian soldiers in Paris would rush into small local cafés, go the counter and loudly order something that they could drink or eat in a hurry. They would yell " Bistro, Bistro..." meaning quick, quick.

One of my favorite café-restaurants when I go to Paris in my adopted 15th arrondissement is " La Tour Eiffel" at the end of Rue du Commerce facing the St. Jean Baptiste Church, which has open French windows from May to October. That means that quite often you can have lunch in the sun inside the dining area of the cafe. Nicely decorated with beautiful old photographs showing the various stages of the construction of the Eiffel Tower, this place owned by "auvergnats" can at lunchtime be very crowded and smoky. But the waiters are very efficient and service is fast. They serve very tasty rustic dishes like confit de canard with lentils, salades auvergnates with Cantal cheese and a delicious air-cured mountain ham from Auvergne, and basquaise chicken.

I also like to meet with friends in old-fashioned "bistrots à vin", small cafés that specialize in good regional wines from small family-owned vineyards and serve quality ham, patés and terrines, dry regional saucissons, and "rillettes", as well as good cheeses on rustic bread. My favorite in this category is "Au Sauvignon" 80 rue des Saints-Pères in the 7th arrondissement near Sèvres-Babylone. The walls of this very tiny café are beautifully decorated with rustic mural paintings representing life in a wine producing region. The service is very pleasant. They serve beautiful Quincy, Reuilly and Sancerre wines by the glass.

Last but not least I miss the "grands cafés" . They have existed since the 17th century. The Cafe Procope, Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie, now is sort of a tourist trap of a restaurant, but we used to enjoy having a simple bistrot dinner there in the sixties. It was started in 1686 by an Italian immigrant,and is supposed to be the oldest cafe in Paris. In the 18th century it was the most celebrated meeting place for literary luminaries like Diderot, revolutionaries like Danton, and later well-known writers and poets such as Balzac and Verlaine.

When I was young, the grands cafes were very stylish with waiters who wore tuxedoes or the traditional "rondin", a long white apron, along with a black vest and bow tie. They would bring your drink on a porcelain saucer on which the price of the drink would be printed in red or black. Each time you ordered a new round of drinks the waiter would pile the saucers up on your table, and when it was time for you to pay and leave he would calculate your bill by adding the prices printed on each saucer. If you wanted to read a newspaper you had to go to one of the racks on the wall near the counter or the entrance and choose one which usually was clipped to a long rod of varnished wood. In the large cities of France, cafes usually were known for the political preferences of their patrons, and the regulars would totally despise the customers of the cafe located on the other side of the street or the square, since they were suspected of having a different political affinity and voting for the wrong guy in local elections. It is also interesting to notice the slow but noticeable evolution of the favorite drinks consummed in these grands cafes. From absinthe at the turn of the 20th century, to Suze, Picon, Dubonnet, and Noilly Prat vermouth, Guignolet Kirsch, and later Pernod in the thirties, forties and early fifties. Then Port, Sherry, Scotch, Pastis, and Martini and Rossi vermouth became popular in the fifties and early sixties. Since the late sixties, every French bar and cafe has several automatic dispensers of various whiskies, that people order sometimes as " un baby" which means "a small measure". But young people drink a lot of sodas and mineral waters.

When I was a student in Aix en Provence our favorite grand cafe was "Les Deux Garçons" on the Cours Mirabeau with its very high ceilings, beautiful mirrors and Louis-Philippe-period interior decoration. Unfortunately it was sold in the eighties to people who did not keep the original decor, and fired most of the the old fashioned waiters that everybody knew by their names. Some friends who recently had a drink there told me however that the place had been redecorated to match its former splendor. The owners also modified the simple but fancy brasserie menu that opera-lovers enjoyed with champagne after an evening at the famous summer Mozart music festival on the fabulous terrasse where everybody wanted to see famous or infamous people from all over the world, and of course to be seen. During the school year this terasse was an interesting mix of students and professors, artists, and actors, politicians, and foreign visitors. The two rooms inside were very quiet in the morning and I used to go there to have a coffee, eat a croissant and read the local paper, Le Provencal. One grey winter morning, I was doing exacly that when 3 people came to have breakfast at the table next to mine. First I was attracted to the very expressive eyes of the lady who was seating on the chair opposite me. I recognized her after a while: She was the famous Spanish movie actress Lucia Bose. I also, being a "corrida de toros afficionado", immediately regognized the very attractive gentleman seating next to her, it was Luis Miguel Doninguin, a famous matador. But it took me more time to find out that the third person in their party who was sitting, two feet from me, on the "banquette" and drawing little, not really fully shaped, patterns on the paper table cover was in fact Pablo Picasso. I could not concentrate very well on my reading while I listened to their conversation. They had come to attend the shooting of a film by their friend Jean Cocteau, "The Testament d'Orphée" in nearby Les Baux. When they had finished their breakfast, they put some money on the table and left. I was looking, mesmerized, at this piece of paper within my reach covered with all these little graffitis drawn by the old master, wondering if I would muster the courage to tear it off and keep it. But I was not fast enough. The waiter came to clear the table, crumpled the paper table cloth on his platter and disappeared in the kitchen without realizing what he had destroyed... 45 years later I still regret my lack of judgment and determination.

When I moved to Paris in 1963, and attended the Sorbonne, I walked all the way (about 8 blocks) to Saint Germain des Pres to drink a coffee at the famous " Les deux Magots" located 6 Place St. Germain des Pres in the 6th arrondissement. This place with its very large terrasse facing the beautiful romanesque church, used to be a Chinese silk shop in the 19th century. The new owner who took over the place in 1875 and transformed it into a cafe, kept the name and the 2 magots (small chinese statues). During and after World War I, this cafe had become the most famous litterary cafe where famous poets and writers, from Rimbaud and Verlaine, to the Surealists, and later Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as artists and actors, used to spend hours drinking, meeting friends and admirers, and sometimes writing.

In the sixties you had to go to the basement of Les Deux Magots to visit the restrooms, or to use the telephone. A great game at the time was to call the lady in charge of both the "Toilettes" and the telephone booth and ask her to call a certain person having a drink in the cafe upstairs to come down and answer the call. So it was very funny to hear her announce seriously on the PA system: " On demande Monsieur Proust, (or Monsieur Welles, or Monsieur Alain Delon), au telephone". Many people used to come at least 10 times a day to les 2 Magots just to show off with their new outfits, car, or dog, or to parade a new "partner"... Some aging former celebrities would sometimes spend a whole day at a table inside, talking with former "fans" and reading or pretending to write. Some relatively obscure poets and writers, like Maurice Fombeure, literally held court at the Deux Magots until the mid-sixties. I stayed at his table drinking coffee many times.

Above all I used to enjoy listening to the many street musicians and singers, as well as excentric "self-created" or wanabee philosophers and politicians who came to do their number several times a day on the sidewalk.

I still visit all these establishments on occasional pilgrimage trips. But when I come back to Chicago it is more the "spirit" of these places that continues to survive in me than their actual physical image.

A French restaurateur talks about the evolution of the restaurant scene in Chicago since1969

Stéphane,
 I will never forget our last family dinner at KIKI'S BISTRO when you came to Chicago with Andrea and 5 month old Sébastien to celebrate Christmas with us. It was almost like a pagan baptism to have our first grand-son share, visually at least for the time being, our traditional day-after-Christmas dinner at this favorite French Bistro of ours. But now, since you have enjoyed going there for so many years on various occasions, including some of your birthdays, I would like to tell you a little more about its owner, Georges ''Kiki'' Cuisance, a man that I have known and liked a lot since the mid-seventies, who was one of the true pioneers of French bistrot cuisine in Chicago, when he launched ''Le Bordeaux'' in 1969. KIKI's BISTRO has become my favorite hang-out and refuge when I feel in need of French comfort, both from a stand point of morale boosting support and familiar good food. I thought that this interview of him, that I conducted a couple of weeks ago, would be of interest to you. Dad.  


INTERVIEW of GEORGES ‘’KIKI” CUISANCE, owner of KIKI’S BISTRO 900 N. Franklin St. Chicago, IL 60610 Tel: (312) 335-5454 http://www.kikisbistro.com/

 Alain Maes:  When and why did you comme to Chicago?
  
Georges ‘’Kiki’’ Cuisance: I came to Chicago from Paris in December 1963. A few years before I had worked at MAXIM’S in Paris for a short time. And in 63 I learned that they were looking for people who would be willing to go to Chicago to work in a new MAXIM'S restaurant that they were planning to open there. I told them I was interested and that’s why I came to the United States. I worked there when it opened under Mrs. Nancy Goldberg first as a sommelier and then as a waiter. I stayed at MAXIM's for 3 ½ yars.

A.M  Before that, how many years had you spent in the restaurant business, in Paris or elsewhere?

G.C: I started in 1951 when I studied for 3 years at a hotel trade school, l’Ecole hôtelière, in Thonon-Les Bains. [Ed. note. A small French city well known for its mineral waters and its spa, near Evian]. In 54 I had to perform my military duties in the French army for 2 ½ years. Then I worked a little bit in Paris as a waiter at MAXIMS. After that I spent a year in England working as a waiter in a hotel. Then I was back in Paris for a few months, still working as a waiter in restaurants and I did a short stint at the "ClOSERIE DES LILAS", before leaving for Germany where I spent a year, working as a waiter in a hotel-restaurant. Then I came back to Paris for a while and worked at the COPENHAGUE restaurant on the Champs-Elysees; but I left again this time to go to Spain, where I stayed for several months, working in a hotel-restaurant again. In the late fifties I was back in Paris where I worked in various restaurants, including the famous private nightclub ‘’CHEZ CASTEL’’ until I left for Chicago.

AM: You told me once that in Paris you did a stint at ''Chez Dupont'', the epitomy of an old style French brasserie. What kind of position did you have there? 

G.C:  That’s right, DUPONT WAGRAM in Paris [Ed. note. This big restaurant, not too far from the Arc de Triumph, does not exist anymore but had a famous motto: ‘’ Chez Dupont, Tout est bon’’, “ at Dupont everything is good”]. I was the night manager, which means that I was in charge of closing the restaurant at night , taking care of the cash register, actually closing the place, etc..

A.M: But, you probably had a very specific training? Was it in restaurant and hospitality management, in cooking, in learning to become a sommelier?

G.C: I had learned all these trades. At the hotel trade school, during the first year you worked in the restaurant; the second year you worked in the kitchen, and the third you learned all the hotel and restaurant management skills and processes.  

A.M. : What were the restaurant scene and the food and wine landscape like, when you arrived in Chicago in 1963?

CC: The food was not sophisticated at all. You had mostly steakhouses, a few so-called fancy restaurants serving fake French food … there was nothing French about it except the name. You had the ‘’Castro’’ chain which had about 10 or 12 different restaurants at the time: Jacques, l’Epuisette, Le Coq au Vin, Maisons-Lafitte, Biggs and several others.

A.M :What kind of food did they serve at these so-called French ‘’traditional’’ restaurants? What did people order?

G.C: At the time, the big thing was Beef Wellington. I remember that I went to JACQUES FRENCH RESTAURANT and I had snails served in sherry wine with bread crumbs. It was disgusting… The only salad you could find was iceberg lettuce. It was considered a fancy salad with all kinds of strange dressings: French, a creamy stuff which had nothing French about it, Russian, Roquefort, Thousand Islands. All that has disappeared.  

A.M: Chicago had a reputation of being a ‘’meat and potatoes town”, was it your experience in those days? Could you find any French bistros in 1963?

G.C:  If you wanted to be served something decent, you better order meat…You did not want to experiment with fancy dishes at the time, even in fancy restaurants. And, no, I don’t remember any real French bistros in Chicago at the time. Also, nobody knew anything about wines when I arrived in Chicago. You had ‘’Dry Sauternes’’, things like that. Gamay Beaujolais, Chablis. Lancers and Matteus were the big wines of the day. Sparkling Burgundy… All these wines were terrible but people, who did not know any better, loved them.

A.M:  When did you decide to get into the restaurant business yourself? Was it the result of your thinking: Since there are not too many good places in town, I'm going to create my own?

G.C: No, it was by accident. At the time I was working for three fellow Frenchmen at a restaurant called ‘’LA CHAUMIÈRE’’ on Dearborn near Division, and when the place went under, we were without a job. So I decided that the thing to do was to open a restaurant. Four of us, one chef and three working the dining-room, we bought a place downtown, that we called Le BORDEAUX. On Madison, near State street. At the time, in 1969, it was an Italian restaurant called Pierre’s. It cost us 5,000 dollars each. Now it would be probably 5 million…

A,M :  Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do with it?

G.C: Yes. We wanted to do a French restaurant offering diverse things that you did not find in Chicago then: Kidneys, mussels... Nobody knew about mussels in Chicago. We had the first quiche lorraine in town. We had traditional dishes like sweetbreads, brains, and of course we had a steak-frites with real fresh frites. Our French fries were cut in the kitchen. We had also coq au vin and beef bourguignon. We kept the same menu until we closed 20 years later. 

A.M:  And did people accept this kind of typical bistro dishes, like stews, from the start or was it too new from them?

G.C: They accepted them well.  

AM: What type of customers did you have? Any solid base of French clients?

G.C: Since it was in the Loop, a business district, we had lots of business people working downtown who came for lunch: Lawyers, bankers, business executives and their staff, etc. Most of them became regulars. The night business was mainly the before the theater, the opera or the symphony kind of people. So we closed very early. And yes, we had a solid French customer base, bankers, lawyers, owners of French businesses, Air France employees and people in the travel business, members of the staff of the French Consulate in the seventies.

A.M:  What kind of dishes did you serve to the ladies who stopped by for lunch after shopping at nearby Marshall Field’s or Carson’s ?

G.C.: We had a lot of salads too, Salade Niçoise, The Neptune and the Surcouf salads that had avocado, shrimps, crab were very popular. Some ladies eating for the first time at Kiki's Bistro nowadays are still asking for them.  

A.M.: Did your clients ordered wine with their lunch in 1969 ?

G.C.:  No…no wine. They mostly drank hard liquor, and lots of martinis.  

A.M: Between 1969 and 1989, did you notice an evolution in the tastes of Le Bordeaux’s clients?

G.C: They started to drink wine in the late seventies and in the eighties when people became more sophisticated and started to know more about wines.  

A.M: So, in 1990 you closed the place, because the building was going to be demolished, and started a new restaurant at the corner of Randolph and Michigan, at the lower level of an office building, that you called the BORDEAUX NORTH. Was it a different kind of client base? Did they request more sohisticated dishes since we were now in the early nineties?

G.C. Not really. It was more or less the same kind of clientele and the same kind of menu.  

A.M.: The next step then was in 1990 when you moved to your present location, and started KIKI’S BISTRO. It was quite a gamble at that time I suppose since your new location was a couple of blocks from Cabrini Green, a housing project of dilapidated high-rises where poverty and crime were rampant. 


G.C.:  Today, everything is fine and under control around here. But it is true that when we came to this location, at 990 N. Franklin, in November of 1990, in the same space where two restaurants had tried for a few months and closed, it was probably still too early to try again to develop a restaurant in this area. This section of town was not appealing to anybody… So it was a bit scary for many people to come here.  

A.M.: So what did you do to attract customers? Did you offer something special to motivate them to come here anyway?

G.C: First, a lot of people knew me and so they followed me here. That helped a lot from the very beginning. And the word of mouth followed. Also I got a few good reviews from restaurant critics in different newspapers, and that helped too. Also, my first chef was John Hogan who until now was the sous-chef under Jean Joho at the Everest Room. He helped me to start the place with interesting new dishes and that was good for me.     

A.M :Was the kind of food that you served at KIKI’s, when you started, different, or more sophisticated, from what you had at Le Bordeaux?

 G.C : We started with the basic French dishes like steak-frites, liver, roasted chicken, etc. But every night we had more sophisticated specials. But I had a better chef, Hogan, who had trained in France with some very well known chefs, and he was able to cook, especially the sauces, in a much lighter style, which is what people wanted then. Also at that time people started to eat less meat and wanted good fish dishes. So we gave them lots of well-prepared fish specials. 15 years ago nobody was thinking about opening a steak house in Chicago. Nobody wanted to eat red meat when I opened KIKI’s.  

A.M: And were the customers who came to KIKI’s at that time more sophisticated? More interested in wines perhaps?

G.C.:  Oh yes. Many of my customers are well educated and travel often. A large part of them go to France from time to time, some regularly. They know what is good; they have a more developed taste. Chicago also had changed a lot for the better. Nowadays you cannot make it in the restaurant business if you do not have a good chef who cooks interesting and good food.

A.M.: Would it be correct to assume that KIKI’S Bistro was the first authentic French sophisticated, post ‘’Nouvelle Cuisine’’, bistro in Chicago? And in what ways was it different from the other so-called ‘’bistros’’ since it was the beginning of a ‘’bistro craze’’ in town?

G.C: At the time it was more an Italian craze than a French one… Lots of people wanted to eat Italian, some because it was less expensive, others because it was less intimidating than eating French cuisine. Most of the French restaurants in Chicago were expensive, so many people had the wrong idea. In fact not every restaurant in France is sophisticated or expensive.  

A.M.:  Do you think that in 2006 KIKI’S BISTRO is a mix of traditional bistro and of a more sophisticated restaurant opened to new cooking directions?

G.C.:  I think so. We still keep the traditional basic French bistro dishes. In the past in France, bistros offered only simple dishes. Now they offer much more sophistication. It’s the same here. We offer more dishes with complex sauces, especially in seafood, than a regular bistro would do.

A.M.:  And do people drink more wine now those 15 years ago? And what do men and women order, red or white? Do they order more after-dinner drinks than before? What about Champagne?

G.C. Absolutely. The difference between what kind of wine men and women drink is much less evident than 15 years ago. 75% of the wine we sell in 2006 is red. Mostly French. We do not sell much brandy anymore. But do very well with Champagne. We sell a lot by the glass and Champagne rosé is very popular.

A.M.: Tell me about the now famous logo of your restaurant, a red ''Deux chevaux'' Citroen car from the fifties driven by a waiter holding his tray with a bottle of champagne up through the open convertible top.

G.C.: Yes, people love this funny picture which was created by a friend of mine, Ray Strobel, who is a marketing campaigns specialist and designs packaging concepts in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

A.M.: Let me ask you final personal question: Where did your nickname, KIKI, come from?

G.C.  When I started to work as a waiter in restaurants in Paris after I left the Ecole Hôtelière, I used to call all the other young waiters ''mon Kiki'' [Ed.note. From the popular French saying '' C'est parti mon kiki'' which means '' We are off and running'']. In return they started to call me KIKI. And for some reasons I cannot explain this nickname sticked to me for the last fifty years. In fact, nowadays relatively few people call me by my real first name.

French cheeses: A few pieces of advice on how to buy and serve them

Stéphane, When I arrived in Chicago from Paris in January of 1970, it was a very provincial, unsophisticated ''meat and potatoes'' type of town as far as food and wines are concerned. It took me a few months to find relatively adequate sources of wines, but more than two years after moving to Evanston, IL, I still had lots of problems to find decent basic cheeses. When we had French visitors for dinner, or American guests who were well-traveled and appreciated good 4 course meals, European style, I had a hard time to find the 5 basic French cheeses that I like to present on a cheese-tray, before deserts. I was lucky if Dominick's and later Treasure Islands, the only two local chains of supermarkets that sold non-American cheese, had some not too old or over-refrigerated Brie, Roquefort, Port-Salut, Swiss Gruyère, and some kind of goat cheese, most of the time a too hard and crumbling imitation Montrachet. ''Stop & Shop'', the only ''gourmet'' food shop in the Loop, downtown Chicago, had sometimes relatively fresh French Brie or Camembert, and decent non-prepacked Roquefort, but their prices were out of my league. So I had to content myself for a long time with Danish camembert in aluminum cans, Dutch Gouda, Wisconsin sharp Cheddar, American blue cheese, or later an O.K camembert produced by a small cheese producer from Lena, Illinois: Kolb. All of them were tightly wrapped and there was no packing or expiration dates. Everything changed in the mid-eighties when Chicago was placed on the international map with the arrival of many foreign banks, trade institutions and subsidiaries of European companies. They sent executives and employees from Europe with their families to work and live over here. And many of them wanted to find locally the types of food products they were used to buy and eat in their native countries. During the same period, American people started to travel more often to Europe, became less shy about experimenting with various types of French food that their parents would have never touched, discovered the joys of drinking wine with their meals, and came back to Chicago with much more sophisticated palates. At the same time Chicago became a big international air-freight hub, and a major distribution center for imported food and wine products. Not as big as New-York but more than adequate. A local market for imported food products, along with an enormous development of French, Italian, and other Mediteranean restaurants started to expand rapidly. Wine stores, like ''The Chalet'' (which became Gold Standard, and later Binny's), Sam's and many others including smaller ''boutique'' shops like Schaeffer's in Skokie, progressively widened the scope of the wines they were selling and in the early nineties, started to have ''cheese and fancy food'' departments. Since the mid nineties and more specifically since 2002, many fancy food stores, like Fox and Obel, smaller ''boutique'' grocery shops in several neighboroods of Chicago, wine and fancy frozen food products for parties like Uncork in Chicago, chains like Trader's Joe, and especially cheese boutiques like The Cheese Stands Alone or Pastoral in Chicago started to sell a large variety of cheeses from all over the world. Even supermarkets like Jewel and Dominick's have followed that trend and propose at least 25 foreign-made cheeses. And over the last 2 years, many restaurants in Chicago started to offer cheese ''platters'', either as appetizers or as a dessert course. So nowadays, I have no problem anymore to find a very wide choice of French cheeses and it's a real delight, especially now that we find a large selection of high quality traditional and specialty breads to eat with them, like artisan-style baguette, French boule, or walnut bread. Now, to try and answer your questions about how to choose cheese at the store. I hope that you will not object my being a little bit chauvinistic in limiting myself today to French cheeses, that, of course, I use at home and that I know much better that ''foreign'' and American cheese. Even though I am totally admirative of the progress American cheese makers have accomplished in a matter of 10 years in producing very high quality cheeses with their own ''terroir'' characteristics. Some of them, especially those made from goat and ewe's milk are very, very good. Also, I will take the liberty to mix info about the different cheeses themselves and how to choose them according to their look, color, smell etc. So, allow me to give you a brief mini-refreshing course on some French cheeses, and to tell you about a few ''classics'' that I would put on a ''cheese tray'' (plateau de fromages) for a special festive occasion. The essential is to find the right store with a knowledgeable cheesemonger... As you probably remember, there are close to 450 to 500 different cheeses produced in the various regions of France. Brittany is one of the few areas, which does not produce any noticable cheese. France is also the No.1 goat cheese producer in the world with more than 85.000 tons per year, allowing dairies and farmers to offer a very wide range of around 100 different types of ''chèvre'' in all kinds of shapes, colors, textures, flavors, and various types of rinds, wraps, and coatings. From the logs, to the ''crottins'', the pyramides, the ''bouchons'' and the disc shaped goat-camemberts and from the Selles-Sur-Cher and the ''Crottin de Chavignol'' in Central France, to the Banon in Provence, the Rocamadour of the Southwest, the Valençay and the Sainte-Maure fom Touraine, the Chabichou from the Poitou, without forgetting my dear ''Pélardon'' from the Cévennes, you could spend a whole year in France without having the time to discover all the local variations of ''artisan'' chèvres. Corsica is also a special haven for very tasty ''chèvres'. The largest part of the milk used to produce them is coming from areas South of the Loire River. Many regional, even lesser known, varieties of goat cheeses are now found in fancy stores in the major big cities of the United States. It is even possible sometimes, if you are lucky, to find some of them made from unpasteurized or ''heated'' milk, and therefore not admitted to the U.S. by the FDA, in some specialty shops. I have found so far close to 25 different types of goat cheeses from France in Chicago. When you want to experiment with bona-fide quality French cheeses try to limit yourself in a first stage of discovery to the AOC (Appellation d'origine Controlée) labeled cheeses. As in the case with the AOC wines this label certifies the area and the methods of production of these specific cheeses. The first award of this label was given to Roquefort in 1925. Since that time only 40 cheeses have been labeled AOC. All the cheeses I mention here after are AOC. A good cheesemonger should help you in choosing authentically certified AOC cheeses. You also have to remember that In composing a cheese tray you have to establish a good balance between different types of textures, strength and flavor, type of milk, color, and pungency. 1. Have some uncooked pressed cheeses made from cow's milk with inedible rinds but with a slightly earthy or even aromatic and sometimes pungent taste like a semi-hard CANTAL (my favorite is the half-aged SALERS) or the relatively softer but more assertive SAINT NECTAIRE. It should have a gray-slightly purplish rind and be very rich in texture and aroma. But if its smell is too strong, do not buy it. It is over the hill. The CANTAL could show some kind of blue mold near the rind. It's OK when it is an aged one. Unfortunately, recently, some French distributors start to ship Cantal in vacuum-packed chunks, instead of sending the whole wheel. The result is that this kind of Cantal gets a mushy texture and loses some of it's earthy appeal. CANTAL and SAINT NECTAIRE are among my favorite French cheeses and come from the volcanic area of Auvergne in South Central France. I love Saint Nectaire and Cantal with walnut bread or crusty country bread. You can also buy a piece of MORBIER from the Jura Mountain, near Switzerland, which is softer, more nutty, mild, but full of aroma. Make sure that it is a real Morbier and not an industrial type made in another region than Jura. The real Morbier has a line of ashes (edible) in its middle. It should never have too strong a smell. Or you can propose a REBLOCHON, a deliciously nutty disc from the area of Aravis in the French Pre-Alps, near Annecy, which should be soft and creamy but still firm inside. Do not buy it if its center has sort of collapsed and if its rind's smell reminds you too much of banyard's refuse . Morbier and reblochon are good with a rustic country ''boule''. A good TOMME de SAVOIE if you can find a recently shipped and decently ripe one, belongs to this category. I love that cheese but it is often missing its original onctuousness and its texture, if the cheese has been improperly stored and aged can be slightly chalky. 2. Then select a good quality CAMEMBERT which is a soft and creamy cheese, without any acidity, and with an edible ''flowery'' or bloomy rind, cow's milk cheese from Normandy. This cheese has been very often copied and other regions produce faux-camemberts. But you have to make sure it is a true Camembert de Normandie. Unfortunately, the U.S. FDA prohibits the importation in the U.S. of the delicious real authentic Camemberts made of raw milk. But you can find 3 decent pasteurized Camemberts in American shops. Try to locate my 2 favorites: ''Le Chatelain'' and ''Le Rustique''. They should not be refrigerated and should be served at room temperature. Discreetly lift the light wood cover of its box and smell it. It should release a relatively sweet smell but not an ammonia type of a smell which would indicate that it is too old. Then press the center of the cheese gently. It should offer some tenderness and elasticity but not too much. If it seems to collapse under your finger it is probably going to be runny and overipe. If it is still hard, and does not have any aroma, do not buy it. It is not ripe. All camemberts nowadays have a date printed on the side or the bottom of their pretty wooden boxes. Try to find one which still has 2 to 3 weeks before the expiration date. You can also try and find a good quality BRIE DE MEAUX, another soft and relatively creamy cow's milk cheese. Like Camembert you can't find the real raw-milk Brie de Meaux anymore. Make sure when you choose it that it is cut for you from the big wheel and try to avoid buying one already wrapped whose rind's stripes are too dark. If such is the case it probably means that it has spent too much time in the refrigerated storage room of some importer in New-Jersey. Most of the time, unless you can find a cheesemonger who buys fresh whole wheels of Brie, Camembert is a safer choice, especially since it is dated. Brie and Camembert are best appreciated with a chunk of fresh crusty baguette. 3. Buy a good ROQUEFORT, a ewe's milk blue cheese from South Central France. Some of my favorite brands are GRIMAL or even better CARLES. PAPILLON is O.K. Roquefort SOCIETE is made by a huge group. Unfortunately, its quality is ever changing. It can be delicious if recently imported and cut, or terrible if it has been in a distributor's cold storage for too long. Always avoid a Roquefort which falls apart, has yellow stains or spots, and is prepacked. Roquefort is at its best when it is cut by a metal string from its original wheel. It should be served at room temperature and is delicious with a light rye or nut bead. You can also buy, for much less money, a FOURME d'AMBERT, a delicious more creamy blue cheese from Northern Auvergne, or a BLEU des CAUSSES, which has a strong saltier terroir taste. I like to eat blue cheese with a slightly toasted light rye bread. But walnut bread is also very appropriate. Do not eat the rind of blue cheeses. 4. Another must on a well-balanced cheese tray is a good goat cheese. My favorite one is the semi-hard small PELARDON from the Cévennes Mountains in Southern France. But I do not think that you will find it here. The safest bets are the flat half-cone shaped SELLES sur CHER from the lower Loire Valley that has a natural rind that you can eat or the pyramidal and mild and nutty VALENCAY, or the SAINTE MAURE from Touraine. Once again make sure they have not been on the shelf or in a fridge for weeks and that they are not as hard as a stone. Do not hesitate to smell them. They should have a fresh, slighty herbal aroma, not acidic. Chevres are good with a soft country bread baked with olive oil. Sainte Maure is good on toasted slices of white ''boule''. 5. If you really want to be bold and look knowledgeable, add a PONT L'EVEQUE or a LIVAROT,two pungent cow's milk with a washed orange to brownish rind that you do not want to eat. They come from Normandy and are appreciated by the real connoisseurs. But they are not for the timid. Needless to say, I love them when they are still in their prime and still have a rich mild texture and nutty aroma. They taste great with country bread. 6. You can also have a piece of COMTE, or BEAUFORT, two cooked pressed cheeses from the French Alps or the Jura, which in some way ressembles the Swiss Gruyere. It has a very distinctive nutty taste and is perfect with rustic white bread. A light beaujolais or, even better, a wine from the SAVOIE like an APREMONT or from JURA, like an ARBOIS. As far as deciding to eat or not to eat the rind of cheeses, it is often a matter of taste. But I would personally never try and eat the rind of any hard cheese, blue cheeses, rustic mountain and Corsican goat cheeses, strong and very pungent cheeses like EPOISSES and MAROILLES, or the delicious alsatian MUNSTER, and cheeses covered with granulated coatings like ''marc''. A last piece of advice: Try to drink middle-of- the road wines with cheeses. Serving a very expensive Bordeaux or Bourgogne would be a waste of money. The chemistries of each element have a tendency to destroy each other. Always try to find a wine from the same area of the cheese. This is your safest best. For exemple: a white or red Sancerre with a Selles Sur Cher, or any good Sauvignon blanc, with a goat cheese of any area. A Saint-Pourçain with a Saint Nectaire. etc. But of course no wines are produced in Normandy. A young Bordeaux will be perfect with a Camembert. A gamay-based light wine, like a Beaujolais or a Bourgueil will also be fine with Cantal or Reblochon. Remember to always start eating the mildest cheeses first and end up with the strongest. A strong cheese demands a more powerful wine. Try a sherry like Amontillado or a good Cahors with a blue cheese. Good luck. Alain Maes

What are your tips for buying French Cheese?

Bonjour Papa, Often times in the nicer grocery stores in our area I like to buy some nice cheese. Usually I'll buy a camerbert, a roquefort, a goat cheese of some type, rebolechon, and some kind of basque sheeps milk cheese. The hardest thing I find is knowing how to pick a ripe cheese. Can you suggest some tips and tricks on choosing cheese. In the US people seem to like it before it's truely ripe. I ocassionally see Europeans smelling the cheese in the store. What's the best way to pick the best cheese of the bunch in the store? Stephane

Two simple Mediteranean dishes that I like to serve on Sunday nights.

Stéphane, As you know, even after 35 years of eating and cooking in Chicago, I, and so is your mother, am very nostalgic of the cuisine of Southern France, particularly Provence, where we lived for many years. So my favorite period of the year is from June to September, when the stands at the Evanston Farmer's market are full of fresh garlic, eggplants, zuchinis, vine-grown Wisconsin tomatoes, juicy thin-skinned onions, and later in the summer red peppers. And of course its time to cook with fresh herbs, even though you are starting to find fresh farmed herbs of acceptable quality all year long in some stores in Chicago. After months of abstinence, I can at last cook a very fragrant ratatouille, or chicken with forty cloves of garlic in olive oil with fresh thyme, or with red peppers and onions. And August is the perfect month to prepare fresh ''pistou'' the provençal equivalent of pesto, that is so good with linguini or in the traditional ''Soupe au Pistou''. So, in the middle of winter, on Sunday nights, I like to put some sunny touches on our table with a Mediterannean pasta dish, even if I have to cheat a little bit since I do not like to use winter tomatoes from Florida or Mexico. Also, when we lived in Paris, your mother and I used to have lunch quite often in a small Greek restaurant not too far from our appartment in Saint-Germain Des Prés. We developed a particular fondness for the warm aromas of this type of cuisine which became one of our favorite ''non-French'' comfort food on bleak rainy days. So, when we came to Chicago we were quite surprised to find a very vibrant Greek enclave around Halsted St. and Adams, full of very good restaurants. In fact some of them were much better than those found in Europe. I have talked with Greek expatriates who swear that Greek food in Chicago is the best in the world, and in any case, much better and inventive than in Greece. We particularly liked the ''chicken Riganati'' from the Greek Islands Restaurant on Adams. So, one Sunday night I decided to create a very simplified variation of the Greek chicken dishes that we like to eat in Greek Town. Here are two recipes, one for my Provencal Spaghetti, the other for '' Cuisses de poulet à la grecque'' that you will easily recognize: You ate them at home so many times since you were much younger. A note of caution: Do not be discouraged by the number of ingredients, preparation and cooking times. Remember that for a Frenchman, cooking a simple and relatively quick dish implies nevertheless a minimum of preparation. So be patient. This two dishes are in fact easy to prepare and cook. The essential is to keep an eye on them while they cook. So, stay close to the stove, check the color, and the consistency of what you cook often. Stir and baste regularly. Do not let the chicken get completely blackburned on the skin side, or the spaghetti sauce to get too thick and bubbling too fast. In one word, do net go back to the living room to watch the game on T.V and risking forgetting that you are cooking... Stay with a glass of wine in the kitchen. Bon appétit, Dad CUISSES DE POULET A LA GRECQUE (Broiled chicken legs in a Greek style) For 4 people Preparation: 15 minutes Cooking time: 40 minutes Ingredients:

• 6 to 8 whole chicken legs, if possible Amish or free-range type, depending on the size of the legs and the apetite of the dinners. Separate drumsticks from the thighs at the joint.
• 2 teaspoons of dried oregano (I use Trader's Joe's)
• 3 teaspoons of unsalted organic garlic powder (I use a Californian one from Trader's Joe)
• The juice of one big fresh lemon
• 1 cup of olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups of dry white wine (I use Shaw's sauvignon blanc from Trader's Joe)
• Freshly ground pepper from the mill
• salt

Preheat you oven-broiler to 475 degrees.

Cut the drumstick from the thighs (it is very easy to do with a good Wüsthof butcher's knife like the one you bought me for Christmas 4 years ago, but your butcher will be glad to do that for you if you prefer).

Remove the extra tiny layer of yellow fat at the base of the thigh next to the skin and trim loose pieces of skin and (optional) some stringy membranes covering the thigh meat on the opposite side of the skin.

Dry the pieces thoroughly with paper towels and make sure there is no moisture left on the skin.

Put the pieces, alternating drumsticks and thighs, skin up, in a long earthenware or pyrex, in any case flame resistant, rectangular dish about 2 1/2 inch deep and at least 16 inches long.

Sprinkle each piece first generously with garlic powder, and then with oregano flakes. Add salt and fresly ground pepper. Pour the lemon juice, preferably from one of those glass lemon squeezers, all over the pieces.Add olive oil to cover each piece.

Pour one cup of white wine between each piece. Keep the other cup 1/2 and add it every 10 minutes during the cooking.

Lower the oven temperature to 450 degrees and put your dish, uncovered, under the broiler. After 10 minutes, baste the pieces with the cooking juice with the help of a long spoon. After 10 more minutes get the dish out and delicately, so that you do not crack the slightly blackened skin in the juice, turn each piece to the other side. Baste again and add some wine. 10 minutes later baste gain and add some wine if necessary. The whole think should be cooked in 40 minutes. You can check with an instant thermometer that you implant in the thickest part of the thigh that the temperature has reached 170 or 175 degrees.

Serve over steamed rice (white or brown) or penne or pasta (I use Barilla's) cooked for 10 minutes in salted boiling water.

SPAGHETTI A LA PROVENCALE

For 4 people:

Preparation: 30 minute

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• One package of Thin Spaghetti (I prefer the Italian brand BARILLA)
• 2 large peeled yellow onions, chopped
• 5 large cloves of garlic, peeled and diced. Remove central grenish sprout if any before dicing.
• 4 sprigs of fresh tyme or 1 1/2 table spoon of dried thyme.
• 10 or 12 pitted Calamata black olives, rinsed several times in cold water
• One jar of Tomato basil sauce (I buy the Classico brand- 1.99 $ at Target)
• 1/2 Lb of ground round beef
• 4 or 5 medium-size very fresh and clean white mushrooms (sliced)2 tablespoon of Italian tomato paste. I like the imported Italian paste in aluminum soft tubes.
• 1/2 a cup of extra-Virgin first cold-pressed olive oil (a Spanish or Greek one will do fine)
• Half a bottle of a dry rosé wine like a ''Vieille Ferme'' rosé, a Coteaux Varois rosé, or a cheaper Côtes de Thongue rosé. If you want to go a little fancier, get a bottle of Costières de Nimes rosé.
• 1 large bay leaf
• 10 pitted medium-size Greek Calamata black
• Salt and pepper
• half a teaspoon of cayene pepper

Cooking the sauce

Chop onions and dice garlic, then gently sauté them together with a teaspoon of thyme in 3 tablespoons of olive oil, in an 11 or 12 inches ''Calphalon'' or other good quality non-stick pan for about 12 to 14 minutes at relatively low heat. They should not brown, but become soft and translucent.

If mushrooms are clean and very young, lightly brush them to remove any leftover dirt, cut the stem halfay and slice them. If they are not clean, have some dirt, and the stem is brownish and getting spongeous, cut 80% of the stem and gently peel the outer skin of the cap with a sharp small knife starting from underneath , close to the stem. Then slice them. Save them on a plate for later.

Sauté the ground beef in a small pan in 1 tablespoon of olive oil, stir it all the time with a fork to transform the beef chunks in tiny little balls. Remove the oil and water left over after cooking is completed. The ground beef should be gray and not red anymore. Save on a plate but do not refrigerate.

Pour the tomato sauce from the jar into the pan where the onion and garlic has been cooked, add the bayleaf, stir and bring to a gentle simmer. Add 1 cup of rose wine and stir well . Add 2 tablespoons of the tomato paste, stir well. Cook uncovered over low heat for about 8 minutes, then add the sliced mushrooms. Cook for 5 more minutes then add the meat and the olives. Then season with 4 rounds of the pepper mill and 2 pinches of salt. Add the cayenne pepper. stir. Cook uncovered very gently for 10 more minutes.

Cooking the pasta.

While preparing the sauce, boil 5 quarts of water in a high stainless-steel pot, like a pasta cooker. When water is boiling add one tablespoon of olive oil and one teaspoon of salt in the water. Put in a little more than 3/4 of the content of the box (or the whole box if you are very hungry) of spaghetti and immediately stir the pasta with a big spaghetti special-dented spoon so that they do not stick together. When they are all separated bring back to a boil and count about 9 to 11 minutes for '' al dente'' .

Pour the pasta in a colander and then in a big round bowl, add a table spoon of olive oil and stir well. Add the sauce on top of the pasta and stir well.

And that's it.

Good luck,

Dad

Could you give me a couple of your recipes for some simple dishes to cook on a Sunday night?

Hi Papa, As winter in California forces us to cut down on our traditional outdoor BBQing I'd like to start to make use of our oven. I rememeber many good dishes you used to make for us on Sunday evenings such as the Greek Chicken Legs that were simple, fast and delicious. Can you give me the receipe and any others you think might be suitable for a quick meal? Stephane

My favorite movies of 2005

Stéphane, 2005 was not one of the best vintage years in my long career of moviegoer. Relatively few films that I screened in the Chicago area theaters were outstanding masterpieces. And when I traveled to Paris, I did not get my usual fix of exciting new European films. Fortunately, NETFLIX was called to the rescue and I rented a few stimulating movies from that source. Here is the list of my 10 favorite 2005 films. Some of them were screened in theaters in the Chicago area and I saw the others in their DVD rental version. In that case the film title will be followed by an * 1. The World by Jia Shang-Ke (you can also rent in DVD his very interesting epic about young people during the cultural revolution , ''Platform'', but I would recommend starting with his most beautiful early film and easier to watch: ''Unknown Pleasures'') ''The World'' was one of the most innovative and dreamily beautiful feature film from China I've seen in a long time. This director, who for many years was prohibited by his government to export and sometimes shoot his films on location, is truly the best and most creative film maker of the non-official ''Chinese New Wave''. This very realistic and at the same time ''romantic'' tale about the effects of the new capitalist evolution in the major cities of China on various types of working people, takes place in a huge amusement park outside of Beijing. Its a pure visual feast and the soundtrack is also exciting. Not to be missed. 2. A history of violence by David Cronenberg I always considered this Canadian director (''Crash'', ''Spider'', ''Naked Lunch'',and others..) as one of the most original North-American filmmakers. This very powerful drama with Vigo Mortensen and the beautiful Maria Bello, and very strong performances by William Hurt and Ed Harris, takes place in a typically ''bushian'' small American town were the secret past of the main character is progressively discovered by his wife and the local sheriff. And the violence of this dark story of revenge, lie and deception, is much more than a depiction of the actual ''physical'' violence practiced by some of the characters. It is a reflexion on one of the most serious diseases of contemporary American society. As usual with Cronenberg the directing is very precise and efficient, and each shot is masterfully controlled. No need for useless artsy framing. Every technical aspect of the film, script, editing, cinematography, sound, acting, is perfectly integrated in a real artistic way of filming. 3. Good Bye Dragon Inn by Tsai Ming Liang * This Taiwanese director born in Malaysia is one my favorite Asian film makers. He was clearly influenced by some of the film-makers of the French New Wave, and even partially shot one his film, '' What time is it over there?'' in Paris with a few French actors. If you have an opportunity to see some of his earlier and most recent film like ''Rebels of Neon God'', ''The Hole'', ''The River'' or ''Vive L'amour'', do not hesitate and see them or rent them on Netflix. They are all available in DVD. As it is often the case in this director's films , the rhythm of this one is very slow, there is not much apparent action taking place, and the mood of most of the characters is very subjective and reflective. But the beauty and the architecture of the shots is totally out of the ordinary. The (limited in scope) story revolves around the interaction between the few remaining employees and some isolated patrons during the last show of an old movie theater about to go out of business. It is, to me, a quite moving and fascinating film. 4. 2046 by Wong Kar Wai. * Another of my favorite Asian directors, this very talented man from Hong-Konk, but born in Shanghai, had probably, so far, the most successful commercial career of the non-chinese Asian directors along with the Japanese T. Kitano, that I like a lot too. He made the very stylish ''Chungking Express'', many years back, but some of his most beautiful features are'' Happy Together'', ''Fallen Angels'' and especially ''In the Mood for Love'', with Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, who are among the best Hong Kong-based actors. Maggie Cheung is married to the very good French film director, Olivier Assayas, and was the star of his beautiful ''Irma Vep'' some years back . Hong Kar Wai has been lucky to benefit since Chungking Express, from the collaboration of a very gifted Australian cinematographer from Hong Kong, Christopher Doyle, who developed for him an incredibly lyric but contemporary visual style. 2046 in some way is a sequel to ''In the mood for love'' and is played by the same two actors who try to communicate and give a sense to their life. It is stunningly beautiful and full of enigmatic metaphors, the meaning of the number itself remaining a semi-mystery. Many scenes were shot on location in China and Macao. 5. Saraband by Ingmar Bergman * This is the painful story of a long-time ago divorced and now aging couple, that already was the subject of Bergman's made- for- T.V hit '' Scenes from a Marriage''. The two main characters are played by the same two great actors, Liv Ulmann, who was the leading lady in many Bergman's films and was his partner in life for many years, and Erland Josephson, also a Bergman veteran. They reunite in the old man's country house for a short time many years later. He is a wealthy retired author and she is a still active lawyer. They try to reconnect and she shares the problems of the daughter of the widowed and depressed adult son of her former husband who live with her dad in a small guest house on the property. The daughter is a talented young cellist whose life and playing style is totally controlled by her father. All this is shot masterfully in digital video by the old 85 years old Swedish master, who is far from senile. It is a pure cinematic and emotional trip. An uneasy but most satisfying film. The cello-based soundtrack is quite atmospheric too. 6. Kings and Queen, by Arnaud Desplechin A. Desplechin is one of the most gifted members of the new generation of French film makers. This film was very controversial in France since he obviously used some episodes of his own private life with a relatively famous French actresss to create the character of a woman(the very talented Emanuelle Devos) who has some problems to adjust to the demands of her entourage and the psychological peculiarities of her ex-lover (funny Mathieu Amalric) who is probably less lunatic that he seems but is nevertheless subjected to all kinds of psychiatric treatments. Some scenes with his parents, and his hospital psychiatrist (stunning Catherine Deneuve) are hilarious. But it is far from being a comedy... and when you leave the theater, you keep asking yourself lots of questions about this film... and about yourself too. 7. Tropical Malady, by Apichatpong Weerasethakul. This strangely passionate but serene and very ''different'' film was one of the few real revelations at the Cannes film festival last year. It is the third film by this, until now, relatively unknown Thai author-director who received part of his artistic education at the School of the art Institute in Chicago. The film in fact contains two distinct parts and tells the story of a Thai soldier who becomes enamoured with a simple but seductive village boy. In the second part, full of ritualistic and mystic allegories, local legends, talking monkeys and a mysterious tiger that is in fact the spirit of his young lover, the soldier tracks the boy (or the tiger) in a jungle-type forest full of fascinating lights and sounds. But sometimes the hunter is in fact, without realizing it, tracked by his prey. Totally fascinating and very creative cinematically speaking. The soundtrack is superb. 8. Capote, by Bennett Miller If you want at the same time a very good narrative process, a stunning actor's performance, and a no-nonsense film direction, this is your film. Phillip Seymour Hoffman (already so good in ''Magnolia'' some years ago) literally inhabits the famous self-destructive, very conflicted, super-bright, but manipulative American author. It is even scary that he can be so good at recreating a believable physical reality (voice and mannerisms included) for Truman Capote, that we totally forget that he is only an actor doing a superb creation and not the real person. My only regret is that the film is almost entirely devoted to the story behind ''In cold blood'' and neglects so many other fascinating aspects and complexities of Capote's persona. 9. The beat that my heart skipped, By Jacques Audiard You should try and rent two of the earlier films (only 5 features so far) made by this talented French director, who himself is the son of a famous script and dialogs writer: The very entertaining ''A self-made hero' and the atmospheric and thrilling ''Read my lips''. This film, brillantly adapted from James Toback's ''Fingers'' tells the story of a small-time gangster (played intelligently by the seductive Romain Duris that you might have seen in ''l'auberge espagnole'') , the son of a criminal real-estate whealer dealer, who decides to get back to the piano playing that his mother, a former concert pianist, had taught him and to become a concert pianist himself. He partially succeeds to redeem his life with the help of a beautiful and mysterious chinese pianist who does not speak a word of French but manages to transform him in many ways. But his past eventually gets back to him. Very efficient directing. Great sense of rhythm, very elegant cinematography and great acting, with interesting supporting actors. Even though it doesn't try to be a cinematic masterpiece, this film shows a very precise knowledge of cinematic craft. 10. (tie) Mondovino, by Jonathan Nossiter To fully appreciate the intricacies and socio-political meanings of this stimulating documentary on, as the title implies, the world of wine, you better know a little something about the different types of wine, how they are produced, and have a vague idea of what coutries are the main sources of this precious liquid. Nossiter, a Canadian journalist living in France, has put together a hugely entertaining investigation about the evolution of wine making and wine selling in various parts of the world. He interviewed, on location in Italy, France, California, Chile, etc. various actors of this not so ''clean'' business: Traditional small growers, big multinational corporations executives, influential consultants, a famous wine writer (Parker), wholesalers and merchants, etc. The result is a often hilarious, but in the end very serious, analysis of the trends, fortunes and misfortunes, lots of B.S., and nostalgias of lost traditions, found in that strange world. No fancy camera movements or soundtracks. But a very efficient and entertaining way of telling a story The last days, by Gus Van Sant To me, along Abel Ferrara, Gus van Sant is one of the most original American directors. If you never had a chance of seing '' Elephant'' (which won the ''Palme d'or'' top prize at the Cannes Festival in 2003), and '' Gerry'', you should rent these vey important films some day. Even though this film, depicting in a very eerie and hauntingly beautiful way the last lonely and very depressing moments of the life of a very successful but unconventional rock star, whom everybody guessed was based on Kurt Cobain's own tragic end, is not as impressive as his two above mentioned great pieces, it is indeed a very interesting exercise in filming style. Good viewings... Alain

Could you give me your list of the best Films of the Year?

Bonjour Papa, With the Oscars being just around the corner I'm curious to get a list of your choices for the 10 best films of 2005. Since we have your grandson with us we no longer are able to get to the movies and are out of touch with what good films we have missed. With your annual 10 best list we can begin to queue up the rental list to catch up before the Oscars. I'd imagine your list will be much more diverse and interesting that the Oscar nominations anyway. Stephane

Paris restaurants: Some of my favorite good and decently priced restaurants in Paris

Stephane, Even though I do not travel to Paris on business as often as I used to, I still have a good stock of nice addresses. Nowadays I privilege bistrots- type restaurants that specialize in traditional French cuisine, but with a flair for creativity, and above all, whose chefs use good products. I attach of course a great importance to what Americans call ''value'' which for me is a good price-quality ratio, especially when restaurants offer '' menu-cartes''. Also I would never consider a restaurant with an overpriced wine list, which I found out during my last trip to Paris in October, is more and more frequent there, especially since many restaurateurs felt obliged to lift their prices when the Franc was replaced by the Euro. Let me know if some of your contacts try some establishments listed below. I am always interested to learn from recent end-users whether or not I should keep or remove an address from the list. Note of Caution: I cannot guarantee that all these resataurants are still owned by the same persons in 2007, therefore I decline any responsability for meals that might not fit your expectations after reading this guide. March 2007 A word of caution: Mots prices are probably inacurate in july 2007 ALAIN MAES’s FAVORITE RESTAURANTS AND BISTROTS IN PARIS Places where you can eat for less than 50 Euros Restaurants where you can have a good 3 course meal, for under 50 Euros (about 68 U.S dollars in July 2007) per person, including a glass of wine,coffee and tip, which is always included anyways. These prices date back to January, 2005 When a restaurant offers a ‘’menu-carte’’ (fixed price menu offering several options for each course) do not hesitate to choose it. It will allow you to taste a wider selection of dishes and creations from the chef for a substantially cheaper price than when you order ‘’à la carte’’ Note: The asterisk indicates one of my favorite eateries where I return quite often. From Sèvres-Babylone to Saint-Germain des Prés, the Seine River and the Latin Quarter (6 ème, 5 ème arrondissements) L’EPI DUPIN * 11 Rue Dupin PARIS 6 Tel : 01-42-22-6456 Closed on Monday for lunch, all day Saturday and Sunday, and the first three weeks of August Métro station : Sèvres-Babylone Average price per person: 35 Euros It is imperative to reserve a couple of days in advance, since this bistrot is very popular and has a limited number of tables, relatively close to each other. Very creative cooking based on intelligent mixes of flavors. Always try the new “plats du jour” especially those based on fish, great variations on interesting vegetables, and fowl. They change quite often in one of the most sophisticated and inventive but fair-priced (around 32 euros) « menus-cartes » in Paris, according to whatever the chef-owner (François Pasteau) found that morning at the market or based on his mood that day. Nice, and unpretentious environment. Sometimes you will be greeted in English and the service is most of the time very pleasant. Delicious homemade deserts based on chocolate and fresh fruits. Luscious sorbets. LES BOUQUINISTES 53 Quai des Grands Augustins PARIS 6 Tel : 01-43-25-45-94 Closed for lunch on Saturday and all day Sunday. Open in August. Métro Station : Saint-Michel Average price per person: 50 Euros This elegant ‘’design’’ bistrot, next to the Seine River, belongs to Guy Savoy, who owns one of the most famous and innovative 3 stars restaurants of Paris in the 17 ème arrondissement. The fare is half way between traditional ‘’cuisine du marché’’ based on simple but beautiful products and a trendy way of cooking. It is a safe bet but the place can be sometimes noisy, since too many foreign tourists sent by concierges visit it. But is a restaurant where the serious eater is well treated by a competent staff. If you are not too hungry, try the less expensive ‘’menu-carte’’’ LA ROTISSERIE D’EN FACE 2 rue Christine PARIS 6 Tel : 01-43-26-40-98 Closed for lunch on Saturday and Sunday all day. Open in August. Métro station : Odéon ou St Michel Average price per person: 49 Euros. This is the second restaurant of Jacques Cagna, whose eponymous, very good but much more expensive restaurant (that I love) is across the street. On the plus side you can eat there, until late at might, well prepared traditional French dish in the “ modernized cuisine bourgeoise » category. Especially good quality roasted duck, guinea hen, chicken lamb etc. with very decent and well-seasoned vegetables. Good selection of lesser-known regional wines. On the negative side this place is always packed, often with American tourists, noisy, and recently some dishes have become overpriced. Go there on a Monday or Tuesday night, either early or late. Relatively fairly priced ‘’menu-carte’’ (around 42 euros). Even better try a late lunch (around 28 euros) FISH (LA BOISSONERIE) 69 rue de Seine Paris 6 Tel : 01-43-54-34-69 Closed on Monday. Métro station : Saint-Germain des Prés Average price per person: 32 Euros Amusing and simple but cozy bistro owned by an American expatriate who has also a good wine shop nearby and a sandwich shop across the street. Therefore do not be surprised if you are seating next to English speaking guests. Very tasty Mediterranean dishes and a good selection of good wines from the Languedoc area. A good choice for lunch when you shop for cool clothes or visit the many antique shop of this beautiful and history rich neighborhood in the St. Germain Des Prés district. . Relatively cheaper lunch and dinner menus around 22 euros to 30 euros. For a substantial snack and to drink a couple of glasses of good regional wines: AU SAUVIGNON 80 Rue des Saints-Pères PARIS 7 Closed on Sunday and in August. Métro: Sèvres-Babylone Average price per person with a couple of glasses of wine: 20 Euros Very good ‘’ tartines’’ made with Pain Poilane, a well known baker located one block away, and very tasty Cantal cheese, dry cured or raw ham, mountain air cured dry sausage, rillettes, country pâtés, etc. Excellent selection of white wines from the Loire Valley (Quincy, Sancerre), and reds from Bourgueil or Mennetou-Salon. CHEZ MAITRE PAUL 12 Rue Monsieur Le Prince Paris 6 01-43-54-74-59 Open every day Metro station: ODEON Average price per person: 38 to 40 euros Once you are sitting comfortably and look at the immaculate white tablecloth, you could bet that you have been transported back to the late forties or fifties in an auberge in some distant province. There you can completely forget that you are still at the heart of the Latin Quarter and its vibrant environment. This is one of the last restaurants in Paris still attached to very traditional methods of cooking and serving food of yesteryear. The recipes are essentially the same since the restaurant opened more than 60 years ago and they focus entirely on hearty, but flavorful, dishes from the mountainous area of the Jura and Franche-Comté areas, near the Swiss border. Superb and rare vintages of wines from the Jura, including Vin de paille and Vin jaune, or Vin d’Arbois. Reserve a couple days before. A couple of miles away between the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Pantheon, and Jussieu: LE BUISSON ARDENT * 25 Rue de Jussieu PARIS 5 Tel: 01-43-54.93.02 Closed on Saturday for lunch, Sunday and in August Metro: Jussieu Average price: 35 euros Owned and managed by two brothers (one of them is the chef), this delightful but small old-style bistrot offers a very astute, always original, ‘’cuisine of the market’’ and very attractive menus at decent prices (29 euros for dinner) .You may think that you are dining in a small provincial village café. Close to the Jussieu University it is always packed with college professors for lunch so it is better to go there at night, on a Tuesday or Wednesday for example. Call ahead. Very good nicely priced small Bordeaux. WARNING: I returned there in July of 2007 and it had changed ownership. The menu was much less interesting. I intend to drop it from my list. CHANT AIRELLE 17 Rue Laplace Paris 5 Tel : 01-46-33-18-59 Closed on Saturday for lunch and Sunday. Metro station: Cardinal Lemoine or Luxembourg Average price : 30 euros An oddity: The owner recreated the ambiance and ‘’sounds’’ of a village in his native Auvergne Mountains: Including a nice summer patio. You can enjoy simply but authentically prepared copious rustic dishes from that area, like stuffed cabbage, delicious country hams, pates, and cheeses, trout, beautiful blueberry tarts, etc. The wine list of inexpensive but exciting regional wines and spirits is worth mentioning. And you will relax while listening to the ‘’sound track’’ of birds, frogs, and river waterfalls. Their breads are pretty good too. A little shop at the entrance sells some local food specialties. It is far from being classy and airy cuisine, but it is worth checking for lunch. LES VIGNES DU PANTHEON * 4 rue des Fossés Sant Jacques Paris 5 01-43-54-80-81 Closed Saturday and Sunday and in August Metro station: Luxembourg Average price 37 euros A delightful charmer of a bistro, with its nice old zinc bar and booths in the first room and more sedate and comfortable settings in the backroom. The owner is a perfect and charming hostess. And the quality of the traditional food, marked by a subtle Southwestern accent, is very consistent. Beautiful terrines and flavorful duck. Great desserts. A very astute but limited wine list offers some interesting regional wines at decent prices. From the Pont Neuf to the old district of Les Halles, and past the Pompidou Center. (1er and 3eme arrondissements) AU CHIEN QUI FUME 33 Rue du Pont Neuf PARIS 1 Tel: 01-42-36-07-42 Open on Sunday and in August. Métro station : Châtelet- Les Halles Average price per person: 40 Euros I found this place, in business since 1740, in 1963 when I was a student at the Sorbonne and continued to go there from time to time with the same renewed pleasure. This is one of the last remaining charmingly old-fashioned bistrots in the old Halles district, which was a typical good all-night eating place 50 years ago. Old customers as well as tourists are still decently treated there. The famous “smoking dog” is all over the place in warm and comfortable settings, but not in the chow, which is very traditional “old Parisian”. Very nice home-made foie gras for a very fair price. Good quality comfort food. Very nice wine list. Try the very attractive 3 course menus (around 32 euros) A good lunch stop after shopping. LA POULE AU POT 9 Rue Vauvilliers PARIS 1 01-462-36-32-96 Closed on Monday Metro station: Louvre or Les Halles Average price per person: 42 euros In the same area, a few blocks away from Le Chien qui fume, this old-fashioned long an narrow bistro with nice vintage posters on the walls welcomes, since 1935, eaters with a sturdy appetite for traditional comfort food: Its deliciously fragrant signature dish: chicken in the pot, traditional stews, Normandy style tripes, eggs cocotte with foie gras,) until 5 AM. It is a fine place to rediscover on a gray rainy winter day… Or after a mid-day visit of Le Louver or an early concert at St. Eustace. Good 30 euros menu. For a quick snack and a couple of glasses of good wine LA TAVERNE HENRI IV 13 place du Pont Neuf (on the Pont Neuf) PARIS 1 Tel: 01-43-54-27-90 Closed Sunday and in August Métro station : Pont-Neuf Average price per person with a couple of glasses of wine: 20 Euros Try some ‘’tartines’’ (super open-face sandwiches) and plates of good quality country and artisan hams, dry sausage, cheese etc. Also simple lunch dishes such as ‘’Croque-monsieur’’ But you go there for fantastic regional wines from the Beaujolais or Loire Valley that you drink by the glass or in small carafes. L’AMBASSADE D’AUVERGNE 22 Rue du grenier Sant-Lazare Paris 3 01-42-72-31-22 Open every day Metro station : Rambuteau Average price per person: 32 euros If you feel really hungry, depressed by the rainy and cold weather, and you never had a chance to eat a superb ‘’aligot’’ once in your life, then, after calling to reserve, rush there and enjoy the best that the volcanic area of the Auvergne has to offer in terms of gastronomy. Start by ordering a bottle of Saint-Pourçain, a marvelously easy to drink regional wine, and start with a few samples of local hams, terrines and other local amuse-bouches, and then be ready for an order of saucisse-aligot. This specialty is made of fresh cantal cheese curds heated in mashed potatoes with cream, butter and crushed coarse garlic until it produces unctuous stringy ribbons which are served directly from the pot into you plate at the table. The juicy and well seasoned ‘’saucisse auvergnate’’, or even a piece of roasted duck and a piece of rustic bread to accompany this incredibly rich dish are a must. Polish it down with a glass of another wine from this beautiful area. No need to plan for dinner if you go there for lunch. But you will not forget it. Besides the décor and the service are also very…comforting. From the Montparnasse area to the Ecole Militaire (14 ème and 7 ème arrondissements) LE BISTROT DU DOME 1 Rue Delambre PARIS 14 Tel : 01-43-35-32-00 Open on Sunday and in August Métro: Vavin Average price per person: 39 Euros The ideal spot to eat super-fresh and well prepared fish, shellfish and crustaceans in contemporary but comfortable settings, without losing your shirt. But never go there on a Saturday night when service can be hurried and the noise level quite high. The client base is rather cool and the décor, modernist in the ‘’early seventies’’ style does not excite me too much anymore. But altogether it is a relatively relaxed type of place where ‘’value’’ is the key word. L’AMUSE BOUCHE * 186 Rue du Château (at the corner with Avenue du Maine) PARIS 14 Tel : 01-43-35-31-61 Closed on Sunday and Monday and in August Métro: Gaîté or Mouton-Duvernet (easier to go there by cab) Average price per person: 35 Euros Minuscule but nicely appointed and very cozy restaurant of about ten tables very well managed for many years by a very nice, discrete, but very professional husband and wife team: Mr. And Mrs.Lambert. The prix-fixe ‘’ Menu-carte” (30 euros) which is limited but changes very often is very attractive and includes many creative and lovely dishes. Portions might prove to be a little too small for a solid American appetite, but the cuisine is so refined and well prepared that you do not leave the place with a feeling of frustration. Nice limited but well priced wine-list. Note of caution: L' Amuse bouche was sold to new owners in 2006 and I did not go there since that change occured LA FONTAINE DE MARS 129 Rue Saint Dominique Paris 7 Tel : 01-47-05-46-44 Open on Sunday. Closed in August. Métro : Ecole Militaire Average price per person: 40 Euros One of the most pleasant and relaxing old-fashioned bistrots in Paris. The warm decor is very comforting in rainy cold days and in the summer it is particularly enjoyable to be able to eat lunch outside when tables are set on the sidewalk next to the fountain. Problem is: There are a lot of tourists, American in particular, who are also fond of that place… The cooking is ultra provincial and traditional with a tendency to propose hearty dishes from the Southwest. Very good grilled duck filets and duck confit. The “petits pâtés chauds’’ are a very tasty appetizer. Good gigot d'agneau. But you can always rely on the ‘’plat du jour’’. Good selection of wines from the Southwest like a very good Madiran and a decent and reasonably priced ‘’Réserve F de M’’. I prefer the room downstairs. Prices have a tendency to get a little bit too high. IT IS IN THIS RESTAURANT THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA, FAMILY AND A COUPLE OF FRIENDS ATE ON JUNE 6 2009 DURING THEIR VISIT TO PARIS. From La Motte-Piquet-Grenelle to the Pont Mirabeau (15 ème arrondissement) LE TROQUET 21 Rue François Bonvin Paris 15 Tel : 01-45-66-89-00 Closed on Sunday and Monday and in August. Métro Sèvres-Lecourbe (its easier to go to this restaurant by taxi ) Average price per person: 37 euros An attractive different type of restaurant with a high price-quality ratio that offers a perfect mix of regional traditional Basque cuisine and creative contemporary cooking. There is only one ‘’prix-fixe’’ menu-carte that changes every day according to what the chef finds at the market. But nobody complains about the very limited choice of dishes since each of them is perfectly prepared, including the very creative and incredibly tasty soups that start each meal. Wonderful, nicely priced wines from the Southwest, particularly the Bearn and Basque country. It is imperative to reserve a couple days in advance if you plan to go from Thursday to Saturday. Only two seatings for the second at 9 PM to be less hurried. With vintage cartoons prints on the walls, the room is rather simple and rustic and the décor unpretentious. FONTANAROSA 28 Boulevard Garibaldi Paris 15 Tel : 01-45-66-97-84 Open on Sunday Métro : Cambronne Average price per person: 42 euros Go there for lunch in the summer to eat outside on a very enjoyable small terrace. Otherwise during the week have dinner in the very cozy and comfortable room of this reliable Italian restaurant offering pleasant service and flavorful food based on good quality products. The marvelous Italian appetizers buffet table where the grilled vegetable shine is a must. Very good pasta. But a bit too expensive… Good Italian wine list, but once again overpriced. STEPHANE MARTIN 67 Rue des Entrepreneurs Paris 15 Tel: 01-45-79-03-31 Closed Sunday and Monday and 3 weeks in August Metro: Felix Faure or Commerce Average price per person: 32 euros Several rather trendy dishes can be tasted in the very good and fair priced ‘’menu-carte’’ (32 euros). But the inventive chef-owner also offers a lot of creativity in several ever changing ‘’cuisine du marché’’ dishes that you can choose from a very attractive lunch prix-fixe (27 euros with wine), along with their delicious home-made breads, like thin sliced raw duck foie gras with wild grasses. Very peaceful book club ambiance when the level of conversations is not too high. From Gare de Lyon to the République and Oberkampf districts (12ème and 11 ème arrondissements) LA BICHE AU BOIS * 45 avenue Ledru-Rollin Paris 12 Tel : 01-43-43-34-38 Closed on Sunday, Saturday and Monday for Lunch, and in August Métro : Gare de Lyon Average price per person: 28 to 30 euros Forget about trends and Paris: In this noisy, smoky, sometimes overcrowded but authentically French provincial bistrot in business at the same spot since the nineteen twenties, you are back at the heart of old fashioned ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’. But what a pleasure to taste savory rabbit, pheasant or duck pâtés and terrines, tender fillets of doe or young wild boar in properly reduced sauces, roasted wild duck or partridge… And never bypass some of the best French fries in Paris, made the old way in two separate frying baths. Some of their marvelous and very moderately priced small Bordeaux are by themselves worth the trip to this boring avenue near the Gare de Lyon train station. Service is simple but considerate. Expect to wait for your table to be free. The perfect place for a ‘’buddies’’ dinner on a Thursday night. At lunch, service can be hurried. LES ZYGOMATES 7 rue de Capri Paris 12 Tel : 01-40-19-93-04 Closed Sunday and Monday and in August Métro : Daumesnil Prix moyen : 30 euros The charming decor of this former butcher shop from the turn of the 19th century is a perfect spot for a tasty lunch with friends. The chef who trained with some of the best in Paris prepares very astute dishes halfway between creative modern cuisine and traditional French comfort food. Great regional wine list which includes some very good burgundies at reasonable prices. LES AMOGNES * 243 Rue du Faubourg Saint Antoine PARIS 11 Tel : 01-43-72-73-05 Closed on Sunday and Monday, and 3 weeks in August. Métro : Faidherbe-Chaligny. Average price per person: 35 euros The chef-owner, who was at one point the sous-chef at ‘’l’Archestrate’’, has been offering for more than 12 years, in a pseudo country inn décor which could be more exciting, one of the most innovative and reasonably-priced ‘’menu-cartes’’ ( 33 euros), for such a level of quality, in Paris. Without pretense but with a very precise cooking technique, he works tasty marvels with good quality simple products, especially great vegetables, which creatively offer unusual combinations of aromas. The wine list is full of small regional little known gems. WARNING: New Ownership. But I understand that it is still very good according to recent reviews. Le C’ AMELOT 50 Rue Amelot Paris 11 Tel : 01-43-55-54-04 Closed on Sunday, Saturday and Monday for lunch and in August Avoid Saturday nights which are too crowded and affected by a slow service. Métro : Chemin Vert Prix moyen : 35 euros Even though the decor, plates, and silver, seem to have been assembled from bits and pieces found in a flea market, and chances are that your table will be too close for comfort to the next one, you will enjoy a clever and very tasty ‘’cuisine de marché” in this establishment. The chef composes daily a short menu made of only a few inventive specials according to the season and what is best at the farmer’s market. The consistent quality of the ingredients and the imaginative precision of the cooking let you forget about the short list of options on the menu that is written daily on a blackboard. Good bargain lunches. Some attractive wines. ASTIER 44 Rue Jean Pierre Timbaud * Paris 11 Tel : 01-43-57-16-35 Closed (unfortunately) on Saturday and Sunday and in August. Métro : Parmentier or Oberkampf Prix moyen : 35 euros When I need to boost my morale and crave for authentic provincial cooking of bygone times, I call a couple of old friends and we rush to this amazingly austere bistro which has been my favorite for years. You will feast on simple but so tasty classics as ‘’ lapin à la moutarde’’ (rabbit in mustard sauce), navarin d’agneau (young lamb stew with spring vegetables), veal blanquette, roasted guinea hen, incredibly savory terrines, marinated herrings in white wine, and the most spectacular cheese tray which can be chosen from an amazing daily changing ‘’menu-carte’ for the incredibly low price of 27 euros, including dessert. Astier has one of the best collections of small ‘’crus bourgeois’’ of Bordeaux at lovingly soft prices. Reserve and stay in the room downstairs. Finish with a marvelous ‘’prune de Souillac’’. Note of caution: ASTIER has new owners since 2006 and I did not return there since management changed. But reviews are still very positive. For a substantial snack and to drink a couple of glasses of good regional wines: LE CLOWN BAR 114 Rue Amelot Tel: 01-43-55-87-35 Closed For lunch on Sunday Métro : Filles du Calvaire Average price per per person with 2 glasses of wine : 25 euros This incredible bar next to the ‘’Cirque d’Hiver’’ has only a few tables but whether you sit down or you stand at the old ‘’zinc’’ counter to eat the ‘’ Plat du Jour’’ (special of the day which could turn out to be a very tasty like daube of beef or lamb with beans) or limit yourself to a plate of sausage, rabbit rillettes, or smoked ham, you will appreciate the special ambience and admire the very old art deco frescoes on the them of the circus which decorate the walls. Meanwhile enjoy a glass or two of very decent Beaujolais or Fitou and have a chat with other patrons. Very ‘’sympathique’’… Between the Champs-Elysées, Porte Maillot and the Gare de l’EST ( 8ème 9ème, 17ème CHEZ ANDRE 12 rue Marbeuf Paris 8 Tel : 01-47-20-59-57 Open every day. Métro : Franklin-Roosevelt Average price per person: 40 euros This old (since 1937) typical traditional Parisian bistro has remained faithful to its culinary traditions of yesteryear and has a solid following of ‘’regulars’’ who are not necessarily young or trendy. But it makes this ‘’antique’’ and warm place even more attractive and different in that ‘’hyper’’ and slightly depressing business and touristy district. It offers old style appetizers like ‘terrine de canard’’ or ‘’poireaux vinaigrette’’ (warm boiled leeks in a vinaigrette and parsley dressing), for the typical single male workers of the quartier who come here for lunch, and very honorable ‘’bourgeois’’ dishes like frog legs, leg of lamb with beans, veal normande, or bouillabaisse. Desserts like Baba au rhum and Clafoutis are deliciously obsolete. The few old waitresses still working there seem to be extras from a film shot in the late thirties. A comforting lunch stop in winter after shopping on the Champs Elysées which are 200 yards away. Le BALLON DES TERNES 103 Avenue des Ternes Paris 17 Tel : 01-45-74-17-98 Closed in August Metro : Porte Maillot Average price : 48 euros A typical old style (beautiful 1900 décor) Parisian ‘’brasserie’’ which has the advantage of serving pristinely fresh oysters and many other sea delicacies, traditional bistrot-style dishes like grilled andouillette with frites, or brandade with salad of greens, and nice pieces of tender beef anytime, even late at night. Very professional service and good regional wines. Problem is: its always very busy, so go late or early or call. It also has become a bit pricey… CAVES PETRISSANS 30 Bis avenue Niel Paris 17 Tel : 01-42-27-52-03 Closed Saturday, Sunday and in August Metro: Charles De Gaulle Etoile Average price: 43 euros Incredibly versatile wine bistro for those who love a very large choice of regional and traditional good quality wines. Very good, but relatively small selection of traditional ‘’cuisine bourgeoise’’ and country dishes including very fine pâtés and terrines LE CAFÉ d’ANGEL 16 rue Brey Paris 17 01-47-54-03-33 Closed Saturday, Sunday, holidays, and August Metro: Charles de Gaulle-Etoile Average price : 38 to 40 euros In this not too exciting ‘’hyper bourgeois’’ area, populated during the day by office workers, executives, and business people, and at night by older people and lost tourists, it is refreshing to be able to rely on such a well managed and satisfying bistrot a few blocks fron the Arc de Triomphe. The room is nicely appointed with non-aggressive contemporary touches like decorative tiles on the walls and confortable banquettes, with an open kitchen at the end. The food is a well balanced mix of modern classics, including good ‘’fish du jour’’ and traditional more ‘’country’’ type of dishes like kidneys or braised fowl. Good desserts based on chocolate and fruits. The best deal is the lunch menu (22 euros). L’ALSACO * 10 Rue Condorcet Paris 9 Tel : 01-45-26-44-31 Closed for lunch on Saturday and Monday, all day Sunday, and in August Métro : Poissonnière, or Anvers. Average price per person: 35 euros (for a ‘’serious’’ meal and a couple of glasses of first rate Alsatian wine) As far as I am concerned, this typical small ‘’winstube’’, in spite of a very modest and serves the most authentic and satisfying Alsatian food and wines in the French capital. During the long and cold winter days of Chicago dreaming of its ‘’ Choucroute garnie’’ warms me up. The owner, who can be either charming and talkative or aloof and cold according to his moods, buys its ingredients, especially its sublime cabbage in the small village of Krautergersheim, et its artisan sausages hams and other high quality pork delicacies from another village well known for its ‘’charcuterie’’. The flaming tart, the pear sorbet with ‘’williamine’’ brandy, and the fantastic selection of wines from Lorentz and other reputable growers are worth the detour. It can be noisy and very busy. Go there for a late lunch in the middle of the week just before a walk to Montmartre. Bon Appétit. Alain Maes October 2005