This page: scallops with parsnips at the tapas-inspired Le Dauphin; opposite: afternoon rush at Belleville’s established Le Baratin bistro
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departures-international.com
This page: scallops with parsnips at the tapas-inspired Le Dauphin; opposite: afternoon rush at Belleville’s established Le Baratin bistro
1
departures-international.com
Belleville
RENDEZVOUS
In Paris’s eclectic, boho-chic arrondissement, a new generation of chefs are veering from tradition to capture the gastronomic zeitgeist, discovers
JEFFREY T IVERSON Photographs by Roberto Frankenberg
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T
o turn into the narrow Rue Sainte-Marthe in northeastern Paris’s Belleville neighbourhood on a typical Thursday night is to immerse oneself in a lively, village-like quartier from another Parisian epoch. Toward the top of the street, a champagne-tasting crowd has spilled out onto the cobblestones in front of the avant-garde wine shop La Contre-Étiquette. Oenophiles mingle and wander across the street, glass in hand, into the boutique of Carlos Gutierrez, who’s handing out samples of astounding 48-monthcured Ibérico ham and Spanish-raised Wagyu beef. A couple doors down, service is finally winding down at the restaurant Le Galopin, and young chef Romain Tischenko steps out for a pause cigarette. Greeting his neighbours, soon Tischenko is sharing a glass of brioche-redolent vintage bubbly with wine shopkeeper Fabrice Mansouri and friends. Meanwhile, down the street, past the small tree-lined plaza with its animated café terraces, gourmets are gathered around a single table in the tiny delicatessen La Tête dans les olives, feasting on succulent Sicilian dishes. That these epicurean scenes have become recurrent today is no longer a secret. France’s Le Fooding guide now lauds Rue Sainte-Marthe as the street of “la bouffe ultra” – extraordinary eats. La Tête dans les olives, opened by Cédric Casanova in 2008, today supplies restaurants and palaces – from the Plaza Athénée to the Élysée – with rich, piquant Sicilian olive oils, sundried tomatoes and other delicacies, and Casanova’s two-table d’hôtes (held both at La Tête and at Casanova’s second boutique, Le Conservatoire, just up the street) are among the most coveted reservations in the capital. Newly arrived Carlos Gutierrez at Le 31 (named for the street number) boasts an equally star-studded clientele, and Paris chefs adore his sensational Spanish imports. Among them is
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Left: Sicilian olive oil on offer at the tiny La Tête dans les olives; clockwise from left: pig cheek stew and fresh vegetables at the acclaimed Le Baratin; Fabrice Mansouri at his wine shop La Contre-Étiquette; raw-boned interiors at Le Galopin; Cédric Casanova, the man behind La Tête dans les olives and Le Conservatoire
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Clockwise from top left: Belleville patriarch Inaki Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand; foie gras with pickled radish in smoked fish emulsion and lemon puree at Roseval; newcomer Carlos Gutierrez handling Ibérico ham at his restaurant Le 31; a convivial stroll down the Rue Sainte-Marthe for brothers Romain and Maxime Tischenko of Le Galopin and La Contre-Étiquette’s Fabrice Mansouri
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Tischenko, who swears Gutierrez’s Wagyu was his secret to winning France’s Top Chef competition in 2010 (he then opened the inventive and wildly popular Le Galopin in 2011 with brother Maxime). Rather chic residents, one might say, for an old working-class street. Yet Rue SainteMarthe is a gateway to Belleville, the raffish, hilly, multicultural neighbourhood once haunted by singer Edith Piaf, and where today a gastronomic renaissance is brewing. Authentic atmospheres and affordable rents are inspiring young chefs with excellent pedigree, but limited budgets to launch their first restaurants. But Belleville’s draw wouldn’t be so strong were it not already home to two of Paris’s most influential neobistros: Le Baratin and Le Chateaubriand. “The Baratin has existed for years up at the top of Belleville, and is kind of the matrix of all these new types of cuisine,” says GQ France food critic Marie Aline. Co-founder Oliver Camus left the venture and opened a well-loved wine shop and table d’hôte in 2002, Le Chapeau Melon, just a block away. But Camus’s deep cellar of rare wines was never the only thing that brought gastronomes climbing up the steep Rue de Belleville to Le Baratin. Still today, they come in droves to partake in the cuisine of Raquel Carena, a well-travelled Argentine who let her peregrinations infuse her cooking before that was fashionable, with dishes like tuna tartare, cherries, malt vinegar and miso. “Inaki [Aizpitarte of Le Chateaubriand] was very inspired by Raquel Carena, and now he’s like the godfather to these young chefs,” says Aline. Le Chateaubriand, opened in 2006, is just a 10-minute walk down Rue de Belleville from Le Baratin. With dishes informed by flavours of his Basque homeland and his travels to the four corners of the world, Aizpitarte’s fivecourse, €60 prix-fixe menu – including creations like wasabi-accented black pudding with mangos and passion fruit puree, or Pyrenees pork knuckle confit with daikon radish and oyster – counts as some of the most innovative cuisine in the capital. And next door, his wine and “tapas” bar Le Dauphin offers small plates packed with flavour and imagination, natural wines, a minimalist white marble décor by Rem Koolhaas, and hipsters galore. Aizpitarte’s influence is evident at Le Galopin, for example in the balance between the raw and perfectly cooked, and plays on temperature and texture in dishes like pollack with button mushroom emulsion, mustard leaf and pale-leaf woodland sunflower root and
etc. Chatomat
6 Rue Victor Letalle Tel. +33 1 47 97 25 77
La Contre-Etiquette
36 Rue Sainte-Marthe Tel. +33 1 42 01 08 51 la-contre-etiquette.com
La Tête dans les Olives 2 Rue Sainte-Marthe Tel. +33 9 51 31 33 34 latetedanslesolives.com
Le 31
31 Rue Sainte-Marthe Tel. +33 6 22 47 00 27
Le Baratin
3 Rue Jouye-Rouve Tel. +33 1 43 49 39 70
Le Chapeau Melon
92 Rue Rebeval Tel. +33 1 42 02 68 60
Le Chateaubriand
129 Avenue Parmentier Tel. +33 1 43 57 45 95 lechateaubriand.net
Le Conservatoire
14 Rue Sainte-Marthe Tel. +33 9 51 31 33 34 latetedanslesolives.com
Le Dauphin
131 Avenue Parmentier Tel. +33 1 55 28 78 88 restaurantledauphin.net
Le Galopin
34 Rue Sainte-Marthe Tel. +33 1 42 06 05 03 le-galopin.com
Roseval
1 Rue d’Eupatoria Tel. +33 9 53 56 24 14 roseval.fr
CONTACT PLATINUM CARD SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS
salsify puree. “Inaki was one of the first to create a fixed menu, and this cuisine brute, focused on the ingredients,” says Tischenko. “He really created a new style of restaurant in Paris, and blazed a path for all of us chefs who came after him.” That certainly includes the 28-year-old Englishman Michael Greenwold, who worked for Aizpitarte and technical master Petter Nilsson of La Gazzetta before teaming with Simone Tondo, 24, to open the widely lauded bistro Roseval on a tranquil plaza a 10-minute trot east of Le Baratin in 2012. “Inaki kind of blew my mind,” admits Greenwold. “He would talk about seeing a dish in colours, like cèpe with chestnuts, and I’d never thought about that before. It was great to get ideas there – and then actually get taught how to cook from Petter!” But don’t assume Greenwold and Tondo to be just a provocateur pair of Inaki wannabes. Rather, expect creative takes on classic dishes like potato soup with bone marrow, burnt sage, winter herbs and olive oil; or pigeon with hay-cooked celeriac, sautéed black trumpet mushrooms, hazelnuts, and onion petals in Japanese ponzu and sherry vinegar. “Anyone can be rock’n’roll, but it’s hard to be classy, and we really try,” says Greenwold. So does Alice Di Cagno, whose restaurant Chatomat – which serves inspired, gratifying dishes like beetroot ice cream, black pudding and green apple coulis, or scallops with chrysanthemum puree and chickweed winter herbs (and ambrosial desserts) – has been packed since she and partner Victor Gaillard opened in 2011, a stone’s throw from where Roseval stands today. “We’ve all come from wellknown restaurants,” says the 31-year-old, Italian-born, Brazilian-raised, Arpègetrained chef. “But I think if we really share something in common, it’s that we all are doing our own, very personal cuisine.” And in the way the Chatomat duo helped Michael and Simone prepare their bank loan request; in the way Tischenko and the Rue Sainte-Marthe gourmet gang enjoy weekly revelry; and in the way the Roseval crew celebrated the night they first got the restaurant keys with a meal at Le Baratin, clearly these young chefs all share something else, something more rare in the ruthless restaurant world than even a rich urban terroir: community. As Tischenko said one recent evening over a glass of vintage bubbly, “This is the first time I’ve experienced such cohesion, fusion, and, in the end, friendships really, all around food. I’m not sure you could find it anywhere else.” departures-international.com
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