Le Mary Celeste

A nice and cool spot. On a corner in the upper Marais, this seafood tapas bar is a good acquaintance. If you drop by during the afternoon, you will surely find pleasure enjoying the small sea food tastings in the large bar with a glass of wine. A couple of oysters. Some urchins. A healthy snack made on beets. Not really sophisticated, but very elegant and simply good. If you're still hanging out in the evening, or if you just happen to drop by later on, the place turns into a real restaurant with a bit more comprehensive menu. The somewhat narrow, but good selection of wines is mostly natural. Despite some reservations to natural wines, we only had rich and very beautifully harmonic wines. Excellent. Reasonable prices.

www.lemaryceleste.com

Cave Nansouty

A lively place that is much better than it looks from the outside. Sounds scary? well, just try it then... A very easy going classical no bullshit-bistro. Very good wines - selected to please rather than to show off. 

Le Pantruche

Le Pantruche is an excellent new charming bistro, located in a small side street, right off the vibrant Rue des Martyrs. Discrete, but warmly decorated, and with perhaps just as many tables inside as you could imagine. As both guests and staff are nice, open and accommodating; the proximity of a large number of potential friends just adds to the vibe of the place. The kitchen is inventive, but solidly grounded. Particularly worth exploring is the excellent application of fish and sea food, for example in oyster tartare, mackerel, or the likes. Wines are good - some even very good - and available for a bargain. Most definitely worth the visit - again...

lepantruche.com

Benoit

One of the institutions on the Parisian bistro scene, now taken over by Ducasse, but still emphasizing the tradition in the cuisine francaise. The menu is not surprising and does not aim to be so either. The interior very charming and more welcoming than indicated by the pulsating location in Rue Saint-Martin, not too far away from Les Halles. Waiters are impeccably dressed, and even behaved, and English is noticeably customary for a classical French bistro. So the food... obviously overpriced. And perhaps the chef's attention to elaborate collations is higher than on the less fancy but hearty bistro food.  A number of dishes are nicely presented and very tasty (although still to the classical and very heavy side), but others less so, ending up being pretentious and trivial. A plain countryside dish such as cassoulet could be heavenly, but is simply not. Wines are well selected, but the price-value ratio is not decent and considerably below average. All in all, a decent experience, but you'll find better bistros in Paris for half the price...

www.benoit-paris.com

L'Atelier Saint Germain de Joel Robuchon

Admittedly, this is a bit more sophisticated than most of my usual bistros. But no excuses. Sometimes you just need to get your references clear. Still, despite a cuisine elaboree d'exception, the place is low key and cosy. But make no mistake, Joel Robuchon is now more than a restaurant, it's an international brand - for better and for worse. At the Atelier Saint Germain you enter a discretely designed place where you immediately get the feeling that kitchen is king: No tables, just bar counters with the hardworking food artists behind. And the beutiful thing in a high end place like this, Once seated, you simply feel at ease, the atmosphere is relaxed. The food is of course excellent. No faults. Very refined and well thought through concepts. The idea is based on small tapas style dishes, French haute cuisine in a modern presentation. For example, simple traditional dishes as oef cocotte, remade in a symphony of crayfish, peas, egg and black truffle. Simple ideas, but very eloquently executed. It is worth the quite considerable money spent, although the wines are quite pricey for Parisian standards, particularly by the glass.

www.joel-robuchon.net/