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

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

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/

La raLLonge

La RaLLonge is just next to another excellent restaurant by the same patron, la Table d'Eugene (see http://pariseur.blogspot.fr/2012/12/la-table-deugene.html). La RaLLonge is a modern looking tapas bar with excellent jamon iberico, cheeses, a variety of seafood, small elegant and well prepared dishes; this place is an excellent to pass an evening. No reservations are possible in order to keep guests mainly local - and so the crowd is. From half past seven the tables are getting full, and hopeful newcomers quickly fill out the space in between. The food is well thought out and generally very good - although some dishes work less well and a few faults are spotted in the execution. But a very cool and place. Exellent wines. 

l'épicuriste

L'épicuriste is easy to oversee on the large Boulevard Pasteur close to Montparnasse. However, once you've been there, you will most certainly remember. This place is simply how good bistros should be: Cousy but still sufficiently elegant, laid-back with out being easy-going, and friendly while maintaining classical deeds. The kitchen seems basque inspired without making a fuss about it, but elegantly masters different kinds of fish, pimientos and of course a bunch of other stuff. The food is excellent, very well-prepared, to the point, and everything on your dish serves a purpose. The selection of wines is rich and well done, and the value for money is good. Staff is friendly and accomodating, and the chef knows what he's talking about. Epicurism is about seeking pleasure and greatness through modesty. Spot on.

Pierre Sang

On the corner of the vibrant Rue Oberkampf in the 11th district, you will find a cool place called Pierre Sang. You enter a most often crowded and lively place where something that looks like the mother of all bar counter works as a an epicenter, the place where everyone is seated, mixing up people and companies, adding up to the good ambiance of the place. From here you can fully oversee what's happening in the kitchen - or you can just chat up people next by... For those interested in neither, the more calmer room downstairs, accompanying the numerous bottles of the cellar, would also be an option. 

The kitchen is French-Korean, and although the food is very well-prepared, the idea behind the mixing up of the different elements is not always clear. Tasty and elegant, ambitious, but still not fully successful. However, the place is cool, nice, and the staff is very friendly and accommodating. Wines are mostly nature, and they actually do a pretty good job here. Reasonably priced within the difficult genre of neo-bistrots tendances.

http://pierresangboyer.com

Chez Moustache

We are at a beardy place. And as strange as this may sound, it feels good. Bistrot Rigolo as they call it themselves. We are in the 11th, on the corner of Amelot and J-P Timbaud, where this new cool resto de tendance is welcoming you. A huge and usually quite crowded bar desk is at the entrance, until you're skillfully guided towards the back of the two rooms where tables are somewhat randomly organized. The staff is cool, friendly and attentive. The food is a good, not necessarily highly inventive, but a well grounded, creative cuisine de marche; things are well prepared, nicely served, and simply taste very good. An excellent place. Although the wines are a bit pricy for the quality, the place is highly recommended, particularly for the cool ambiance and the overall experience. Good cocktails too. For example in case you've actually left the table but somehow feel the need to chill for a second or two as the bar greets you again, just before reaching the exit...

www.chezmoustache.com

Coinstot

Coinstot is a crowded and always lively wine bar, located at the end of the charming Passage des Panoramas near the Grands Boulevards. The wines - mostly natural - are excellent and well selected. The choice of producers reflect that natural wines can and should be not only an ideological choice, but also and mainly about finding the good wines. And not necessarily from the more well know appellations. Also the food is well selected, from the oysters, the charcuterie plates to the well treated meat. It's all good. The prices are most certainly reasonable; this is a place where you can easily spend a good evening accompanied by a soul full kitchen. 

www.coinstot-vino.com

Aux Deux Amis

This place is a strange mix between a noisy bar and a classy neo-bistrot. For those who prefer things quiet and nicely wrapped in, this might be a bit to much. For the rest of us, the place is excellent for tasting a series of interesting and well prepared dishes. Although the noyeau is French, some twists of Mediterranean kitchen are to be expected. Excellent wines. Very much Oberkamf. 

Frenchie - bar a vin

Frenchie is an excellent wine bar serving bistronomy in a cosy and intriguing ambiance. Located in a small alley, on a side street from Rue des Petits Carreaux and Montorgueil, this place. The tables are small, so if the place is full, you're likely to be placed at the table of other guests. Normally for the better, but if you can find a corner, hold on to it. The food comes in small, well prepared, elegant, tasteful servings, allowing for real dining as well as curious snacking. 

La Chasse Gardee

La Chasse Gardee is a Batignolles adventure... a small, funny bar with a warm but kitsch deco, mixing deer hunting with a library cocktail bar. The food is traditional, very decent and well priced. The wines are ok, and you easily forgive them that instead of a wine menu, you just go and have a look at whats stocked in the wine rack. The staff is nice and cool. The ambience is also good, relaxed, although moving somewhat unpredictably. But you should go there, not because of the above, but solely to explore just what might happen, when the dinner is over and the hunting starts...

Le Baratin

Le Baratin is an excellent and cosy small neo-bistrot in the 20th district, just above the Parc de Belleville. The focus is on natural wines and well-prepared solid yet elegant, dishes, particularly around entrails. Although particular, the food is sharp and well thought. Very reasonably priced (the cadeau for moving up on the steep hills of Belleville).

Qui Plume la Lune

Qui Plume la Lune is a good restaurant placed between Republique and the Bastille. Genre-wise it tends toward an ambitious neo-bistrot, but could just as well be labelled as gastronomic restaurant. The decor is welcoming, despite or perhaps just because of the very well conducted design. The food is elegant and the servings are delicate and well prepared. The wine list is extensive and good (however, be aware of how it is tempered). The prices are a bit too high considering the location and the level of sophistication in the servings.

www.restaurantquiplumelalune.com

Willi's Winebar

This wine bar is a must, for the well shaped bar counter alone. Aside from this obvious virtue, it also holds an excellent selection of wines, and a tempting menu, both in the grignotage section and "real" food. The kitchen is sharp and good. The service is accommodating. Although the interior as such is neither cool or charming, the place has a vibe. And is most definitely worth a visit.

http://williswinebar.com

Quedubon

As you are just about to think that there is absolutely nothing in the 19th district, aside from the magic Buttes Chaumont, a funny modern bistro appears: Quedubon. And it is "just good stuff". For example like a well conceived tuna tartare. Or pickled pork. An unpretentious place with delicious and well-prepared food, served by cool and charming waiters. An impressive and well selected wine list. Good and interesting bottles. Well priced.

Laiterie Sainte Clotilde

In the very bourgois neighborhood of the 7th, restaurants are often something only for the nearby ministries during lunch hours. Laiterie Sainte Clotilde is also worth a visit in the evening. Not for its decor, but the place is nice and does very much with very little in terms of good feeling. The food is sharp and creative, well conceived and well prepared. Dishes such as chestnut salad, boeuf Saint Marcelais are delivered very well. The prices are also reasonable for the area.

Rino

Rino is an excellent restaurant with high ambitions, placed on the outer side of the Bastille. The kitchen is somewhat mixed but with a strong reference to modern Italian. The dishes are elegantly arranged and tasty. The tables are small, but the feeling is cosy rather than crowded; a good ambiance. The open - and very small - kitchen is great to watch as the pros are showing of their skills.

http://rino-restaurant.com

Les Enfants Perdus

After a long, but soothing walk at the Canal Saint-Martin Sunday evening, this place is just there when you need it the most. With its dragging charm, it is welcoming and easy going. The bar alludes a somewhat classical scenery, where the child of the waiter/tender is dining quietly, gets picked up by his mother (the wife of the barman), after which the mistress takes over the scene. Or something like that. This parallel universe, however charming it might be, does not speed up the service. But it is something. And the food is good, very well prepared; the menu is tempting and holds its promises. The style is inventive, and seems yet firmly grounded in the classical virtues.

www.les-enfants-perdus.com

Le pas sage

First of all, hold on to your belongings when you're moving around in the sometimes hipster-slum'ish, sometimes just measly street of Rue Saint Denis, as you're staring at one of the few businesses older than serving food. This changes somewhat once you enter the small three meter something shelf of a restaurant, le pas sage. The place is locate in an old Parisian passage, not too far away from the quite different Montorgeuil, while the wording in French means something like "the wise step". The place is gifted with beautiful waitresses demonstrating the obvious limits of the outside business. The food is good, well prepared and the prices are absolutely reasonable. The deco is relaxed and their wines are unpretentious but well selected. A good juicy pork is worth a try.

Chateaubriand

An unusually good place. The style and ambiance is cool, so is the staff. Yet still knowledgable and able to make you feel good. For 55 euros you will get more than 9 highly innovative dishes of the highest quality created with no faults. It's a must do. The kitchen is basque inspired, and the food is light and elegant. The wines are creative (even a bit too creative at times, the thing with the craving for natural wine...) and most often very well selected. Be clear about your wine preferences in order to let all your wishes come true. They most likely will...

www.lechateaubriand.net