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

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. 

Milord

Context is everything: Imagine that the sun is shining warmly on the first sunny spring day in Paris. You are wandering carelessly on the butte de Montmatre enjoying the weather, the people and the extraordinary places on your way. You feel like a brunch. This place appears in front of you, covering the pavement with uneven tables on the mounting street. People are passing by, saying hi, telling stories, passing by again, walking their dogs, their wives or even their mistresses. And you're enjoying your brunch. Very simple although overwhelming and not expensive (the word cheap doesn't really sound nice). So you can simply chill in the afternoon sun while enjoying the generous plates. Feels good.

La Cave Marcadet

A very local wine bar. So local that there is a back entrance from my stairs... in other words, convenience is high. However, the place does not serve wine alone (as this requires another kind of license, as I'm patiently explained) - it serves wine with small plates of cheese or charcuterie. And it sells wines. And cheeses. And other kinds of nice stuff. Wines are to a large extent organic or natural, although a little bit pricey (which is probably only for the better from a very personal perspective, considering the location). The cheeses are excellent. A cosy place for a local feel, for a talk with nice people dedicated to their shop, or for tasting a glass of a new interesting wines you've never heard of before. 

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

Les Vins des Dames

No matter how much how you appreciate the two ingredients in the name of Les Vins des Dames, you are quite likely to be disappointed. The place looks very cosy from the outside, and most certainly also is nice once you get in. But the wines are bad handled for a wine bar - hot and not freshly opened - and the food is simply not good enough. So although it looks nice, and although it remains somewhat all right or at least harmless after all, at least don't say I didn't warn you. And Rue des Dames holds plenty of other nice places...

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

Au Comptoir de Brice

Inside one of the covered market places of the 10th district in Paris, you'll find a crowded, long, wooden counter, covering up an open kitchen. Good things are happening here. The place is rather unusual, a French restaurant serving excellent food from 12 to 18 all week days - that is, no semi-fascistoid time constraints implemented with provoking rigor, with lunch being served only between 12.30 and 13.15 or something similar... well, anyway. Although considerably more sophisticated than a mere market place counter, the place has the local ambiance, the high standards of quality, and the charming feel-good cosiness that just makes you want to stick around for yet another round of excellent food. Although the menu is limited, it's good - from the tasty and juicy cheese burgers to the delicate and well cooked veal liver. A few, but well selected, good wines by the glass; and a small crowd of warm staff, running around, smiling, despite even the more busy weekend buzz. A perfect Saturday afternoon hideout.

www.aucomptoirdebrice.com

Racines - Marchand de Vin

Racines - or roots - is an excellent restaurant located in yet another one of Paris' many charming passages. The old wine shop is modestly decorated; empty bottles greet you welcome in the windows and the kitchen is open, practically hidden behind the bar. The guests are couples, business people with a need to charm their clients, or simply wine enthusiastic friends. There is no wine menu as such. The wines for sale are show cased randomly at shelves around the restaurant, which unavoidably forces you interact with the other guests around the small tables. Unless of course, you take the easy short cut, and get some good advice from the open and warm guys running the place. The wines are mostly natural. The kitchen is unpretentious, focused; the food is very well prepared, and the products well selected. Not a place for a comprehensive menu, but the place where the two or three main dishes they serve a good. Comme il faut. A very nice and cosy place.

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

Marche des enfants rouges

An good but small, partly covered market, where the bobos of Paris check each other out and hang out.  An excellent cheese shop, and an equally good butcher is just outside the market at Rue de Bretagne. Inside, there are several small wine bars and very good lunch restaurants. A bit expensive, but generally good quality products. 

In Champagne - Damien Wilmet in Reims

Located near the old market place (will the restoration ever end?) in a beautiful light butcher house, you'll find this elegant and sparkling bar, bistro and wine shop. Well carpentered wooden tables. An appropriate number of Champagnes on the glass. An unpretentious lunch kitchen serves exactly what you need. Everything is here. Just relax, sit down, and let it come to you. And hope that you have not planned any visites de cave within the short future.

Closerie des Lilas - brasserie

A Boulevard institution. And the place does not seem to oxidate. You feel the vibe from when you enter. From the harmless mice running on the floor in the entrance to the drunk piano player with a craving for Elvis and Calvados. A bar, sharp and to the point. It's all there. And of course, a very decent kitchen, although today perhaps rather overpriced - also in the brasserie.

www.closeriedeslilas.fr

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 Refuge des Moines

Le Refuge des Moines is a warm and cosy wine bar with a simple and traditional, yet well-made, French kitchen. The wine menu is broad and reasonably priced. As simple as that.

www.baravinlerefugedesmoines.com

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).