paris
In defense of a city I was prepared to abhor
A twilight stroll around the peak of Montmartre - a neighborhood that rises above Paris proper where tourists join locals to gape at the city’s skyline under the shadow of an imposing basilica - serves as a winding pathway to Astoria, a cocktail bar that in one dash shatters my impressions of the French capital as cold and inhospitable. Chloe, who greets us at the door, is quick to smile and greedy with goodnatured
questions about out travels. By the time our second cocktail is shaken, she has proffered not only a list of her favorite haunts but enlisted her bartending colleague Martin to draw up a menu of restaurant options. He carefully writes out a dozen on a long sheet of receipt paper and generously pauses his shaking and stirring to walk us through the subtle distinctions. We end up hitting two in our four days. They are adequate but not spectacular and when we return to Astoria on our last night, I am reluctant to unfurl my judgement. The world operates on a series of small, polite lies,
especially when confronted with gestures of genuine kindness. (This is why the truest restaurant critics must be, at their core, intractable social assassins.) French cuisine - with its duck, foie gras and unhesitating deployment of organ meet - is not my favorite. Not in my top three or possibly top five. Cafe de Flore’s Salade de Chèvre Chaud - featuring goat cheese melted onto toasted baguette croutons and served on a bed of lightly dressed green leaves with walnuts and honey will stand as my best-loved meal. Nonetheless, it will be the cocktails that will be enshrined, because of the faces behind them. At Bar Nouveau - a quaint, distinctly marbled space in Marais that prides itself on a concise menu - it’s Sarah who goes out of her way to warmly engage us, even if her recommendation is a corporate cousin of where she creates.
The concept at Abstract Bistro is built around homemade single-ingredient extractions. I’m still thinking about the Martini Patissier (pictured above), which ingredients included butter and rice-orange blossom and tasted rich and floral and almost pastry-like. It was simultaneously strange and exquisite and a pure delight. Thank you Toma, who mixed it and affixed my name to it. At Divvino Marais - a wine cellar dating back to 1500 - we meet Matthew, an Austin, Texas native who fled the states to pursue the study of wine. As he takes us through a four glass tour of Bourdeaux, Vallee du Rhone and Bourgogne, he explains how easy it’s been to live in Paris, even as his French remains subpar. It’s an unmistakable aspect of the city that makes it much more accommodating to Americans than I assumed. It’s English first in the service industry sometimes even among Parisians themselves. I noticed clearly native French-speaking residents regularly reverting to language to speak to colleagues and friends in conversations.
Nearly 153,000 Americans live in France — making it the country with the most American residents outside the US after Canada and the UK. With 2.7 million Americans visiting the country each year, Paris has become a bilingual city by economic necessity. Among Parisians aged 15 to 34, estimates place English conversational ability at 40 percent to as high as 60 percent. “Parisians are genuinely nice people,” Chloe insisted on our first night in the city. After nearly 90,000 steps I am here to vouch for that assessment. Service that put Washington, DC to shame. Affability that surpassed London. We returned to Astoria on Tuesday night for our final cocktails in France, where we were welcomed with the excitement of a regular by Chloe, who confessed she’s largely a homebody outside her work. It was a fitting coda and a reminder that you’re often rewarded if you dare wander off the tourist map.
