world domination: l'épicerie du verre volé, 75011

When I mentioned to a friend that cave-à-manger pioneers Le Verre Volé were to open an épicerie beside their well-established wine shop location on rue Oberkampf, his initial reaction was, 'Geez, they're taking over the world.'

Then we reflected and realised, no, that wasn't the case at all. Given the high visibility and worldwide renown of their perpetually-thronged cave-à-manger by the Canal Saint Martin, it's actually astonishing that owner Cyril Bordarier hasn't done more with the brand in ten plus years. Total expansion, as far as I know, has until now amounted to the aforementioned wine shop, and a renovation of their dining room in 2010. On the one occasion I tried to purchase several cases of wine from the canal-side location for a nearby shop opening, there wasn't enough of anything in stock* and I had to go elsewhere. Meanwhile, any regular clients of the Oberkampf location will know already that its patron, the other Cyril, a good guy once you get to know him, possesses all the salesmanship and commercial ambition of a hedgehog.

Naturally, all this is incomprehensible to the impatient, money-hungry American in me. Were I the one who'd built up such an iconic purple wine concept, there would be a US and UK import business and a theme park ride by now. On the other hand, that's why Le Verre Volé remains cool: they haven't, as yet, shilled much swill, and their sprezzatura - the art of hospitality without seeming to expend effort - is, for a technical reason, faultless. With their new venture, which officially opens its doors tomorrow, Le Verre Volé is, thankfully, quite unlikely to unsettle its sterling reputation: it is an épicerie, selling cheeses, meats, and other artisanal foodstuffs, along with sandwiches.

jura bike trip: chez bindernagel: les jardins sur glantine

While tooling around the Jura on our bikes, we stayed at a new chambre d'hôte in Poligny called Les Jardins Sur Glantine, run by vigneron Ludwig Bindernagel's wife Nathalie. Nothing marks the place from the outside, except a barrel during business hours signifying the availability of wine. So when we showed up the first evening at sunset, sweat-drenched and wobbly from fatigue, nothing prepared us for the gorgeous mise-en-scène that awaited us behind a dreamy white curtain at the end of the entrance corridor.

There's a view out over Nathalie's vegetable garden in the foreground; in the background are the dun rooftops of lower-lying houses. On a table in the expansive central courtyard sat a bottle of Ludwig's own crême de cassis, some sparkling wine, and some homemade elderflower syrup. After a quick tour of the chambre d'hôte's two suites and its outdoor kitchen facilities (for use during harvest time, when they lodge 25 good friends), we all shared a long apéro, and Ludwig and Nathalie told us a bit about the operation they've established.

i got excited about water: le verre volé, 75011

There is actually nothing on earth more dull than a conversation about the relative merits of bottled water brands. It's a subject on which I've thus far generally avoided forming opinions, specifically to avoid the hazard of voicing them in a social setting, and subsequently metamorphasizing into a scrap of wallpaper, or potted geranium.

Probably about three things are important about a restaurant's water service, and all of them can be negatively defined. If you must serve bottled water, the brand shouldn't be widely available in adjacent supermarkets and convenience stores. If you must serve bottled water, it should under no circumstances be Voss, whose bottles look like specialty munitions designed to be fired inside nightclubs. Finally, whether you serve bottled water or whether you helpfully filter and carbonate your own in-house, the water itself should never be mentioned or described or promoted in any way. It's water. Discussing it is like discussing the tablecloth.

At my former workplace in LA we served Lurisia, because it was in keeping with the restaurant's Italian persona and because it was faintly exotic (i.e. not Pellegrino). It also tasted nice, a plus. As far as I'm concerned that's how a restaurant's bottled water decisions should be made: a short aesthetic equation balancing out to something mute and inoffensive. A recent visit to 10ème cave-à-manger Le Verre Volé, however, had the distinction of being memorable mostly for the water they've begun serving: Ventadour, from Ardêche. If one measures in millimeters, one could say it was somewhat moving, this water.