No, I haven't been to the restaurant upstairs. The friendly American couple (C and his wife E) I met outside informed me there was a three-month wait for reservations. This would be welcome news for liver transplants or space tourism; for a meal I have to profess I consider it a kind of insanity.*
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| Me and C. |
So it will come as welcome news that at 21h on a Saturday night in autumn, when my chef friend P and I left after sharing a delightful impromptu light meal with C and E,
Spring Buvette still exuded a kind of prayerful, exclusive-hotel-lobby calm. Candles didn't flicker, wine didn't spill, and communal tables - which I'd expected to be kind of trough-like and lively - were still mostly empty.
So, yeah. You
can get a table, and the staff - uniformly bilingual - are all pretty awesome. Part of me suspects that Daniel Rose's real secret to success - beyond the market menu, culinary ingenuity, etc. - is his fidelity to American customer service, which in Paris is considerably more scarce than great cuisine.
There are other Americanisms visible in Buvette's presentation. The big wine glasses are a treat**. The rear wall of half the restaurant is lined not with a standing bar but with two chairs and a teensy table that add significantly to the aforementioned hotel-feel. Also, it might have just been that night, but the place was chock full of Americans. I feel this might be due to the general appeal Rose's story has for American bloggers and American press in general. Chicago chef conquers Paris culinary scene! It's a kind of expat triumphalism, rendered all the more hysterical for the decades Americans have spent in quaking awe of French cuisine.
But: the wine, the wine, the wine. It's why I popped by that night, and why I'll invariably be back shortly after I receive my next paycheck. The Buvette list is absolutely crammed with serious grand-slam wines. So much so that I'm compelled to break my unofficial rule of only raving about one wine per post.
