parisian pizza: il brigante, 75018

As a foreigner in Paris of a certain profusely fertile age group, I often wonder what it would be like to raise a child here. These reveries fill me with dread. One day I would wake up surrounded by an ideologically French family. It's cute when French toddlers obediently proffer their cheeks to relative strangers for goodnight kisses before toddling off to bed. It's less cute when French employees explain they took a fourth cigarette break because they needed a little pause.

And it's frankly pathetic that over half the country agrees that François Holland's right to philander with spectacularly clumsiness shouldn't be questioned by journalists. The President's recent press conference reminded me of the climactic scene from the Wizard of Oz: "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." (To which the obvious response is, if you want us to do that, you should begin by keeping it behind the curtain.)

But sometimes I wonder if I'm becoming indoctrinated, too. I already demand room-temp cheese and fresh bread wherever I go, which means I can't live anywhere else in the world. And a real red flag went up the other day, when at the devilishly charming Montmartre restaurant Il Brigante I genuinely enjoyed a locally popular foodstuff I've heretofore foresworn entirely: Parisian pizza.

everyone wins: septime, 75011

I came upon Septime the old-fashioned way: by happening to stroll past one day, and noticing, in addition to the ambitious décor of the restaurant, a flyer advertising a public natural wine tasting, replete with some excellent names. (Cornelissen, Pfifferling, etc.)  I wasn't able to make it to the tasting in the end, but I remembered the address when my friend / colleague D visited during men's fashion week, and she and I engaged in our quarterly trawl through Paris' culinary vanguard.*

Early reactions to Septime have run the gamut from impressed to enraptured. Chef Bertrand Grébaut has serious Michelin-star credentials, having worked in the kitchen at l'Arpège before running the kitchen at Agapé, when latter restaurant earned its star. ParisByMouth reports also that he received a 10,000€ grant from Evian-Badoit to open Septime, which budget, to judge by the cosy-industrial, Monocle-ready looks of the place, probably covered the cost of about seven light fixtures.

I don't mean to patronize. The place is indeed very enjoyably outfitted, with a nice wingspan around each table, and evident attention paid to lighting, ease of movement, etc. - the usual humane comforts that Paris restaurants, and natural wine spots in particular, have traditionally withheld as a method of torturing guests. And this mercy on Septime's part is, I think, just the most visible aspect of a wider change represented by Septime and restaurants like it: the maturation of the natural wine meal, mostly for the better.