idiot simple : grillé, 75002

If a successful restaurant concept aims to serve cuisine that inspires respect for its chefs, then, conversely, the hallmark of a successful fast food concept is cuisine that any idiot could throw together.

For the subtext of the business plans of any of Paris' recent crop of fast food concepts - Freddie's Deli, The Sunken Chip, and the subject of this post, Bourse-side haute kebab shop Grillé - is potential expansion. As satisfying as it is to provide tastemakers with baroque tasting menus in twenty-five seat rooms, any restaurateur knows the real money is made with well-branded empires of One Perfect Product : one recipe replicated and varied unto infinity with multiple locations, catering service, O Magazine features, book deals and frozen supermarket versions.

Grillé is a home-run by these standards. You can tell the place is eminently replicable because only way to ensure getting a kebab (or a "grillé," as they preciously have retitled their creation) without a thirty minute wait is to arrive precisely at noon when they open. You can tell because the product itself - a magazine writer's dream kebab, composed solely of luxury name-brand ingredients - is delicious. And you can tell because on the corner of rue Saint Anne and rue Saint Augustin, in its inaugural location, the product is being served and assembled in the most disorganised manner possible by inexperienced jokers.

n.d.p. à bordeaux: town of puns

My excuse for the recent blog drought: I've been traveling. The Native Companion and I spent twenty-four hours in the town of Bordeaux, and then a weekend at our friends' wedding on the Cap Ferret. I doffed my wine hat and donned my vacationer hat. We visited no wine estates, and with our heaping plates of shellfish we drank nothing more complex than inexpensive "bio" Bordeaux blanc and rosé. It was, of course, glorious.

It was also the first time I'd visited said region, a fact that seems to surprise some people. You're into wine, they say, yet you've never been to Bordeaux ? I try to explain that this is a little like saying to someone who takes an interest in horses: you take an interest in horses, yet you've never been to the Kentucky Derby ? After all, it's where the most money gets spent ! But the Derby is for people who take a certain kind of interest in horses,* and ditto for Bordeaux and wine people.

That said, I'm already itching to return. To visit some wine estates (exploring Graves and Sauternes appeals to me greatly), but also to further explore the city of Bordeaux, which in June was almost eerily charming. The old town near the river reminded me of a supersized rue des Martyrs**, only without that street's self-consciousness and slightly besieged quality. Bordeaux's ancient money seems very at ease with itself. Roller bladers minnow between strollers, joggers, and cyclists on the wide promenades lining the river, a sharp contrast to Paris' pedestrian-free Seine-side traffic snarls. The public toilets clean themselves. And what really struck the NC and me, perhaps even more than the wines we tasted, was the general boldness of the city's puns. In the absence of sufficient free time to process my few wine-related experiences in the city and on Cap Ferret, I thought in the meantime I'd present of few of the more notable howlers below.

far-sighted: télescope, 75001

... And now for the opening of a laudable venture that Paris actually needs: an elegantly simple coffee-geek café called Télescope, tucked away by Palais-Royal on rue Villedo. It's the debut project of David Flynn, formerly barista at the 18ème's Bal Café and La Caféothèque before that, and Nicolas Clerc, a photographer turned coffee enthusiast. Today will be their first day open to the public for business.

The space is tiny, well-appointed, feels a bit like a seat in a Scandinavian lighthouse. Just four or five tables and a spacious bar, upon which will be offered an array of pastries. I suspect at least some of the latter will be sourced from among the gang of talented expat baker chicks who seem suddenly to be everywhere.(Ofr Galerie, La Candelaria, Brunch Bazar, etc.) In the mornings there will be tartines and toast, and the café's intake from on-premises sipping will be buttressed by a wholesale operation. 

No, Flynn and Clerc don't plan to serve any wine. But Télescope remains wholly relevant to this blog, because I can't write without coffee. And since it's the city's first conveniently located coffee bar, Télescope stands to be my main supply of responsibly-sourced, masterfully-roasted, afficionado-approved coffee, something which, despite the testimonials of every dreamy-eyed tourist, remains a total rarity in Paris. 

n.d.p. en suisse: swiss curiosities

A schwingen festival. Not the kind of schwinging you may be used to.

n.d.p. in piemonte: saint peter's country chapel

Between towns of Barolo and La Morra on the via San Pietro, there's a few picnic tables and a water fountain at a rest station named for the boarded-up and presumably empty chapel that overlooks it, Saint Peter's Country Chapel. Although it looks like there might be a magnificent view of vineyards just over that hill, I can attest there is not: the immediate area seems to have insensibly been landscaped in such a way as to specifically prevent any kind of vista.

Nevertheless it made a fine site for a picnic after a trudge around Alba where everything was shut at midday on a Sunday. We'd packed various cured meats and gorgeous irregular tomatoes and ate them with a shared knife. Mid-meal we were all extremely bemused to learn that, according to the signage, Saint Peter's Country Chapel had been built by "the sole survivor of a tragic orgy" that had taken place in the old castle across the road. 

n.d.p. in piemonte: capella di sol lewitt, la morra

One advantage of traveling through wine regions with people who are totally uninterested in wine is that sometimes in bored desperation they will propose visiting obscure local landmarks that turn out, in the end, to be very cool indeed.

Such was the case with J's architect wife C, who on our way back from a desultory Sunday traipse through the mediocre churches of Alba at baking midday proposed visiting something called the Capella di Sol Lewitt, located on a ridge overlooking the famed Brunate vineyard between Barolo and La Morra. We weren't sure what to expect of a chapel painted by the pioneering conceptualist creator of such presumably non-devotional works as Inverted Six Towers and Isometric Projection #13.

In the end it looked for all the world like amid the strict rows of cascading cru vineyard, someone had installed a really cheery taqueria.

n.d.p. in piemonte: solativo vinosteria, ivrea

My first reaction upon walking into Solativo Vinosteria, a wine bar in Ivrea until recently co-owned by the Ferrando family, was one of exasperation: I take two steps in Ivrea, pop.: 24k, I reflected, and already I encounter a wine bar plainly superior to any that presently exist in Paris.

I suppose I can't pronounce that with total certainty, as I never saw Solativo in full swing. We'd driven over in the afternoon with manager Ivan Zanovello after tasting together with Luigi Ferrando in the latter's nearby tasting room, and the bar was not yet open. But all the ingredients for a lively, inspiring wine bar were in place: a terrace, a long bar, a spacious, informal interior, fridges stuffed with excellent native and local wines, even a chalkboard cocktail / aperitivo list that looked refreshing, if not fancy by any means.* There's frequent live music. Meanwhile, the bar shares an entrance with Luigi Ferrando's son Andrea's wine shop, where a bottle of Carema Ettiquette Bianca can be had for 14€. (Compared to $60 on stateside wine lists.) 

If we hadn't all been so knackered from the tasting, with several hours of driving ahead, it might have been nice to share a bottle with the heaping meat and cheese plates Ivan kindly fixed for us. As it was, we stuck with Chinotti, and I sat there trying to envision some reason to return to Ivrea one day. 

beaujolais bike trip: chez agnès et jean foillard, villié-morgon

Renowned natural Beaujolais vignerons Jean and Agnès Foillard run a small, well-appointed chambre d'hôte just outside the center of Villié-Morgon. Jean wasn't around during our stay, unfortunately, and we hadn't made an appointment to taste, so the experience we had was decidedly non-wine-related. It was like staying in a small, well-appointed chambre d'hôte run by retired schoolteachers.

Having enjoyed Foillard's happily ubiquitous benchmark Morgons and Fleuries throughout roughly 40% of the dinners I've had in Paris, and tasted through same wines several times at tastings, it wasn't a huge disappointment. It would have been nice to see the chais and taste a few back vintages, if any were available. But there's always the next trip, for that.

In the meantime I had a room to myself with an extra bed and a huge shower* and an adjacent sitting room stuffed with French literature, the last item presumably provided for non-wine-drinkers who get dragged to Villié-Morgon by enthusiastic spouses. J and C showered and I sat around fiddling with my iPhone, wanting nothing more than to be in the same environment, only surrounded by, like, twelve good friends with healthy drinking appetites and nowhere to be for a few days.

jura bike trip: our overnoy oversight

There's nothing worse than an overplotted vacation. So in planning our recent jaunt through the Jura, we decided to err on the side of spontaneity, scheduling only one tasting with Domaine Macle in Château-Chalon. 

In retrospect, however, it was indeed an error not to have made a rendezvous at Maison Pierre Overnoy. I've had nothing but great experiences with their majestic, sulfur-free wines, on the few occasions I've tasted them. I hadn't realised we'd be cruising right by their operation in Pupillin on our first day, which until then we'd spent visiting some completely empty salt mines.*

jura bike trip: saline royale d'arc et senans

No way we could have done our Jura Bike Trip without our friend J. A caviste / wine director with heaps of experience leading bike tours in Burgundy, he was indispensable for route-mapping, bike-fixing, and domaine-contacting. So none of us, not me not my friends E or D, voiced a peep of protest when J enthusiastically proposed, as our first destination in the Jura, the Saline Royale d'Arc et Senans.

Royal Salt Mines, eh? Defunct, eh? Chiefly of architectural interest, you say? Count me in!

Actually, to my knowledge, I was the only one who was bored to within moments of asphyxiation. E and D seemed pretty curious about Claude Nicolas Ledoux, the legendary architect behind the neoclassical structures of the Saline Royal. It's not that I can't appreciate good architecture, or not entirely that. It's that, in what I suspect is a problem endemic to isolated points of architectural interest, the curators of the Saline Royal have come up with practically nothing to fill it with.

n.d.p. in roma: gran caffé de balduina, etc.

It's not wine-related, but I'm unable to resist posting a small word of appreciation for the under-sung merits of the modest Italian café breakfast. Our first morning in Rome we assembled one at the tent-like café space beside the house where we stayed on the Viale delle Medaglie d'Oro. The following morning was Sunday, and the closure of the tent-space obliged us to wander far up same road until we struck gold at the wonderful, completely unremarkable Gran Caffé de Balduina.* 

The staff were shortly to shut up shop there, too, but offered no protest as the Native Companion and I ordered squishy donut-like croissants, a ham and mozzarella panino, two café lattés, two spremuti d'arancia, and a towering bottle of sparkling water. 

Yes, this combination of foodstuffs can be had equally at Rome Termini station or Fiumicino Airport. Even Ciampino. It remains satisfying at those less-than-ideal locations. I think it's because every element of this repast is in itself a minor hangover corrective; when taken as a whole they constitute a veritable apothecary shop for one's bleary-eyed afternoon satisfaction.