an oyster bar for a better paris: clamato, 75011

I squirmed with embarrassment reading a recent NYTimes opinion piece bemoaning "How Hipsters Ruined Paris." Not because I consider myself a target.* But because I recognised another addition to the annals of expat self-hate, a genre to which I contribute from time to time. The author, Thomas Chatterton Williams, drapes his tirade in art history references worn as thin as the five-euro foulards for sale beneath Sacre Coeur. Degas, Manet, Toulouse-Lautrec - swaddle it on as thick as he may, nothing can bandage the authority-hemorrhage that begins with the opening clause of paragraph six: "When my wife and I first moved here in 2011..."

Seemingly dismayed that other New Yorkers preceded him to Paris, Chatterton Williams takes particular aim at the proprietors of Glass / Mary Celeste / Candelaria, incorrectly disparaging them as "a bunch of NYU grads." (Only one went there, to my knowledge.) It's hypocritical flanneur posturing to claim, as Chatteron Williams does, that brothels provide a better service to the South Pigalle area than Glass' sharp cocktails. But that author's  desire for a vaguely Parisian experience is something I share, at least with regards to restaurateurism.

Its why I'm delighted that Bertrand Grébaut and Théo Pourriat, the consummately tasteful duo behind Septime, have opened a third establishment on their stretch of rue de Charonne. Clamato - a no-reservations oyster bar with seven tables and a long L-shaped counter - cements their reputation as the standard-bearers for fine contemporary French restaurateurism, unself-conscious and ungimmicky. Clamato's stellar cuisine is accompanied by the same well-selected natural wines and polished service that mark Septime and Septime Cave. The only sign that Grébaut and Pourriat might be succumbing to globalist trends is the goofy name.

hats off: le chapeau melon, 75019

Anyone seeking some semblance of completion in this blog's list of recommended (or faintly-recommended) Paris natural wine spots would have been right to point out the curious absence, until now, of material on Le Chapeau Melon, ex-Baratin proprietor Olivier Camus' celebrated set-menu cave-à-manger in Belleville.

I actually adore Le Chapeau Melon - it has almost everything I habitually seek in a restaurant. Camus' self-trained cooking is tasteful but rugged, accented with game attempts at innovation; his wines are as humbly priced as they are masterfully chosen.

If until recently I hadn't been back in almost two years since my first visit, which occurred some months before I began blogging, I think it was mainly due to the set-menu thing. Set-menus sometimes make me feel trapped in a meal. So it was fortuitous that upon finally returning to the restaurant with some friends and colleagues from New York, we landed on a Sunday, when the Le Chapeau Melon serves à la carte, and the resulting meals, more informal, less fussy, are all the better for it.

savoie-faire pt. 2: savoie reds at la cave de l'insolite, 75011

Adrien Berlioz of Domaine du Cellier des Cray and Frédéric Giachino of Domaine Giachino.

It's possible to turn up the occasional vin de Savoie in the more forward-thinking restaurants and wine shops in the states, where somms and wine geeks are often looking for the next keen blistering white to ratchet up the acid. (Hence the relative geek cache of Vermentino, Pecorino, Aligoté, etc.) Whereas in my experience, rich Savoyard reds, based primarily on the Mondeuse grape, remain on a whole other level of obscurity.

I tasted through quite a few at the Vin de Savoie tasting at La Cave de l'Insolite last month, and while I can't lie and say they screamed COMMERCIAL OPPORTUNITY*, they were on the whole much more aligned with contemporary wine tastes that I'd expected.** 

eternal sad little life: wine by one, 75002

This futuristic style of wine retail always reminds me of the sex scenes in Woody Allen's Sleeper, where the participants enter a phone booth-like construction for a few seconds and promptly emerge looking disheveled and postcoital. What's missing is a certain physicality.

I was particularly saddened to see Nicolas Joly's gorgeous Coulée de Serrant cryogenically packed into one of these moron vaults, awaiting a decade until enough suckers passed through willing to drop 20eu (or thereabouts) on 10cl of wine in a Jetson-type environment. These wine IV-systems always promise eternal freshness. On the off chance that there's no such thing, the Coulée de Serrant, being a dense biodynamic beast of a Chenin, actually still has a good chance of remaining drinkable for the long haul. (Nicolas Joly extravagantly recommends drinking it over the course of a week, a glass per night. Like hell we will, Nick!) For the rest of the wines in this sad hypermodern little mortuary, I remain skeptical. 

The dude working at Wine By One actually asked me not to take photos, apparently because their architect is very concerned about someone ripping him off. More photos after the jump!