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Poussin: wine bar and eatery - 12 rue Cheroy, Paris 17th arrondissement
A wonderful welcome at this little wine bar in Batignolles! The décor is very inviting; come to enjoy some great wines and share a few tapas dishes.
Their specialties: charcuterie, Comté cheese toasties, beef tataki, patatas bravas, pimientos del Padrón… Lovely plates at reasonable prices!
We thoroughly enjoyed several tapas dishes, particularly the perfectly seasoned beef tataki, and chose Domaine de La Petite Odyssée (Antoine Bernardin), Saillant 2021, to accompany our sharing plates.
A lovely biodynamic red wine from Haute-Garonne with a rich, captivating aromatic profile! This blend of Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon offers deep notes of ripe red fruit, touches of spice and cocoa, a well-balanced tannic structure and a lingering finish!
The perfect place for an after-work drink or a date—we’ll leave that up to you.
Saisons - 50 rue du Château, Asnières-sur-Seine
You’re probably getting to know this place by now: we go there regularly, which tells you just how welcome they make us feel! Another fabulous team dinner at Saisons - Cuisine du Marché, with a wonderful welcome from Frédérique and her son Simon.
A menu made with exceptional care especially for our team, featuring intricately prepared, intensely flavorful dishes and fine wines to celebrate the end of the year with our colleagues.
Here we go.
For our appetizers, delicious red kuri squash soup with grilled mushrooms and spicy sauce, followed by a magnificent tuna steak with lovely accompaniments of lemon and lovage.
And then, WOW: magnificent food-and-wine pairings with some seriously impressive bottles.
Philippe Pacalet, Puligny Montrachet 2019: a lovely wine, perhaps still a little young, but so enjoyable to drink already! Beautiful aromatic richness after plenty of aeration: fresh notes of white flowers and white fruit, a generous texture and complexity from a year of aging on the lees… Lovely!
Coche Dury Meursault 2008: with the bottle concealed for our blind tasting, as usual, we don’t know what to expect—except for the person who chose it… Nine pairs of eyes widened as soon as we smelled it.
You can tell this is a truly fine wine. Meursault isn’t too hard to guess: butter, brioche, honey, hazelnut, yeasty notes and signs of aging, intense aromas… The nose alone is a delight. On the palate, it’s sheer bliss. Gorgeous roundness, a silky texture, and those buttery, toasted notes are still there. It’s extraordinary.
One of us dares to say, “It’s a Coche Meursault,” though we never quite know what the bosses will put on the table… And the answer is a resounding yes! The 2008 vintage was much better for white Burgundy than for red.
Bouchard Père et Fils Corton Charlemagne 1987: the wine pairs perfectly with our second fish-based appetizer! A fine wine with notes of citrus and honey and a hint of toast. Freshness, roundness, balance—it’s superb, even past its peak.
On to the main course. Simon prepared delicious squab with a beet reduction, beet purée and pickled beets. Absolutely fantastic—beet lovers, this one’s for you!
Tender, flavorful, nicely spiced and perfectly paired…
L’Anglore Tavel 2021: always a pleasure to drink. Some team members aren’t big fans, but almost all of us still consider Tavel one of this estate’s best cuvées. An explosion of fruit
Clos Rougeard Le Bourg 1989: as with Coche Dury, you can tell this is a heavyweight. It’s great—truly great. Dense and distinctive, with complexity that leaves us speechless, exceptional length and finesse.
Domaine du Colombier Hermitage 1999: there’s a touch of well-integrated stem character (a green note that isn’t at all distracting and adds complexity), along with peppery notes, fruit and roasted aromas… On the palate, it’s full-bodied, with tannins that have softened over time… We all lean toward Syrah; Hermitage is among the guesses around the table, and we all agree it has some age. And there it is: a lovely 1999 Hermitage!
Trévallon 1982: incredible! It joins Coche Dury and Clos Rougeard on the evening’s podium.
What a knockout!
For dessert, a magnificent creation featuring pear, vanilla and pecan. A delight made even better by a delicious Sauternes: Château Filhot 1986.
Another wonderful evening with wines we won’t soon forget! We even got to taste them again at the office the next day!
La Cantine de Samuel - 11 rue Fourcroy, Paris 17th arrondissement
Another lovely little spot in Paris’s 17th arrondissement: a relaxed atmosphere, no fuss, good brasserie food and warm décor. You can enjoy your food and wine surrounded by bottles, and it feels like home. We especially loved the hand-cut steak tartare with fries and the duck parmentier: French brasserie classics that always hit the spot without breaking the bank.
We chose some enjoyable, easy-drinking wines to accompany the food, settling on Les Meyssonniers by Chapoutier. It’s a wine you often find in places like this, and it doesn’t disappoint.
Le 6 Paul Bert - 6 rue Paul Bert, Paris 11th arrondissement
An excellent spot, renovated for its reopening with chef Pauline Séné! Another former Top Chef contestant excelling at a restaurant you’ll want to rush to.
New décor: retro café tables, a zinc bar, concrete walls… A really inviting atmosphere with a view into the kitchen!
A very warm welcome and a varied wine list featuring both familiar and lesser-known estates—you can always find something you’ll enjoy.
An appetizer featuring butternut squash, chestnut, dill, confit shallot and almond, along with taramasalata: absolutely delicious, perfectly seasoned and beautifully accompanied by the Nuage Blanc cuvée from Domaine du 7 (Anjou).
For the main course, Aillaud veal sweetbreads! Delicious sweetbreads—and we’re demanding when it comes to them—with a lovely cuvée from Laura Aillaud -Amorcito that, rhyme aside, paired perfectly with our dish. A beautiful blend of Syrah, Carignan, Grenache and Grenache Blanc to thrill us at this restaurant!
Plénitude, Arnaud Donckele - 8 quai du Louvre, Paris 1st arrondissement
Just WOW.
If you get the chance to visit this restaurant even once in your life, it’s absolutely worth the trip.
A magnificent menu in a fantastic setting. Chef Donckele knows how to delight his guests and even invites us to move around the restaurant during the tasting…
A succession of delicious dishes and unforgettable wines that left us in raptures:
Sardine, leek, marigold
Vegetable Medley
Langoustine, squash, rosemary
Scallops, seaweed, caviar
All while enjoying a fabulous Rully 1er Cru Le Meix Cadot from Dureuil-Janthial—wonderful!
Poultry, Viroflay, tender apple
Lièvre à la Royale: not on the menu, but a little surprise from the chef on the fly!
For the cheese course, we move to a little cheese counter where they serve us whatever we’d like: the selection is extraordinary, and the wheels of cheese are almost comically large.
All accompanied by a delicious Italian wine from Domaine Foradori (Sgarzon Teroldego 2016), a fine wine from the Dolomites that was absolutely fantastic.
A little nod to the chef’s roots, then we move on to a trou normand, which we enjoy in the kitchen. Another short walk to help us digest and put us at the heart of the restaurant.
For dessert, keeping with Arnaud Donckele’s roots, Normandie affective: apple, cinnamon and Calvados, or a magnificent chocolate and pecan dessert. Petit fours with coffee, of course.
Bravo. It comes with a hefty price tag, but it’s a unique experience, with dishes you’ll remember for the rest of your life.
Alliance - Paris 5th arrondissement, 5 rue de Poissy
A wonderful spot in Paris’s Latin Quarter! Chef Toshitaka Omiya has earned one Michelin star at this beautiful restaurant!
Take a look at the superb menu we were treated to:
Raw oyster, Roquefort and Granny Smith apple
Pâté en croûte: pheasant, wood pigeon and duck foie gras
Potato gnocchi, Krystal caviar and white wine sauce
Black-footed young chicken with lobster coral under the skin: broth made from the thighs and lobster claw; roasted breast, stuffed cabbage and shellfish jus
Mallard duck, salt-crusted beet and royale sauce
Smoked chocolate, milk chocolate crémeux
Petit fours
A knockout!
We tasted some excellent wines there: the quality in the glass matched the quality on the plate!
Jacques Carillon, Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Referts 2013: a gorgeous nose of citrus, white flowers and fresh butter, with a hint of hazelnut and a pronounced mineral backbone. Lovely. On the palate, it’s precise and taut, with beautiful freshness and a saline touch, plus subtle notes from aging that add complexity. A real pleasure to drink.
Joseph Drouhin Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches 2000: next up, another superb white!
A little anecdote: Clos des Mouches takes its name from the beehives the winegrowers kept on this plot; in the past, “mouche” was a more refined way to refer to a bee.
Back to the wine and its flavors: honeyed notes, hints of almond and lemongrass, and intense flavors of toasted almonds and hazelnuts. Excellent!
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Sylvie Esmonin Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Saint Jacques 2014:
On the nose, an explosion of black fruit (blackcurrant, blackberry), notes of violet, black pepper and a little well-integrated oak—it’s enticing already! The palate is structured and powerful, with silky tannins, lovely freshness and a certain minerality, giving this fine wine wonderful balance!
Auguste Clape Cornas 2013:
Fantastic, with powerful black fruit, pepper, leather and smoke… Very typical of Cornas’s granite terroir. The tannins are still present but elegant, with lovely notes of tapenade and graphite, also characteristic of the terroir.
Vieux Château Certan 1989:
1989 was an especially successful vintage. As one of Pomerol’s truly fine wines from the Right Bank, close to Pétrus, Vieux Château Certan lives up to the reputation of this great vintage! Over time, it has developed exceptional finesse while retaining fabulous concentration and richness, with all the aromas we love in mature Bordeaux wines: forest floor, tobacco, hints of chocolate and mint, savory, iron-like notes… We’re enjoying it immensely!
And for dessert, nothing beats a fine Port, especially one with some age: a 1937 Colheita Port, with magnificent, intense aromas of citrus, raisins and apricot. Juicy and velvety, it brought this wonderful dinner to a beautifully gentle close!
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