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Poussin: wine bar and wine cellar restaurant - 12 rue Cheroy, Paris 17th
A wonderful welcome at this lovely little wine bar in the Batignolles neighbourhood! The décor is very pleasant — you come here to enjoy great wines and share tapas-style dishes.
Their specialities: charcuterie, croque comté, beef tataki, patatas bravas, pimientos del Padron… Beautiful plates at reasonable prices!
We thoroughly enjoyed several tapas, notably the perfectly seasoned beef tataki, and we chose the Domaine de La Petite Odyssée (Antoine Bernardin), cuvée Saillant 2021 to accompany our sharing dishes.
A very lovely biodynamic red wine from Haute-Garonne with a rich and captivating aromatic palette! This blend of Merlot, Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon has deep notes of ripe red fruits, touches of spice and cocoa, a fine well-balanced tannic structure and a persistent finish!
The perfect spot for after-work drinks or a date — we'll let you choose.
Saisons - 50 rue du Château, Asnières Sur Seine
You are now becoming familiar with this address we visit regularly — which says a great deal about how warmly we are received! Yet another fabulous team dinner at Saisons - Cuisine du Marché with a wonderful welcome from Frédérique and her son Simon.
A meticulously crafted menu prepared especially for our team, featuring highly elaborate dishes with intense flavours, as well as great wines enjoyed to celebrate the year's end among colleagues.
Let's go.
A delicious pumpkin soup with grilled mushrooms and spiced sauce, followed by a magnificent thick tuna steak beautifully garnished with lovely condiments (lemon, lovage) for the starters.
And there it was, WOW: magnificent food and wine pairings with some truly exceptional bottles.
Philippe Pacalet, Puligny Montrachet 2019: it is very lovely, perhaps still a touch young, but so pleasant to drink already! A very fine aromatic richness after a good amount of aeration: fresh notes of white flowers and white fruits, an ample texture, complexity following 1 year of ageing on lees… Very beautiful!
Coche Dury Meursault 2008: with this blind tasting sock, as usual, you don't know what to expect — except for the person who made the choice… 9 pairs of eyes immediately went wide open after the first nose.
You can tell this is a very great wine. Meursault is not that difficult to guess: butter, brioche, honey, hazelnut, yeast, ageing notes, intense aromas… We are already in raptures just on the nose. On the palate, it is pure ecstasy. A magnificent roundness, a silky texture, still that buttery and toasted quality — it is simply extraordinary.
One of us dares to say "it's a Meursault from Coche", even though you never quite know what the bosses are going to put on the table… Well, it's a resounding yes! Vintage 2008, far better in white than in red when it comes to Burgundy.
Bouchard Père et Fils Corton Charlemagne 1987: the wine pairs perfectly with our second starter based on fish! A great wine with notes of citrus, honey and a hint of toast. Freshness, roundness, balance — it is superb, even past its peak.
Now for the main course. Simon prepared a delicious pigeon with beetroot reduction, purée and beetroot pickles. An absolute knockout — beetroot lovers, you will not be disappointed!
Tender, flavourful, well-seasoned and beautifully accompanied…
L'Anglore Tavel 2021: always a pleasure to taste. Some team members are not great fans, but Tavel remains for almost everyone one of the finest cuvées from this estate. A fruit bomb.
Clos Rougeard Le Bourg 1989: as with Coche Dury, you can tell you are dealing with a real heavyweight. It is grand, very grand. Dense, refined, with a complexity that leaves us speechless, along with exceptional length and finesse.
Domaine du Colombier Hermitage 1999: you can sense a touch of well-integrated stem (a slightly green quality that is not at all off-putting and adds complexity), peppery notes, fruit, and some roasted character… On the palate, it is fleshy, with tannins that have become supple… We all lean towards a syrah, Hermitage features among the guesses around the table, and we all agree there is some age to it. And indeed, a fine Hermitage 1999!
Trévallon 1982: incredible! It joins the club of Coche Dury and De Rougeard, and also earns its place on the podium of the evening.
What a revelation!
For dessert, a magnificent creation featuring pear, vanilla and pecan nuts. A true treat enhanced by a delicious Sauternes: Château Filhot 1986.
Yet another magnificent evening with wines that are far from forgotten! We even got to taste them again at the office the next day!
La Cantine de Samuel - 11 rue Fourcroy Paris 17th
Another charming little address in the 17th arrondissement of Paris: a relaxed atmosphere, no fuss, good brasserie dishes and a warm décor. You will enjoy your food and wine surrounded by bottles, and you feel right at home. A personal favourite for the hand-chopped steak tartare with fries and the duck parmentier: great French brasserie classics that always hit the spot and won't break the bank.
Some lovely approachable wines to accompany everything — our choice settled on Les Meyssonniers by Chapoutier. A reference that one often finds in this type of establishment and that never disappoints.
Le 6 Paul Bert - 6 rue Paul Bert Paris 11th
An excellent address that was renovated for its reopening with Chef Pauline Séné! Yet another former Top Chef contestant excelling in a restaurant you'll want to rush to.
New décor: retro café tables, zinc bar, concrete walls… A very pleasant atmosphere with a view of the kitchen!
A very warm welcome, a varied wine list featuring estates more or less well known, but you always find something to your liking.
Starter featuring butternut squash, chestnut, dill, confit shallot and almond, along with tarama: an absolutely killer dish, perfectly seasoned and wonderfully paired with the Nuage Blanc from Domaine du 7 (Anjou).
For the main course, Veal Sweetbreads Aillaud! Delicious veal sweetbreads (and we have high standards in that regard) paired with a beautiful cuvée from Laura Aillaud - Amorcito, which, beyond the rhyme, accompanied our dish perfectly. A lovely blend of syrah, carignan, grenache and grenache blanc to set our hearts racing in this restaurant!
Plénitude, Arnaud Donckele - 8 quai du Louvre Paris 1st
Simply WOW.
If you ever get the chance to visit this restaurant once in your life, it is clearly 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 an ecstasy of unforgettable wines:
Sardine, leek, Tagetes
Market Garden Medley
Langoustine, squash, rosemary
Scallops, Seaweed, Caviar
All while savouring a fabulous Rully 1er Cru Le Meix Cadot from Dureuil-Janthial — marvellous!
Poultry, Viroflay, Soft Apple
Hare à la Royale: not on the menu — a spontaneous little surprise from the chef!
For the cheese course, we move to a small cheese cellar corner where we are served whatever we wish: there is an extraordinary selection and wheels of indecent size.
All accompanied by a delicious wine from Italy from the Foradori estate (Sgarzon Teroldego 2016), a great wine from the Dolomites — absolutely stunning.
A little nod to the chef's origins, and then we move on to a trou Normand enjoyed in the kitchens. Another little stroll to aid digestion and immerse ourselves in the heart of the restaurant.
For dessert, staying true to Arnaud Donckele's roots, an affectionate nod to Normandy: apple, cinnamon, calvados, or alternatively a magnificent chocolate and pecan dessert. Petits fours with coffee, naturally.
A huge bravo. You do need to invest a considerable sum, but it is a unique experience and dishes you will remember for a lifetime.
Alliance - Paris 5th, 5 Rue de Poissy
A magnificent address in the Parisian Latin Quarter! 1 Michelin star for Chef Toshitaka Omiya at this wonderful restaurant!
Discover the magnificent 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-legged poussin larded with lobster coral: leg broth and lobster claw; roasted supreme, stuffed cabbage and shell jus
Mallard duck, beetroot in a salt crust and royal sauce
Smoked chocolate, milk chocolate cream
Petits fours
Absolutely stunning!
We enjoyed excellent wines there: if the food was of a high standard, so too was what was in the glass!
Jacques Carillon, Puligny Montrachet 1er Cru Les Referts 2013: a superb nose of citrus, white flowers, fresh butter, a hint of hazelnut and a pronounced mineral backbone. It is very beautiful. On the palate, it is precise and taut, with a lovely freshness and a saline touch, as well as a few subtle notes from the ageing that add complexity. A true delight.
Joseph Drouhin Beaune 1er Cru Clos des Mouches 2000: we follow on with another superb white!
Incidentally, a little anecdote: Clos des Mouches takes its name from the beehives that the winegrowers kept on this plot, "Mouche" being the more refined way of saying bee in days gone by.
Anecdote aside, now for the sensations: it is honeyed, with hints of almond and lemongrass, intense flavours of roasted almonds and hazelnuts. Excellent!
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Sylvie Esmonin Gevrey Chambertin 1er Cru Clos Saint Jacques 2014:
On the nose, it is an explosion of dark fruits (blackcurrant, blackberry), notes of violet, black pepper and a touch of well-integrated oak — already very enticing! The palate is structured and powerful, with silky tannins and a lovely freshness, as well as a certain minerality, all of which gives this great wine tremendous balance!
Auguste Clape Cornas 2013:
Superb — powerful dark fruits, pepper, leather, smoke… Very typical of the granitic terroir of Cornas. The tannins are still present but elegant, with beautiful notes of tapenade and graphite, also characteristic of the terroir.
Vieux Château Certan 1989:
1989 is a particularly outstanding vintage. Vieux Château Certan being a very great wine from the Right Bank in Pomerol, close to Pétrus, it lives up to the reputation of the great 1989 vintage! It has developed exceptional finesse over time, while retaining a fabulous concentration and richness with all the aromas of evolved Bordeaux wines that we love: undergrowth, tobacco, a chocolatey and mentholated quality, blood, iron… We appreciate it enormously!
And for dessert, nothing quite like a fine Port, even more so when it has some age: Porto Colheita 1937, with magnificent intense aromas of citrus, dried fruit and apricot. It is juicy and velvety — a sweet and beautiful conclusion to this wonderful dinner!
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