Heads above water now with the house so a couple more posts about Paris.

We mentioned in an earlier post we’d done a food walk with Ute.  We’ve done similar walks with her before, both to explore the area around our apartment and venture a bit further afield to markets, food providers and restaurants.  

As we were staying in the same apartment as last visit we had a reasonable idea about local restaurants etc from our last visit so our walk took us up to Montmatre to visit a couple of specialty bakers (artisan breads and Madeleine tea cakes – yes, it seems you can be that specialised!) and around some of the more picturesque small parks and streets away from Sacre Coeur and the tourist hordes).  

After a couple of purchases, we walked down to the foot of the hill, through Pigalle to the area around the Notre Dame de Lorette metro stop which is now up and coming in terms of food – and which is a bit less disreputable than when Caroline stayed there on our first trip to Paris in 1990!

On the rue des Martyrs we visited some more providers including a really good deli (fantastic ham and salads all made in-house), another bakery for patisserie this time, a preserves shop and a cheese shop.  And we poked our noses in various others.  

We carried on walking and finished up in the covered passages (we’d call them arcades) near the Bourse metro stop.  We meant to get back there are Ute pointed out some interesting places to eat, but as always, we had more ideas and suggestions from Ute than we had time.

We also had two restaurant bookings courtesy of Ute: Les Enfants Rouge and Porte 12 – both of which we thoroughly enjoyed. 

 Les Enfants Rouge was a short walk from the apartment and served classic French with a few Japanese touches – it was bustling, friendly and the food great even if some of the dishes had an element of surprise due to our limited French.  The Japanese staff did a great job with us in their third language!

Porte 12 was a bit on an adventure – about 30 minutes by two metro lines and then a walk down an unpromising side street.  The food was a more refined style – we had an amazing degustation menu with 7 small courses matched with wines.  Everything was very seasonal and beautifully presented.  Again, the service was fantastic and fortunately the waiter and sommelier both had good English and could explain the subtleties of the dishes and the wines.  

We also made it back to La Fontaine de Mars across the river, not far from the Eiffel Tower, to enjoy their very superior take on steak and pomme frites (John) and a beautiful roasted fish fillet special (Lynne).

Photos to come…