As cities go, Paris is in rare company. Anointed as one of the few true global greats, Paris gets to be whatever it would like to be. Paris is a genius, you see, and like any genius, it is best left to run wild.
Mostly, Paris remains itself, and this is fine. We go, we see the things we have always loved seeing, we eat at the same predictable restaurants. That is what you do in Paris; you honor tradition, which means that you eat dinner in shoebox-sized rooms run by adorably crazy old proprietors who will bring you out a plate of gorgeous duck confit and pour you a glass of house wine. You will not be overly familiar with said wine but you will drink it anyway, because this is Paris, the wine is good and you just don’t ask questions.
Then again, maybe you fancy yourself more of a modern sort — you eschew the famed museums and the iconic shopping streets in favor of a trot around the trendiest new arrondissement; maybe you eat your dinners at one of those chic new places that have but two seatings per night and are only open Tuesdays, Fridays and 2¹/₂ hours for lunch on Saturday. But you sort it out, booking a month in advance; you go, you stand around forever waiting for the first seating to get the hell out, you sit, you eat whatever’s put in front of you. If you have any dietary restrictions, God help you — you probably don’t get to eat much of anything at all, but you will likely still walk out pronouncing it the best meal you have eaten in years, whether it was or not, because this is Paris, and Paris makes sensible people do ridiculous things.
But now Paris is changing. Or rather, Paris is still happily married, but now also questioning. It is now, at long last, open to new things. Things like tacos de carnitas, sold from a truck behind the Musee D’Orsay and operated by a friendly young man in a puffy coat who always seems to be smiling. The truck is called Cantine California (cantinecalifornia.com), its proprietor is Jordan Feilders, who did not spend his entire life in California, just some of it. The whole enterprise — seriously good pork tacos on the Boulevard Raspail on a rainy late spring day — is as un-Parisian as it gets. Of course, Paris loves it, which proves that the city has either lost its mind or come to its senses, depending who you ask.
Turns out, Paris loves a lot of things it never knew it loved. These days, a hungry visitor can indulge in Momofuku-style pork buns and fried chicken sandwiches, both served at Verjus Sandwich (hkmenus.com), a smart wine bar in back of the Palais Royal. Paris also loves lobster rolls, served at the packed and popular new Lobster Bar (lobsterbar.fr) in the 1st. Parisians are all about pastrami sandwiches — they are good at Schwartz’s Deli (schwartzsdeli.fr) in Le Marais. There’s craft beer, too: the Brasserie de la Goutte d’Or (brasserielagouttedor.com) does tastings out in the otherwise dull hinterlands of the 18th.
If this all sounds super-Brooklynish, that is no accident. Brooklyn itself is an adjective these days in Paris, as you may have heard; to be “très Brooklyn” is to be on the cutting edge. It is, as they say around here, chic.
I should have known things had changed, minutes after I arrived in the city a few short weeks ago. A charming little walk from my charming little hotel on the Place des Vosges — the plush (if pricey) Pavillion de la Reine (from 390 euros, hotelpavillondelareine.com) — I found a new vegetarian restaurant. Café Pinson (cafepinson.fr), tucked into a back street in the Marais’ northern reaches, is anything but another crunchy hippie hangout; at noon on a Monday, the bright, modern, but ever-so-slightly-feminine space was packed with a fashionable crowd hanging off of tiny stools and settees, enjoying kale salads and squeezed juices. It was as if you dragged the west side of Los Angeles out of their yoga pants and dressed them up in nice clothes — it was the best, quite frankly, of all possible worlds.
Of course, sometimes the old ways are still the best ways, particularly when they are so spot on as to appear timeless. Many of those little Parisian restaurants that still reel in visitors feel like a trip back in time. Le Severo, a closet-sized corner space way out in the 14th (8 Rue des Plantes), looks at first glance like yet another of those time capsules — and in some ways it is. You squeeze in like a sardine, grateful if your chair is placed somewhere you will not have doors opened into you, plates bumped on the back of your head, your neighbor’s elbows in your lower back. The service is brusque, the menu is limited — but what a menu! Here, you are eating aged steak, a rarity in Paris (the owner is a butcher by trade). And, of course, you are also eating frites, perfectly crispy and golden — some of the best in the city. The meat turns out to be unbelievably good; when the cote de boeuf for two arrives at your table, all pink and charred and both fatty and lean, you will likely regret having offered to share. Our happy table ate slowly, methodically, soaking in the atmosphere; it is always a wonderful thing in Paris, to find yourself in a restaurant full of locals, drunk on wine and good cooking and just pleased with everything in general.
The bill was unbelievably high — nearly 200 euros for three people, but, as usual, nobody complained. After all, what was there to complain about? The food, the setting and the cozy ambiance on a rainy day made for a two-hour meditation session on all the good things in life.
Eventually, we struggled into a cab for one final crosstown journey, this time to a relatively new coffee joint that everyone I had asked had said was very good. Telescope (telescopecafe.com) is on a a quiet backstreet not far from the Palais Royal. Inside, it is all bare bulbs, rough-hewn wood, muffins laid out on brown paper and a polite young man in a hipster outfit who knows how to make a terrific cappuccino, topped off with — of course — some very good latte art. Just as at lunch, the room was full of cheerful locals. They sipped their non-traditional coffees, here in this pleasant, bright room that would be as welcomed in Brooklyn as it is here, just steps from the Opera Garnier. Everything changes. Even Paris.
SKIES, RE-OPENED
Did you know that you can fly British Airways to Paris? Without a stop in London? The airline’s transatlantic subsidiary, OpenSkies, now connects JFK and Newark to Paris-Orly with stylish, three-class Boeing 757s. Flights are available to American Airlines passengers under a codeshare agreement. For more information, visit flyopenskies.com.