Sometimes, we get bored of the same café or usual Mcdo and make an effort to expand our culinary horizons. Though the Parisian dining scene isn’t as volatile or eccentric as those of other big cities, in 2011, we still witnessed some exciting openings and managed to track the latest in the city’s restaurant trends: loft-style spaces, American imports, tapas, tapas, and more tapas. Seriously, how many wine bars are there now?

With the year of the small plate squarely behind us, we’re bringing you a list of some cool places we tried before our New Year’s diet resolution officially kicked in (yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts):

Square Gardette

Despite a decor that reminds us of our grandparents’ antique parlour room, Square Gardette is a hidden gem. In fact, you’ll feel quite at home in the restaurant’s salon-style dining room, with its velvet sofas and card tables. You can take an afternoon coffee and kick back with a good read, but stay for dinner. In the words of one of our wise founders, the food is “top”. On the menu, the chef, who paid his dues at Parisian institutions Bistro Paul Bert and l’Ami Jean, puts a new twist on French classics with ingredients like tonka bean and orange caramel. After capping off 2011 here with oysters, beef cheeks and fine wine, the TDIP crew concluded that yes, indeed, it has been a beautiful year…

Square Gardette / 24, rue Saint-Ambroise / Metro: Rue Saint Maur

Frenchie bar à vins

One of the most talked about openings of 2011 was Frenchie bar à vins, little sister to Frenchie, still one of the hottest restaurants and hardest tables to book in Paris. Thought to free up the months-long waiting list across the street, this wine bar has proven more than just an annex and has already come into its own, attracting a young and local clientele by serving up Gregory Marchand’s signature creations in an intimate, more laid-back atmosphere. Here, you’ll find only the freshest ingredients and the most creative flavour combinations, earning Frenchie bar à vins the rightly deserved title of best wine bar this year. Good vibes, good wines, good times: we approve.

Frenchie Wine Bar / 6, rue du Nil / Metro: Sentier

 

Septime

So it turns out not all bistro food has to be so boring. This new trendy spot in the up-and-coming 11^ème attracts in-the-know Parisians, including So Me or Guillaume Salmon, PR in chief at Colette. Septime was built as a Parisian neo-bistro with all the classic bistro props and familiar wooden tables. But this one is truly a unique experience, with a stellar menu conceived by Bertrand Grébaut, ex-chef of Michelin-star l’Agapé. The restaurant serves the best of traditional French cuisine using original concepts such as the menu Carte Blanche. Can’t figure out what to order? No worries. This 6-plate menu is perfect for the lazy and indecisive. Just say what you don’t like and the chef will handle the rest…

Septime / 80, rue de Charonne, 75011 / Metro: Ledru Rollin

 

Claus 

Our newest morning wake-up call, Claus has proven to us that breakfast can be sexy and that you can still be fashionable even hunched over your usual post hang-over muesli. Located in front of the Louboutin store and opened by Claus Estermann, ex-PR chief at Givenchy, the unoriginally-named breakfast club of the 1st arrondissement brought out party-exhausted fashionistas and club sandwich afficionados in 2011 for all-day served organic brunch.

Claus /14 rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau 75001/ Metro: Louvre-Rivoli

 

Coutume Café

We’re fans of the latest opening in the city’s burgeoning boutique coffee scene in 2011. The guys at Coutume Café aren’t messing around when it comes to the art of coffee, bringing their craftsmen’s knowledge of roasting techniques and brewing methods to the noisette-plagued left bank. Here, single-origin beans are roasted in house and brewed to order. Thanks to the recent addition of a full-service menu, you can now order organic salads and soups, freshly made sandwiches, small bites, pastries from Patisserie de Rêves, and brunch staples like scrambled eggs or the restaurant’s signature breakfast burrito. We personally love the house specialty, the Café Coutume, which contains a perfectly pulled shot of espresso poured into in a nicely spiced chai, served chilled over crushed ice. The staff of coffee experts is chill and friendly and there are even coffee workshops and tastings. With Coutume Café adding to the ever-growing list of places where you can finally get a decent latte or a cup of siphon brewed coffee in Paris, who says all coffee in Paris has to be bad?

Coutume Café /  47 Rue de Babylone 75007 / Metro: Vaneau

Fine, we cheated. One last one for the route, call it a New Year’s bonus:

Le Camion qui Fume

OMG, the food truck has finally arrived in town, and dude, are we glad. Ten Days is always on the lookout for the best burgers this side of the Atlantic, so we’ll hop on the bandwagon and take to the streets for this cruising grill, which has already attracted a hipster following in search of cheap thrills. Of course, there are gourmet versions for the foodie crowd, like the Campagne, with wild mushrooms and aged Gruyere, or the Bleu, with caramelised onions and port sauce. You can even find a veggie burger and a pulled pork sandwich on the menu, but we’ll just settle for the good ol’ Classic. Sadly, Paris is a little slow on the uptake when it comes to the street food phenomenon, but we predict that this mobile wonder is really going to shake up the city’s notoriously stiff dining scene in 2012. Fresh baked buns! Real cheddar! Freedom fries! Coleslaw! BBQ sauce? Sure, why not? Yankee ex-pats and exchange students rejoice!

http://www.lecamionquifume.com/ http://twitter.com/#!/LeCamionQuiFume 

Article: Felix V & Ruben N