Fashions change but style endures, as Coco Chanel famously said. When it comes to French restaurants in America, their names may endure, but all else appears to be up for reinvention. So, when in France in recent years, I’ve made it a priority to seek out classic brasseries, bistros and bars à vin. Fortunately, the French value them as I do.
December used to be high season in the south of France. Nowadays, that’s no longer the case, and that means less traffic and fewer tourists, though the dining room at La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Vence was full on New Year’s night. Its colorful handwritten menus haven’t changed, and neither the small fortune’s worth of art on its walls; though summer lunches in its garden are the way to go, even in winter it’s a stop worth making.
Inside La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Vence. Photo: Michael Gross
The next night, it was time for something new. Or rather, someplace old that was new to me. Restaurant de Bacon in Antibes had been the neighborhood’s best-known go-to for soupe de poisson since 1948, but it was closed in January and February and that proved a lucky break. It turns out, Bacon changed hands in 2019, and was renamed Maison de Bacon, whereas La Mère Germaine on the quai in Villefranche-sur-Mer since 1938, has kept its name and remained in the hands of the same family for three generations and its soupe de poisson (served year-round except for an annual closing of a few weeks around Thanksgiving) proved a perfect meal on a chilly damp Riviera night. They offered seconds, we accepted, and then couldn’t finish our main courses or touch the delicious tarte au citron. Another lucky break. It made a sinful treat for breakfast.
In Paris years ago, my future wife introduced me to Au Sauvignon, a wine bar founded in 1958 on a prominent corner of rue des Saints-Pères in the 7ème arrondissement, and its foie gras, pâté, and ham sandwiches on Poilâne sourdough bread have been our regular choice for day-of-arrival lunches for decades. Sometimes, though things change, they remain the same, and Au Sauvignon has pulled off that trick. A dozen years ago, a food blogger wrote, “It isn’t the place to get duck confit.” For cooked food you had to go elsewhere. But when I spied duck parmentier on the chalkboard specials, I threw caution to the winds and was rewarded with a deliciously hearty meal, perfect for a rare snowy day in the French capital.
On our last night in town, a rare reservation popped up on ZenChef, the French Resy, for a table at Brasserie Lipp on Boulevard Saint-Germain in the 6ème. An institution since 1880, it’s been a favorite of mine ever since, thirty-plus years ago, an investor in a French modeling agency took me there for a lunchtime interview for Model, my book on the modeling industry. Before our meal, he announced we were sitting at French President François Mitterrand’s favorite table. Afterwards, he bade goodbye with a warning: “If you harm Elite, Elite will harm you.”
Inside Brasserie Lipp
I’m still here (and apparently, at age 96, so is he, not that I care to investigate further). More important, so is the Lipp, serving up its Alsatian founder’s specialties like choucroute and pied de porc farci, alongside a full range of French classics, in a Belle Époque dining room lined with signs prohibiting the use of cell phones and the necessity of tenue correcte, a rule so sacred it is repeated in English: No shorts allowed. Here, a stylish threat of violence, when delivered with proper savoir faire, might not only pass muster; it could make a fond, lasting memory, particularly when accompanied by a perfect sole meunière and a bottle of Sancerre.
