Thai ToutainOne of the dishes featured at L’Agape Substance on the Left Bank of Paris.In a delicious but surprising departure from the traditional rhythms of la vie Parisienne, the food news from Paris this summer is that there’s actually a lot of news. Not only has the capital seen a flock of restaurant openings during the traditionally quiet season when many Parisians are away on vacation, but some of these new places are even staying open during the dog days of August. Read more…
The Sofitel Grand Sopot Hotel in Sopot, Poland.“Sopot is one of the sweetest places I’ve ever been,” Charlotte said as the Baltic seaside light began shading to sepia and tinting the waves amber. We were heading back to the wonderful Sofitel Grand Sopot Hotel, after lunch at Tomo Sushi, strolling along Europe’s longest wooden pleasure pier. As we walked and ate some of the world’s best strawberry lody (ice cream) — made with fresh, ivory-colored cream and wild berries — we were stopped regularly to snap photos of bashfully beaming families who wanted proof of their summer sojourns as warming souvenirs during Poland’s long winter. Read more…
Patrick Escudero/Hemis/CorbisWaterfront town houses in Le Touquet.At a recent Saint-Germain-des-Pres dinner party, the conversation turned to perfect destinations for a seaside weekend near Paris. A Los Angeles-based architect wondered aloud about Deauville, provoking a quorum of shaking heads, so our hostess set him straight. “Deauville, c’est trop bling-bling,” she told him. “Bling-bling?” “Flashy,” a fashion P.R. executive volunteered. Then someone suggested Cadaques, on Spain’s Costa Brava, which drew approving murmurs but was ultimately nixed because getting there requires a plane ride and a rental car. Belle Ile in Brittany got a heads up, too, but not for a weekend, since it’s too far away. Honfleur met with general approval, too, but it also requires a rental car. We all agreed that the perfect place would be only a train ride away. Read more…
Meg Zimbeck/Parisbymouth.comThe duck at Vivant in Paris.Just before salad season sets in, Paris is hungry for great Gallic comfort food, which is exactly what the shrewd restaurateur Pierre Jancou is serving up at Vivant, his stunning new bistrot à vins in the heart of the still winningly funky 10th Arrondissement and this season’s hottest opening. Read more…
Courtesy of Le PantrucheLe PantruchePeruse the Paris papers these days and you’ll notice an obsession with bobos: no, they’re not a team of cheerleaders or a troupe of clowns, but rich, artsy types known as bourgeois bohemians, who are now pretty much the tip of Parisian tastemakers. So when friends who were recently staying in Saint Germain des Pres asked me where to go to people watch, I told them to head for the Ninth Arrondissement — citadel of bobo cool.
This sloping piece of central Paris was known as “La Nouvelle Athenes” during the 19th century for its classically styled architecture and the Grecophilia of the many artists and writers who lived here. After World War II, it fell into a genteel senescence until its recent revival, which, on the heels of a flurry of buzz-worthy restaurant openings, makes it a revealing and often delicious place to discover what stylish young Parisians are eating these days. Think burgers — yes, burgers, Parisians are mad for them; Asian food; and the sort of retro-with-a-contemporary-spin bistro cooking that’s locally filed under the heading of “Bistronomie.” Read more…
Photographs courtesy of Dar-Hi HotelLounging on a turquoise cotton covered daybed in the large bay window at the new Dar-Hi Hotel in Nefta, Tunisia, I heard the late-afternoon call to prayer echoed through La Corbeille, the hot-springs-fed oasis sprouting date palms nearby. In the distance the large salt lake Chott El Jerid shimmered in a brick-red mist. When I arrived the night before, I’d seen dromedary-crossing signs along the main access road from the airport in Tozeur. This was true North African desert culture.
In sleepy Nefta, the only thing that marks Dar-Hi as different from its neighbors is its impeccable cinnamon colored facade. But inside, it’s another world. A dark gray cement ramp and white balustrade with lime-lit niches leads into a sprawling picture-windowed communal space where different zones suggest varying moods and activities. Furnished with comfortable built-in couches and chairs, the hotel has a library with a fireplace where olive-and-palm-wood blazes are lit in the evening; a help-yourself galley with drinks, snacks and windows looking onto the kitchen, where local women prepare Tunisian recipes that were tweaked by the Parisian culinary consultant Frederic Grasser Herme; a television room with plump cherry red movie-theater chairs; and a chill-out nook overlooking the oasis. Read more…
Courtesy of the Grand Hotel Kempinski A view of the High Tatras in Strbske Pleso, Slovakia.There’s some travel advice you never forget. “The Tatras are the most beautiful place in Europe,” I was told in a cafe in Prague 20 years ago. “The Alps are like an old man’s teeth. The Tatras are sharp, intense and wild,” said my Czech friend.
Fast forward today to the Grand Hotel Kempinski, the newly renovated 90-room hotel in High Tatras in Strbske Pleso, Slovakia. The birch logs in the marble fireplace nearby crackled, while a pianist began playing Dvořák — a perfect choice for this handsome, high-ceilinged dining room. Read more…
Photographs courtesy of GreetjeA terrine of organic Dutch goat cheese, with layers of rye bread sweetened with homemade apple syrup, served with a coulis (sauce) of organic tomatoes and paprika and roasted hazelnuts.There are dozens of reasons to love Amsterdam, but the food isn’t one of them. To be sure, the city has several terrific Indonesian restaurants, like Sampurna and Blue Pepper, legacies of Holland’s colonial past. (Indonesia was a Dutch colony for more than three centuries.) And there’s De Kas, which serves excellent produce-driven menus in a beautifully restored 1926 greenhouse. I also love running amok at De Kaaskamer, the ideal spot for a tour of Dutch cheeses. But unlike most other major European cities, Amsterdam is a gastronomically deracinated destination. The streets are lined with gauche gaucho steakhouses, middling pasta palaces, wok wielders, burger joints and shawarma stands galore, and, more recently, a torrent of Mad Med tapas taverns.
So it’s a challenge in this city to find bona fide Dutch cooking, already a bashful contender in the European culinary sweepstakes. Which is why I was eager to try Greetje, a restaurant suggested by a Dutch friend who’s a curator at the Louvre. “We Dutch get elbowed aside by bigger and better-known European kitchens,” Karel told me, “but there’s actually some wonderful food in Holland.” So I booked for dinner with a friend on a Saturday night, and after being curious for years about the foods I’d seen depicted in those Dutch banquet still lifes of the 17th century, I finally found a real taste of Holland. Read more…
Vincent LerouxHôtel Thoumieux.The surest sign that Paris has shrugged off its recession blues is the latest crop of gastro addresses to spring up in the city this fall. Not only do they offer fabulous food, they’re also drop-dead chic — a combination Parisians find irresistible.
The leader of the pack is Jean-François Piège’s new “restaurant gastronomique” at HĂ´tel Thoumieux. (No, it’s not that old-fashioned southwestern French place with the huge cat sleeping on a ledge over the banquettes and the great cassoulet anymore.) After several meals at this just-opened table, there’s no doubt in my mind that Piège is one of the two or three wittiest chefs working in Paris right now. This is, in fact, the restaurant Paris has been waiting for, a place that puckishly but firmly shows why the recent trend of dissing the French capital as a culinary has-been is just plain wrong. Read more…
John Hicks/Corbis Disappointed to find that much of central Paris now serves up the same street-level visual refrain as most American cities — Gap, Zara, Starbucks, Subway — friends visiting from Boston yearned for an urban adventure. Where could they go for a long weekend that hadn’t yet been subjected to the centrifuge of globalization? “Bucharest,” I replied, and they laughed out loud. “Bucharest!? Is there anything to see there? And what about the hotels and the food?”
“Trust me,” I told them, and wasn’t surprised when they returned three days later raving about the delicious strangeness of Europe’s sixth largest city (if you don’t count Istanbul and leave out Russia), which is a three-hour flight from most western European capitals. Vying for the title with Belgrade and Sofia, Bucharest is one of the last major European cities that hasn’t been pasteurized by gentrification or lost its soul to mass tourism. It’s an odd but lively mutt of a city — one that’s clearly seen better days but where something is also suddenly stirring. The locals love to have a good time, and the Romanian economy is chugging along pretty nicely. Read more…
