Mapping Paris
Where I ate...shopped...returned to...waited in line to try...
This trip to Paris was marked by an excitement to explore and discover rather than a mapped-out itinerary with reservations booked months in advance in my usual fashion. With places in mind I was eager to return to, a list of a few priority stops, and a lot of time, I was able to see the city in a way that felt, to me, like I was experiencing it at its best. With people lining sidewalks smoking cigarettes in the middle of the day, gardens full of friends taking in the hot summer sun, and meals that felt, by and large, unfussy.
My favorite meals were simple, maybe even deceptively so. I would sit at tables by myself smiling as I dipped radishes into a pot of unreasonably good butter, discovered that the small honey pot of mustard was so sharp it made my eyes water, or noticed how pronounced an herb as humble as parsley had appeared in a dish.
But to recognize that, you need a contrast which Paris offers in abundance. Some meals were coursed out global fusions, others were preparations of ingredients I had never seen before. And I loved them too. All of it made the trip richer—a map of tastes and ideas that only underscored how good restraint can be and how good the French seem to be at it.
I want to share the best of those meals with you in the most useful way I can think of…by neighborhood. Below, you’ll find a few key highlights from the arrondissements where I spent the most time. If you want the full, unabridged list, paid subscribers will find it pinned on the updated Google map at the end of today’s post. Today’s letter might get cut off in your inbox. The Substack app is a good place to keep reading :)
In the heat of June, eager guests file into Mokonuts, staking out their places among the ten tightly packed tables in its famously small room. The only airflow comes through the propped open door where passersby slow just long enough to peer inside, offer a smile, and move on.
Only open for 2.5 hours during weekdays, it’s no wonder the room is filled with vacationers, English spoken at many tables, a few Parisians tucked in among them. All people who know exactly what’s special about this tiny restaurant in the 11th. Nearly a decade in, it remains an object of diners’ affection.
Moko and Omar have, since the beginning, been at the helm. She’s everywhere at once—seating the next wave of reservations, pouring wine, taking orders, setting down desserts she’s plated herself. He moves quietly in the kitchen behind her, collecting tickets that cling to the stove hood with small magnets, assembling dish after dish with a calm, unhurried confidence.
A crate of apricots rests in the corner, soon to turn into a golden brown crostata draped in lemon peel and flowers that sits on the pass and catches everyone’s eye. Four bottles of wine are open—you tell Moko the color you prefer and she pours you a taste. She casually sets down a plate with a piece of fish too beautiful to cut into. Last week, a slow cooked hamachi on a bed of sweet, smoky eggplant puree and softly cooked vegetables. It’s a long lunch—Moko walks briskly around the space, tracing the same 100 sq meters with precision so that no one else needs to consider any sort of rush. Their 2-3 turns are executed with precision, each table all too aware of how this operation functions—at its own pace, on its own time, with just three sets of capable hands cranking out beautiful coursed out lunches.
My 9-5 job is publishing Moko and Omar’s debut cookbook this fall. My copy is already sitting on my desk. I’m so excited for you all to see it and get a sense, even at home, of what this restaurant has created. Something perfectly simple, something personal, something comforting and exciting and warm,
Other highlights in the 11th arrondissement… Mokochaya’s strawberry scone, a still-warm croissant at Boulangerie-Pâtisserie Terroirs d'Avenir to be eaten on a quiet bench in Square Louis Majorelle. Plates of soft leek hummus and herby labne at Kubri on a very hot day, a stellar bottle of wine and sardines at Café du coin. An obscenely good pizza at OOBATZ, a glass of wine on a perch with a bowl of zucchini, chili crisp, and stracciatella from a guest chef at Les Oeillets, Dreamin’ Man’s cortado or an iced black, running the menu at La Buvette, the cantaloupe sorbet at Folderol.
Being already warm and agreeing to sit down in an open-air market with little circulation and crowds of people in the middle of Le Marais seems…dismal. Determined for a long solo lunch and something slightly cooling and perhaps not too heavy, I settled at a stool at Chez Taeko where I could peer over the counter to see the food being prepared.
The menu was sprawling and reassuringly direct, but the combination of the heat and my gnawing hunger was pushing me toward indecision. I saw a summer special which promised a soba noodle salad and a sashimi don for 22 euros—sold. I ordered a house lemonade without asking what was in it. What arrived was so much better than I had hoped. That lemonade alone—a tall glass (with ice!) filled with soda water, honey, and tart lemon juice, studded with thin slices of lemon—saved me from the feeling of my trousers sticking to my legs, my mild dehydration headache, and the feeling that I couldn’t possibly escape the city’s heat.
A black tray was delivered to my seat moments later with about 3x the amount of food I was anticipating. Two small pieces of chicken karaage, offered as a casual, almost offhand gift, were the best I’ve had. A crunchy, tangy coleslaw I’m still trying to recreate sat alongside it, as did a bowl of warm sushi rice topped with delicate, fresh slices of fish, with a generous serving of pickled ginger and wasabi, just how I like it. The soba noodle salad, thin buckwheat noodles served in a chilled dashi broth with matchsticks of fresh vegetables and tempura, was revelatory dish on a ninety-degree day in a market teeming with people desperate to cool down.
Everything about this meal was so accidentally perfect. No planning, no reservations, no real expectations or knowledge of what to order, and yet one of my favorite moments of the trip.
The 3rd Arrondissement is also home to: repeatedly the best espresso I’ve ever had at I.O Café, flipping through beautiful books and posters at Yvon Lambert, perfect sandwiches at Caractère de Cochon, a crepe at Breizh, a stop at Zwirner, Almine Rech, and Perrotin, maybe another coffee at Boot, and a LOT of expensive vintage shopping.
More highlights by neighborhood, all mapped at the link at the end of the letter.
