To recommend a restaurant on the basis of anything other than food, service, or wine has always seemed very foolish, like recommending a tailor because he plays excellent piano. I still recall my revulsion when upon arriving in France in 2009, an acquaintance took me to Derrière, a Paris restaurant famous for containing, in a rear space accessed through a Narnia-like wardrobe door, a sort of playroom, replete with ping-pong. What are we, I thought, children at a birthday party? | not drinking poison in paris
The Native Companion and I were in Nice for New Year's. Before we returned to Paris I was able to convince her to submit to the rigmarole necessary to assure a lunch table at La Merenda, the city's most storied address for traditional Niçoise cuisine, run since 1996 by chef Dominique Le Stanc. | not drinking poison in paris