A s befits the City of Lights, Paris has finally found how to do Christmas  and New Year’s right, now the equal of London and New York.  The city now blazes with Christmas spirit, from the Eiffel Tower (which at night lights up like a sparkler every hour) to the Arc de Triomphe and all the way down the Champs Elysées, itself lined with seasonal boutiques for gifts and food.  Here are some places to dream about right now.

 
STAYING PUT IN PARIS CENTRAL

HOTEL DE VENDÔME
1 Place Vendôme
+33 (0)1 5504 5500
hoteldevendome.com

FOR THE BIG SPLURGE
Plaza-Athenée Hotel
25 Avenue Montaigne
+33 (0)1 53 67 64 00
plaza-athenee-paris.com

    Long one of the most beautiful and glamorous of Paris’s “grand châteaux” hotels is the  Plaza-Athenée, with two Alain Ducasse-run restaurants. For the holidays the hotel is offering both a Romantic package with Deluxe Room, Champagne and chocolates, access to the Sauna & Hamman at the Dior Spa, and breakfast, from 950 euros.  Also a Family Package of two connecting rooms, children’s breakfast and gifts, cookies upon arrival, and access to the hotel’s own Christmas ice rink, from 1,450 euros.
    The room options at the hotel range from a Standard Guestroom to Deluxe Junior Suites to Prestige Suite to Presidential Suite to Royal Suite and an Eiffel Tower rooftop duplex, every one sumptuously decorated in a style that bespeaks true Parisian luxury, with bright marble bathrooms, flowers everywhere, and service that is never intrusive.  You are greeted in the lobby by a check-in and concierge staff that speaks several languages, and you have the option of dining at Alain Ducasse's namesake three-star dining salon here for dinner or at the charming, ever ebullient Le Relais, where I had my last meal on a trip last month to France.
    Dining alone, on occasion, is one of my favorite pastimes, and at Le Relais, the service staff, from maître d' Werner Küchler to waiter, demonstrates a bonhomie you will not always find in the higher altitudes of hotels in the city, especially on Sunday night, when most Paris restaurants are closed.  Yet on the Sunday I dined there Le Relais was jammed with hotel guests, people celebrating a birthday or a romantic anniversary, as well as foreign business people like the Japanese woman whom I treated to what was apparently her first glass of Champagne, which had precisely the effect on her that Champagne should have, which was to make her giddily happy in a way she had not heretofore quite experienced.
    The room has a sleek Art déco look that memorializes that of the French oceanliner La Normandie (burned and scuttled in New York harbor during the war).  As the staff presented little puff pastries to nibble on, I looked over the menu, which is classic French, with many bistro items along with imaginative dishes by Ducasse-appointed Chef Philippe Marc.
    I began the evening with plump grilled scallops with wilted leeks and ground black truffle, each ingredient enhancing the others, and it was all I could do not to order the duck foie gras, one of the best renderings in Paris, served with  poached figs in Sangria, with toasted brioche.
    My main course, which I ordered with a generous green salad, was sole meunière, gently sautéed in rich butter, served with a ramekin of  frothy butter, buttered spinach and what seemed butter-with-whipped potatoes rather than potatoes-with-whipped butter.  It was extravagant and utterly delicious in a way that proves the French may wink at other fats in their diet but will always be true to butter. For dessert Le Relais' signature millefeuille had a fragility of pastry and wonderment of cream that necessitated my finishing every morsel.
    Prices are certainly not cheap at Le Relais, though far less so than in the Ducasse dining room, and offers a quite reasonable 3-course menu at 46 Euros and another at 54.  At Saturday and Sunday lunch, they offer the "Menu for the Tribe," a 60 euro meal (needing to be booked 48 hours in advance) for "family and friends" at which the chef and staff will choose a menu for you according to your wishes, including what is special that day for a table of between six and twelve.
    "Swinging Relais" is a jazz band evening held every last Wednesday of the month with a 75 euro à la carte menu.
    I truly love the conviviality and style of Le Relais, which manages to balance the glamor of a meal in this shining space without  the hauteur, and it is a fine way to spend your first, last, or any evening in Paris.

A MOST CIVILIZED BAR

BAR ANGLAIS
Hôtel Raphael
17 Avenue Kléber
+33 (0)1 53 64 32 00
raphael-hotel.com

    Since the iconic Hemingway Bar at the Ritz is now closed for the hotel’s two-year rehab, the intimate Bar Anglais at the Hôtel Raphael near the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Élysée (the Metro Station is steps away) has become an oasis of cool chic and classic French style, with bartenders who really care about everything that goes into their cocktails.  It’s a place other Parisian bartenders come to drink. 
    The Hôtel Raphael, under the ownership of the Baverez family for four generations, has a consistency only that kind of longlived proprietorship can maintain.  People return here because they feel welcomed back, comforted, at ease.  Discretion rules.  With 38 suites and 52 rooms, it is a moderately sized, with wonderful intimacy, large rooms, and particularly commodious bathrooms. There is a fitness room and fine restaurant here, having now acquired a new chef, 32-year-old Amandine Chaignet, last sous-chef at the Crillon. too.

 

A POP-UP IN PARIS

Nobu
Le Royal Monceau Raffles
37 Avenue Hoche
+33 1 42 99 8800
leroyalmonceau.com

    Oddly enough, the biggest buzz on the dining scene in Paris right now is the three-month pop-up of a Nobu restaurant taking over La Cuisine at Le Royal Monceau Raffles Hotel.  All Nobu Matsuhisa’s signature dishes are here--sea urchin sushi and Ōtoro and chūtoro tuna sashimi, Chilean sea bass with a jalapeño pepper sauce, spicy tuna sushi rolls and Kushiyaki skewers of Wagyu beef—all done with the finest French ingredients and graceful service.   The hotel, under the ownership of the  itself draws an entertainment biz clientele, and the rooms are themed to musicians, like the Ray Charles Suite (below).
    The night I visited, arriving around 8 PM, the dining room was not busy, but by 9:30 just about every table was occupied and the joie de vivre was palpable.  Paris has a few good Japanese restaurants, and sushi finds its way onto many French restaurant menus, but the city has nothing quite like Nobu.
    Our table of three left the menu up to the chef, with wines chosen by the sommelier. The sashimi included Ōtoro and chūtoro tuna with salad; and  Chilean seabass with jalapeño, one of Nobu's signature items.  Salmon was lightly seared, doused with a karashi su miso dressing, and rock shrimp was done in a crisp tempura style. There were marvelous sushi rolls and a shrimp tempura cut roll.  For dessert we enjoyed a chocolate bento box and whiskey cappuccino.
    La Cuisine's regular winelist has been appended with a wide selection of sake  imported specially from the Hokusetsu House brewery on the northern Japanese Isle of Sado, along with  a menu of Asian inspired cocktails.
    I have written of the excellence of La Cuisine in the past, and would miss it if Nobu became a permanent fixture here.  But Nobu seems to fit like a velvet glove in this space, and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for Paris to acquire a branch of this global brand.

  

HAUTE CUISINE WHOSE PRICES ARE NOT

Senderens

9 Place de la Madeleine

+33 01 42 65 22 90

senderens.fr

    A few years ago the great Parisian master chef Alain Senderens handed back his three stars to Michelin (though the Guide refused to accept them) and brought his cooking and prices back down to earth in an an effort to stave off the stultification of haute cuisine and to make his own more available to a younger clientele. Now, right across from the Place Madeleine at Alain Senderens,  in a casual  dining room with undraped tables that look plucked from the Jetsons’ kitchen, save for some historic wood panels and mirrors left from the original design, Senderens (left) and Chef de cuisine Jerome Banctel are doing fabulous cooking. This was once called Lucas Carton, a stolid classic haute cuisine restaurant opened in 1925 (originally a tavern dating to 1732)and later taken over and renovated and run since 1984 by Senderens, listed as an historic monument three years later..  The prices are now half what they used to be, but the quality has not wavered. Service is also far more friendly and less formal.

    This being autumn,  it was nice to begin our meal with foie gras of silky texture came with fava beans and wonderful bread, and I had to order a new turn on one of Senderens' signature dishes--one I had back in the 1980s when he had a restaurant in NYC: then, it was made with lobster but now as open ravioli flavored with vanilla, served with spinach.  That addition of vanilla 30 years ago was one of the signal moments for la nouvelle cuisine, and the flavor, if now not unusual, was a delectable as ever.

    A more classic side was shown impeccably with a rabbit à la royale to his own signature dish, its reduction a textbook lesson in how to intensify flavors, as was pigeon with corn and a puree of peas.  Scallops were creamy and good, with glazed turnips and the crunch of hazelnuts.

    The desserts included a mousseline of pumpkin with vanilla jelly and bourbon ice cream, lemon zest and "chips" of pumpkin, as well as "pom. . . pom. . .pom," a dessert of apple confit, cooked very slowly, and roasted in wine.

    When this was Lucas Carton, a meal back n 2004 could easily reach 200 euros per person, but Senderens wanted a broader, younger clientele, which he has most certainly gotten here, and now, ordering à la carte, you might have a sumptuous meal for about 90 euros.  The loss in formality is now a gain in modern charm.

   

 

 

FOR A LATE LUNCH

Camélia
Mandarin-Oriental Hotel
251 Rue Faubourg-Saint-Honoré
+33 (0)1 70 98 78 88
mandarinoriental.com

    If you’ve just gotten out of the Louvre or coming from too much shopping on the Rue Faubourg and missed lunch, you can still dine well after 2 PM at Camélia in the Mandarin-Oriental Hotel, located on Rue Faubourg, open from 7 AM through 11 AM.  Eat light, maybe a pâté  in crust with herb salad (28 euros) or crab ravioli with infused yuzu (31 euros). There are also heftier items like Barbary duck with orange-glazed turnips and cabbage and lamb with dried fruits and a butternut squash cream. 
     The pretty well-lighted room has a fast-paced staff, 20 wines by the glass.  The hotel's haute cuisine restaurant is Chef Thierry Marx's very popular, ultra-modern Sur Mésur, where a 5-course lunch is a very reasonable 75 euros, at dinner, 6 courses run 165 euros.  I have not dined there yet, but I'll keep you posted if I do. 

ACROSS THE SEINE

Le Quinzième
145 Rue Cauchy
+33 01 45 54 4343
www.restaurantlequinzieme

    The 15^th arrondissement on the Left Bank is becoming increasingly attractive to gastronomes, driven by the appropriately named Le Quinzième (“fifteen”) run by the movie star-handsome Cyril Lignac (below), who in fact has one of the city’s most popular TV cooking shows.  With its open kitchen and forest colors, it’s a very romantic spot in the evening but draws a full crowd at lunch, when the sumptuous three-course lunch at 49 euros is one of the city’s great bargains.
    Somewhat sequestered on a quiet street, the restaurant's doors open to a civilized ambiance and warm greeting.  To the left is an open kitchen, to the right the dining room, whose every table was taken at lunch when I dined there from the "Discovery Menu," bright with new ideas simply realized for maximum flavor without much frou-frou.  Two of us were able to sample everything on the menu, beginning with sheer scallop carpaccio (right) dressed with Ligurian rich olive oil, yuzu lemon and a dash of lime cream, and a very beautiful presentation of fresh goat's cheese from Maine and Loire,with ravioli packed into white beets and smoked goat's cheese, and sweet marjoram. (Ravioli rule in Paris these days!)
    The main courses were codfish slowly baked in citrus dotted with lemon caviar and served with a silver pot of cauliflower puree scented with Madras curry cream--a little triumph of excellence.  Roasted loin of veal was cooked with salted butter, marinated anchovies, Jerusalem artichoke puree and preserved lemons, a dish redolent of the Mediterranean. The meat was cut in very thin strips and the anchovy in no way overpowered the flavors, lying underneath them with a saline edge.
    Desserts were superb: Araguani chocolate soufflé with caramelized hazelnuts and salted butter caramel, and preserved lemon and cream with shortbread and bourbon-flavored ice cream.

    This is cuisine with a light, modern touch of a kind that makes such a lunch less an extravagance than it might be across the Seine.  The whole enterprise has the sense of being chic but unpretentious, stylish without being fleetingly fashionable.  Lignac will be around for a long, long time and Quinzième hints at what may come in the future.  

 

 

 

 

NEW YORK CORNER

by John Mariani

ATRIO Wine Bar Restaurant

Conrad Hotel

102 North End Avenue

212-945-0100

conradnewyork.com

    The 463-suite Conrad Hotel, with the Waldorf-Astoria, Hilton Hotels' entry into the high-end market in NYC, is a reconceiving of what had been an Embassy Suites, keeping, for reasons breathtakingly obvious upon riding the escalator up to it, the grand soaring atrium that makes me wonder about the true price of post-9/11 real estate downtown.  The size and airiness of the atrium, with 2000 pieces of artwork in the public spaces, puts me in mind of a modern hotel in Brazil or Barcelona.  The dominant work is Sol Le Witt's "loopy Doopy," at 10 by 80 feet taking up most of the wall in the atrium.
    The hotel is way downtown in the Financial District, which has seen an astonishing amount of development, including condos, that make it fertile territory for a hotel and restaurant, especially when the World Trade Center buildings are finished. Earlier this year Danny Meyer's USC Hospitality Group put in the free-standing North End Grill, Shake Shack,  and Blue Smoke, adjacent to the Conrad, undoubtedly with more to come.
    The restaurant here, at the top of that space age escalator, is called Atrio Wine Bar Restaurant, a name that candidly emphasizes its purpose, which is to satisfy all-day dining options for people staying here, taking a business meeting here, or rendezvous-ing after work.  Indeed, when I arrived at 7 PM, the atrium outside and the bar inside were thronged with men in shirtsleeves and their female counterparts nursing beers and cocktails, continuing after we left at 9:30.  It's a handsome, casual place fitted out to lounge in, with deep sofas and banquettes, beaded curtains, and lighting just at the right level to see who's coming and going.

    Chef Anthony Zamorra, who works out of a great-looking, very open kitchen, is touching all bases, with small plates, stone-fired pizzas, and a good dose of Italian dishes, and he and his staff are putting in the time to make it all consistently good.  It's a very contemporary menu, with a little for everyone, starting with crudo seafood and a quartet of warm-from-the-grill crostini,   including a delightful one with ricotta, truffle honey and sea salt (right), and another of roasted tomatoes, hot soppressata, and basil.
    The pizza we tried was very good, and that stone oven shows its stuff in the bubbles and char that the crust acquires. On top, caramelized onions, potato, Mountain Gorgonzola, and a Port reduction made for a sweet and savory combo of flavors.  It would make a great lunch, too.
    Zamora (left) sent out hand-rolled garganelli pasta with an osso buco ragout, but the addition of strong-tasting Gaeta olives upset the balance.  Chatham cod with Maila clams, toasted fregola and chorizo was a fine New England autumn seafood dish, and the Moroccan-style braised short ribs had the scent of lemon, with hearty chick peas and minted yogurt--a really terrific dish.
    To end off the meal there is a juicy ricotta cheesecake with Meyer lemon curd and blueberry compote I highly recommend.  Amarena cherries did nothing but overpower the subtly of chocolate panna cotta.
    Atrio, being a wine bar, has plenty of decently priced options, and they do know how to make a cocktail well and generously.
    On my visit, I found the waitstaff either overworked or inattentive, with stretches when there were no personnel within sight. This, I'm sure, can be remedied, but it may suggest that the sit-down dining part of Atrio needs more attention than the tables with drinks.
    So, if you are in that area and need an escape from the office or a good spot for dinner, Atrio is hitting its stride with real panache.

   
Atrio is open for all day dining. Appetizers run $4-$16, main courses $19-$32. Parking in the area is outrageously expensive, but the Conrad provide complementary parking for restaurant guests.

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