Le Rostand (et autres addresses sur le 6th)

Situated in a privileged position across from the Jardin du Luxembourg, Le Rostand oozes money, though in a respectful, understated way. The café’s interior is grand yet slightly faded, its clientele genteel, but rarely ostentatious. On a visit this past winter, I saw women of a certain age wearing their fur coats indoors, Bonpoint-attired children sharing cake with their equally well-dressed parents, a few professorial types holding court and some students (the Sorbonne is not far away) buying 3 euro espressos, thus earning a table for the afternoon.

The cafe takes its name from Edmond de Rostand, author of Cyrano de Bergerac. While this was likely not an intentional homage (rather governed by the fact that the cafe sits on a square dedicated to the writer), the association is nonetheless a fortuitous one, as both the café and the neighbourhood like to trade on their intellectual heritage. All but the most successful writers and artists have long since decamped to the city’s cheaper northeastern arrondissements. Yet the lure—for visitors and, to some degree, the French themselves—of St Germain’s mythical past remains, even as the quartier is becoming better known for luxury clothing boutiques than for philosophical debates.

Le Rostand’s food is serviceable but expensive, the coffee better than average, the gentlemen’s loos (I’ve been told) still Turkish-style and the maître d’ one of the grumpiest I’ve encountered. The terrace is a sun-trap, though given over to smokers, and the people-watching is arguably better inside. If you were planning to go to de Flore, come here instead.

Le Rostand
6 place Edmond Rostand 75006
Daily, 8 am-2 am
Metro: RER Luxembourg or Odéon

Other local stand-outs:

Gerard Mulot

Their macarons, while credible, are not a match to those of Pierre Herme, located just a few minutes’ walk away. But a slice or two of their wobbly, delicate quiche—favourites include wild mushroom and smoked duck breast—and a bruleé-topped tarte orange will make an ideal alfresco lunch. Pack some wine, and bring your beautifully-wrapped packages to the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg. Just don’t sit on the grass.

76 rue de Seine
Closed Wednesdays
Metro: Mabillon

Mariage Frères

Hidden on a tiny street near the Seine, this branch of the famed tea shop and salon is nearly as charming as the Marais original and far less crowded. Spend a few minutes looking at the tea memorabilia in the basement.

13 rue des Grands-Augustins
Daily, 10:30am-7:30pm
Metro: Odéon or St Michel

Grom

I’ve written about this gelato shop before, but I should note that the special for this past month was an extraordinarily creamy granita made with wild strawberries. The rest of summer promises other limited-edition fruit sorbettos.

81 rue de Seine
Daily, late morning-midnight
Metro: Odéon or Mabillon

Fish for Tennis

The installation of a roof on Centre Court at Wimbledon seems to have resulted in the balmiest June in recent memory. These days, English strawberries—not to mention Spanish or Chilean ones—arrive on the supermarket shelves well before the opening match, regardless of climatic variation. But it is doubtless true that summer traditions such as Pimms cup, Jersey Royal potatoes and Eton mess are more enjoyable when they don’t provide the only reminder of summer’s putative existence.

Perhaps because I spent my childhood elsewhere, I have little sentimentality for England’s variable but occasionally glorious summers. Given the choice, I would rather spend mine in a place where it’s regularly hot enough to require a cool drink, and where climate, architecture and culture all conspire to encourage time spent outdoors. (France has mastered the latter, though its northern reaches often leave something to be desired on the temperature front.) I can therefore only attribute my tangent into English summer cooking to the tennis.

Without the over-abundance of good, cheap fruit that comes from a garden or country farm stand, I’ve never really been tempted to make dessert classics such as summer pudding, preferring to eat my berries straight-up. The only exception I make is for gooseberries, whose mouth-puckering sharpness only softens with a judicious application of sugar and heat.

The gooseberries got no further adornment before being puddled next to a freshly-grilled mackerel, the classic perfection of the combination hinted at by the French word for the fruit: groseille à maquereau. And when I could find no more gooseberries, I moved on to a variation on another English summer classic, salmon and mayonnaise. Guided by Nigel Slater, I made fishcakes from salmon (and an equal quantity of smoked trout), boiled new potatoes, and generous handful of tarragon, dill and parsley, and served them with a punched-up mayonnaise full of the same herbs, lemon juice and chopped-up capers.

The tennis is only on for another week. But I suspect these dishes will be on regular rotation for at least another two months.

Mackerel with Gooseberry Sauce

Because of its high oil content, mackerel is only appealing when it’s very fresh. (If it’s unavailable, salmon fillets or steaks could be substituted.) We ended up with whole, cleaned fish, though fillets would make for neater serving. A sauvignon blanc (I like these moderately priced ones) will pick up the grassy, gooseberry flavours of the sauce and cut through the fish’s richness.

Serves 2
Total time: 30 minutes; Active time: 10 minutes

1 small basket gooseberries
Sugar to taste
Very fresh mackerel, either whole or filleted, with skin on (at least 200 grams per person after wastage)
Lemon

Rinse the berries, trim both ends and place in a small saucepan. Add a tablespoon or two of water, and a tablespoon of sugar. (You may want to increase this at the end.) Place on a low heat, stirring occasionally until the gooseberries are soft and collapse under the weight of a spoon. Crush gently with a fork or potato masher, adjust sugar and set aside.

If using whole fish, heat grill (broiler), rinse fish and season. Grill on foil, turning as necessary. Fillet on a separate plate, then add the gooseberry alongside. You may want lemon, though the sauce likely adds sufficient acidity.

If starting with fillets, heat a teaspoon or two of olive or neutral oil in a non-stick pan. Start the fish skin-side down, turning with a thin, flat spatula when it has browned. Season the skinless side and cook for about ½ the time as the first side. Remove to a plate, adjust seasoning and serve with sauce.

Fishcakes with Tartar Sauce

Fishcakes can, when made small and spicy enough, be delicate nibbles. In truly tropical conditions, I’d opt for those, though the following recipe will be perfect for 99% of English summer evenings. The recipe is not particularly prescriptive: salmon can be substituted with a white fish, smoked (or unsmoked) salmon can easily replace the smoked trout and while aniseedy herbs such as tarragon and dill flatter both, the proportions can be adapted. Extra fishcakes can also be prepared up to 2 days in advance. Follow instructions through flouring the fishcakes, then cover and refrigerate until needed.

Serves 2
Total time: 1 hour; Active time: 20-30 minutes (depending on fish preparation)

Adapted from Nigel Slater's Appetite

Fishcake ingredients and initial prep
250 grams potatoes
250 grams fish (I used 1 small can of wild salmon and the same quantity of smoked trout)
Good handful herbs—a mixture of parsley, dill and tarragon works well
Flour
Neutral oil for frying

Peel the potatoes, cube or slice, and place in a pan of boiling, salted water. Cook on a medium-high heat until very soft.

While the potatoes are cooking, prepare the fish. Drain canned fish and chop smoked fish finely, placing both in a mixing bowl. If using fresh fish, poach in a shallow pan until just cooked, then cool and flake fish from skin, adding to the mixing bowl. Chop herbs finely and add to fish.

Drain potatoes. If still a bit wet, steam off excess water by placing the covered pan over low heat for several minutes. Mash with a fork or potato masher and, when cooled somewhat, add to fish mixture. Mix and adjust seasoning.

Sauce ingredients and prep
1 tbsp capers, preferably preserved in salt
Good handful herbs—a mixture of parsley, dill and tarragon works well
Mayonnaise (homemade or quality store-bought), 1- 2 tablespoons per person
Lemon juice
Cornichons (optional)

Soak capers in water to remove salt (or vinegar). Chop herbs finely and add to a small mixing bowl. Add mayonnaise to taste, aiming for something in-between a herb-flecked sauce and herbs just held together by mayonnaise. Remove capers from water, chop and add. Chop and add cornichons, if using. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and adjust seasoning.

Frying
Heat a neutral oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan until hot but not smoking. Unless your pan is non-stick, you’ll want enough oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Put several tablespoons of flour on a flat plate and flour hands lightly. Form fishcakes about 3-4 inches in diameter, flatten slightly and dredge in flour. As each is ready, place gently in the oil. Fry each fishcake until it is crisp and golden on the bottom, then turn carefully with a flat spatula. Remove to a plate lined with paper towels and serve with sauce and freshly-steamed peas and/or asparagus.

Du Pain et des Ideés

A number of Paris’ 20 arrondissements are defined by a single core neighbourhood, architectural style and/or population. The 4^th, for instance, is known for its beautiful 16^th and 17^th century hotel particuliers, and for its upmarket array of shops, galleries and bars. Though it has grown too expensive in recent years for any but the most successful artists or writers, the 6^th remains identified with its grand cafes, De Flore and Deux Magots, and their onetime habitués, Sartre, Gertrude Stein and Hemingway. Further south, the 15^th is solidly residential and respectably bourgeois.

Others are more difficult to characterise. Though physically compact, the 2^nd arrondissement incorporates the Bourse (stock exchange), a red light district, hundreds of clothing wholesalers, an enclave of Japanese noodle shops and groceries and the city’s premier art auction house. The 10^th is similarly eclectic. It contains the western reaches of Belleville—a polyglot immigrant neighbourhood of North African Jews and Muslims, Chinese and Vietnamese—and the eastern and southern boundaries of the Goutte d’Or, historic home of the city’s substantial sub-Saharan African populations. Two major train stations, the Gare du Nord and Gare d’Est, connect the city not only to French cities such as Lille and Strasbourg, but to Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland , Germany and the UK. And past another cut-rate clothing district lies the Canal St Martin, an increasingly popular destination for young, artsy types (known somewhat derisively as bobos, bourgeois bohemians), the better-off of whom are buying canal-side apartments and studios, while the rest make do with cafe-side tables for bio (organic) Sunday brunches.

Moored on an innocuous corner halfway in-between the cheap shoe-sellers and the Canal, the ornate, old-fashioned frontage of Du Pain et des Ideés seems a bit out of place. Inside, the bakery retains its original mirrors and display cases. This, along with its unusually small selection (just a few kinds of bread, rolls with unusual sweet and savoury toppings and a handful of fruit tarts) give it an atmosphere which is almost—though not quite—mannered. Add in slightly above-average prices, organic credentials and the collection of antique bread-baking kit in the window, and it could easily be dismissed as a stylised sop to the neighborhood’s new monied class.

But the bread is both delicious and distinctive, particularly the Pain des Amis. Sliced in flat slabs from a huge, foccaccia-like loaf, the crust yields up an aroma of toasted nuts, and the moist crumb is perfect for breakfast (I had it with greengage jam and very fresh goats cheese) and with all kinds of cheese. The bread rolls are, for once, not an afterthought, stuffed with combinations like blue cheese and apricot, green olive and herbs and chocolate and raspberry. And I’ve been told that the chausson aux pommes is even better than the one at Au Levain du Marais.

NB: Lest you think I discovered it, the bakery has received its fair share of acccolades. Gault Millau named it the city’s best bakery in 2008, Gourmet mentioned in its most recent Paris issue and David Lebovitz thinks it worth a detour.

Du Pain et des Ideés
34 rue Yves Toudic 75010
M-F 6:45am-8pm
Metros: Republique or Jacques Bonsergent

Other notable stops in the 10th:

Sarl Velan Stores

Turn off the Boulevard de Strasbourg, full of nail salons, beauty supply shops and fast-food restaurants, into the Passage Brady, lined with a certain globally-recognisable type of Indian restaurant: gaudy decor, laminated menus and desperate waiters. Passing perhaps half a dozen of these, you’ll come to a shop displaying crates of aubergines, curry leaves and, in season, Alfonse mangoes. Inside, you’ll find sacks of rice, every conceivable type of legume and spice, and, in a nod to India’s colonial past, jars of marmalade and boxes containing several years’ supply of PG Tips.

87 passage Brady
M-S 10am-8:30pm
Metro: Chateau d’Eau

Chez Jeannette

This eccentric bar-cafe boasts elegant high ceilings, mural-covered walls and leatherette booths and is the kind of place where it seems right to have a glass of wine at 11 in the morning. The clientele, most of whom don't seem to have office jobs, may stay long enough to require food, though for that I'd recommend stomach-lining at the tiny Turkish soup place, on the same side of the road heading back towards the arch.

47 Rue du Faubourg St. Denis
M-S early morning until late at night
Metro: Chateau d’Eau