Mocha Monday

 

A light breakfast with café crème, chocolat chaud, golden chai.

 Les Cinq Marches.

 Café-Cantine 

12 rue Girardon 75018

 

 

 

Sit-down Sunday

 

Weekend downtime.

 

Les Cinq Marches

Café-Cantine

12 rue Girardon 75018

 

Saturday sips

An early start.

 

Mocha Monday

Early coffee from a sleepy fishing village somewhere on the French Atlantic coast.

 

Toasty Tuesday

 

Avocado Toast French style at Au Sauvignon, Saint-Germain-des-Prés.

 

Below: Mignon Café, Montmartre 

 

 

 

 

 

*** 

 

When Avocado Toast, a favorite in the US, pirouetted into Paris, it soon took off and began to show up on menus all over the city. Avocados from Spain, Holland, Israel, Morocco and Kenya had been a plentiful staple at markets for years. And with already popular open-faced tartines everywhere plus a wide choice of boulangeries translating to a wide variety of excellent breads, it was just a matter of time. 

Cafés and restaurants rolled up their sleeves to give it their own spin - fresh herbs, seeds and mixed spices here, smoked salmon, a poached egg, crispy bacon, burrata, a sprinkling of pomegranate seeds there.

 Today the very presence of avocado toast on a menu is a plus, suggesting an awareness of healthy eating. And while the Anglo crowd seems to regard it as mostly a breakfast or part of a brunch, many French still see it as a trendy tartine, best as a light lunch. - BPJ

AU SAUVIGNON

80 rue des Saints-Pères

16.50 euros 

MAISON SAUVAGE SAINT-GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS

5 rue de Buci 75006

14 euros 

 

CUPPA CAFÉ

86 rue de l’université 75006

12.50 euros

 

L’ESCARPOLETTE

40 rue Guy-Lussac 75005

14 euros

 

CAFÉ DE LA POSTE

"Tartine de La Poste"

124 rue de Turenne 75003

13 euros 

 

   RÉPUBLIQUE OF COFFEE

2 boulevard Saint-Martin 75010

9.50 euros 

 

NOGLU (gluten free)

16 passage des Panoramas 75002

15 euros 

 

CAFÉ FOUFOU

10 rue d’Oberkampf 75011

11.50 euros 

 

CAFÉ BERRY

10 rue Chappon 75003

9 euros 

 

MARCELLO

8 rue Mabillon 75006

6 euros

 

MARCEL

15 rue de Babylone 75007

 

LE FUMOIR

6 rue de l'Amiral de Coligny 75001

16 euros

 

MIGNON CAFÉ

67 rue Caulaincourt 75018

14 euros

 

PAIN QUOTIDIEN (Montmartre)

31 rue Lepic 75018

10.95 euros

 Other locations: 

Les Halles

Marais

Victoires

Charonne

Victor Hugo

Saint-Lazare

 

Wake up Wednesday

Some good reasons to get out of bed.

 

Below: more good reasons

 

 

The French Bastards 

Boulangerie-Pâtisserie artisan

60 rue de Sèvres 75007

 

- 5 more locations - 

 

 

***

  

Ten years ago today - could it be? - I posted my very first photo on FocusOnParis.com, a photo blog created and launched with pro photographer, former colleague and dear friend Wilf James. The blog’s kickoff photo had been the day before, January 28, an inspiring black and white photograph that Wilf had taken of tourists leaning over to gawk at the Eiffel Tower.

Then it was up to me and my iphone, and now, with over 3,000 posted photos and visitors from all over the world dropping in every day, what started as a fun photography experiment turned into a part-time art project that has led to many unexpected connections and an even deeper appreciation of the city. And yet as many photos as I've posted - whether of food, cafés, fashion, art, travel, street scenes, architecture, more - in short, subjects I'd also explored as a lifestyle editor/writer over the years - I know I've only scratched the surface. Paris is a city full of surprises where I can always count on something new. Everything I photograph is with an eye for what strikes me, in corners and places I find myself (or that I seek out) that make Paris well, Paris. This seems to have kept the interest of the blog’s many visitors as well, and I hope will continue to do so. - BPJ
 
🎉

 

Mocha Monday

 

 A café noisette gets upstaged by a buttery kouign-amann.

 

Mocha Monday

A petit déjeuner of hot coffee and still warm viennoiseries starts a cold day.

 

 

Miam Monday

 

Croissants worth admiration.

 

A good start

The weekend started with breakfast at Angelina, rue de Rivoli.

Tête de mule

 

"Tête de mule" means obstinate and these artisan "tourtes de meule" from a bakery in the Pigalle district remain obstinately (and thankfully) in demand for many a breakfast table, and more.

 France: a culture of bread - BPJ

A Paris croissant

Getting it straight. Not curved.

June newsletter

Throwback Thursday

 

Lobster and prawns Eggs Benedict on a Sunday morning in Paris.

Hardware Société
(Paris-Melbourne)
10 rue Lamarck 75018

***  

The setting was 80's London in my pre-Paris days, and Michael Alexander, who I've written about before on this blog, had opened a restaurant, The Chelsea Wharf, to much local fanfare in the media and otherwise, right on Chelsea Harbour.

In no time at all it became the talk of the town. In the cuisine was enfant terrible now celeb chef Marco Pierre White, the sole person, it's been said, who "made Gordon Ramsay cry in the kitchen." With regulars such as George Michael and Boy George streaming in, one would think its success was guaranteed, but it wasn’t. Sadly, it was short-lived. Lax management let a party atmosphere take over and, as Michael would mention more than once over the years with a sigh, he was, after all, a writer, not a restaurateur.

 Sunday mornings saw a gathering of "friends and allies" - those dearest and nearest to him - occupy a very long table for breakfast. As Billy Churchill swayed away on piano and a soft light seeped in through gothic windows, we'd regale in bad jokes and good champagne.

Just across the Thames was Saint Mary's Church and almost everyone would order Bloody Marys and the house Eggs Benedict - or rather, as it appeared on the menu, "Eggs Benedict Arnold," so named for the notorious traitor of the American Revolution buried there. 

 The first - and last - time I pointed this out I was swiftly berated.

“Traitor? From our side of things, Benedict Arnold was a hero!” - BPJ

 

Un bol de café

 

 

Traditional French breakfast coffee bols bide their time on shelves waiting for the day this café-boulangerie will re-open.

 

Coquelicot
24 rue des Abbesses 75018

Your eggs await

 

Today's post is a flashback to the days when cafés were ready for customers on almost every block.

Above: extra large soft-boiled eggs, croissants, coffee and fresh orange juice on a café table near the Bastille

Breaking boules

Nothing compares to fresh artisan bread straight from local boulangerie ovens, still warm. The small round loaves or boules - look for them on upper or back shelves - can be tranchés (sliced) but for the asking. Paris has so many bakeries that unique specialty breads, some available only on certain days of the week, are created to stand out among the competition.

 Above: Pain Scandinave w/hazelnuts, walnuts, dried apricots and currants

 Below: a Pavé (cobblestone) Caulaincourt ready for the toaster

Paris popovers

 With another confinement looming it's time to preheat the oven.

 

Above and Below: French popovers - smaller, detached, more self-assured

 

 

 

Above: homemade whole wheat popovers w/hints of nutmeg

Below: this morning's lemon zest merveilles (accompanied by butter, jams, honey, coffee, tea)

 

 ***

 

Recipes November newsletter

 

Farewell to menus

Menu sans contact: Au revoir to hiding behind menus to discreetly flirt with someone at the next table or check if anything's stuck in your teeth with your knife. With coronavirus in the air, for health and safety reasons there are now QR code stickers on many restaurant and café tables to enable patrons to scan and read digitalized menus on their cellphones without having to touch a printed menu. Good idea. - BPJ

Le Pain Quotidien

31 rue Lepic 75018

A Franco-American breakfast

 Our usual petit-déjeuner of coffee, tea, baguette toasts, butter and confitures was joined by decidedly Anglo-Saxon visitors: bacon, eggs, and hash browns

Above: organic fresh eggs baked atop a base of crunchy pan-fried hash browns are garnished w/smoky caramelized bacon curls and coriandre; sliced avocado, red onion accompany

Hitting the spot

And the spot is Angelina, an old favorite on rue de Rivoli.

Above: hot béchamel cheese croissant; smoked salmon on brioche toast and poached eggs; coffee