Carte De Fid Lit

John Talbott's Paris: Where we want to eat – The Orsay; an ...

An old favorite that (as Yogi Berra said) nobody goes to anymore because it’s too crowded to the Restaurant (le Club) of the grand ecole, the Ecole Polytechnique. It’s open to the public, but full of politicians of all stripes and if you’re a fan of the 8 PM news, you’ll see the cast of characters enter and exit the private rooms periodically. I’ve been talking about it for years but to my knowledge no one I’ve recommended it to has ever gone; it probably intimidates. Just a bit farther are two seafood places, the older, Gaya Rive Gauche , now under the management of Pierre Gagnaire , is stark but elegant, the other 35º Ouest, which by my reckoning is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, simpler and also pricey. I’d also tout you off the Ferme St Simon , which is under new and in my opinion, less successful, management. Heading the other way out of the Orsay resist the impulse to plotz at the nearest bar-brasserie and head over in back of the Assemblee Nationale to the Rue de Burgogne where the 2nd of Bernard Loiseau’s Tante restaurants lies. Loiseau, of whom it was said he never tired of inventing and pushing, died 5 years ago, but his wife has successfully managed what was a complex and complicated empire quite well and the standard of this pl ace – Tante Marguerite , had apparently held up although its prices have crept up.

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