Letter from Paris

By Alexander Lobrano Prunier is back, and it’s better than ever. Most recently owned by the late Pierre Bergé, founder of the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house with the late designer of the same name, one of the most glamorous restaurants in the world has just reopened under new owners, the

By Alexander Lobrano In Hebrew, the word ‘Tekés’ means ceremony, with the implication of a celebration. In Paris, the word now has two meanings–the original Hebrew one, and a second one as the name of Tekés, a very popular new restaurant, which is also a cause for rejoicing, because it

By Alexander Lobrano Tucked away in a mercifully still ungentrified street in the northern Marais, Parcelles is a very near perfect Parisian bistrot a vins, or bistro with a special focus on wine. It’s immediate charm, which comes from the wake of the addresses that proceeded it at the same address,

By Alexander Lobrano Stepping through the front door of talented young chef Tom Meyer’s restaurant Granite in Paris unleashed a rush of memories and also inspired hope during a profoundly testing time. Though the COVID epidemic is still very much with us, as of this writing (December 16, 2021), restaurants in

By Alexander Lobrano The new Drum Cafe at the LUMA Foundation in Arles is an excellent example of how good a museum restaurant can actually be when someone cares about serving good food instead of the usual bland industrial food-service catering too often found at museums. The food at the Drum

By Alexander Lobrano The Paris restaurant scene has deliciously come back to life after the challenges of two recent lockdowns, and a talented new generation of chefs are serving intriguing contemporary French cooking that leaps beyond the cliches of la bistronomie (modern French bistro cooking) with an emphasis on simplicity

By Alexander Lobrano It wasn’t until I went to Liquide, chef Matthias Marc’s new “modern tavern” cum bistro in Les Halles in Paris the other day for lunch that I realized just how much I had been missing restaurants since they shut down in France last October. What I’d been

  By Alexander Lobrano As the months roll by during the second national lockdown of France’s restaurants, I often find myself thinking of chef Mory Sacko and his intriguing restaurant MoSuke. The reason why is that I desperately hope this exceptionally talented young chef’s intriguing restaurant will survive the financial

  By Everett Potter It’s the rare American food writer who can not only hold his own among the food-obsessed French but become one of the leading restaurant critics in Paris. That is the story at the heart of My Place at the Table: A Recipe for a Delicious Life

By Alexander Lobrano During the year without restaurants, it turns out the last one I would go to in 2020 was the Maison Aribert, a Michelin two-star table in the operetta-set-like little spa town of Uriage-les-Bains, which is a few miles outside of Grenoble in the Vercors.   In retrospect,