Serenity in Paris

When I started this blog, I thought that I would be writing regularly, but I have not been able to do that. Unfortunately, it has been a while since I’ve written something new. When I first started the parisbywalking account on instagram, my aim was to walk all of the streets of Paris and post pictures of buildings, statues, museums, graffiti, restaurants and views that I liked. I wanted to share these along with their stories and facts which I found amusing. The blog came later as a tool to share all this in more detail without the restraint of the limited space Instagram allows. Well, but what was next when all of the above was done? That part I hadn’t yet contemplated.
In the end, I walked and I walked and at last the city ended and there was nothing left to see. I thought, “So what now?” Yes there are still around 200 restaurants that I want to go to but I decided that I don’t want the next step to be to turn my account into a restaurant rec account. There are already a lot of accounts that do that, and they do it with a lot more technical background info added.
But then what could I do? I kept thinking and decided to focus on a question that I have been receiving from a lot of people around me lately: “We always go to the same places. You have been around the whole city, why don’t you take us to different places?”
It was around this time that on a wednesday at the Marché President Wilson one of my followers approached me and told me that she loved my photo and was always curious about the places that I posted about and asked me if I would recommend her a route to wander through. This suddenly helped me put it all together and come to a final decision.  
I had to organize walking tours in non-touristic parts of the city!

When I write it like this, it seems really easy right? Well for me, it was not so.

All my life, making decisions about business has given me nightmares and it has always taken me a long time to decide. Although in the end, my decisions never fail me, still this knowledge doesn’t make it any easier to take that final leap.  Well it is also because since I was 18, all my work dreams and plans have been taken away from me by outside factors in the end. Therefore you might understand me when I say that whenever I get a new idea, the second thought that comes to my mind is “Why bother, it won’t probably work out in the end” Maybe this is something that I should discuss with my own therapist and not here. 🫣

Well, if there are any psychologists among you, please DM me. 🤓

Ok, maybe it’s better I get back to writing about Paris.
In the end, I took that leap once again as a “micro-entrepreneur” to start my one-man company and finally I’m beginning to organize my walking tours. I have already done a couple of test runs. I have already announced the structure of the tours on Instagram and I will soon be announcing upcoming tour dates. Here I wanted to explain in more detail why I’m starting from 20th Arrondissement. In a documentary I watched recently, they were talking about the benefits of writing since it allows you to come up with and realise things that you hadn’t thought of before. Let’s see what writing about the contents of the tour will bring out about the 20th Arrondissement. Before all else, we should all agree that I’m not a professional tour guide, which means these will not be tours full of historical and technical information about the area. More likely, they will be sightseeing tours where we chat about our own Paris stories. In our last trial tour, two friends who have moved to Paris at the same time as us confessed that they hadn’t seen any of the streets on my route before even though the route was only 30 min away from their home by metro. But like they also commented, it is way easier to have someone guide them through what he has discovered before rather than trying to find these places by themselves. I believe the fact that no one has any time to waste any more helps a lot what I’m doing.

The 20th Arrondissement has been a later addition to the Paris city limits. Charonne village which used to have vineyards is also a part of this arrondissement. A part of my tour takes us through the village’s main road which still exists today. A lot of the streets on the route have an architectural style completely different from the rest of the city. It actually feels like a small town. I think this is the main reason why I decided to start my tours from this area. When we first moved and before I started my Instagram account I remember very clearly thinking that what makes Paris so powerful and famous cannot only be the grandeur of the citycenter, there must be something more and I have to find that out. As I walked through all of the arrondissements I believe I understood it better. I think the power of the city comes from the variety it offers. Both the variety in human profiles and the variety of architectural styles work to form an harmony that adds to the magic of the city.  What sets the 20th apart from other arrondissements is that it also includes a agroecological farm. Although it is stuck between buildings, it still maintains a sustainable farming system that also gives job opportunities to those in need, while also arranging workshops for students and gives the city habitants a chance to connect back with the land. You can also buy fresh vegetables and herbs for your own kitchen. I have read that there are also a couple of restaurants in the area that source their produce from this farm.

What else is on the tour? In summary; for example, although it doesn’t appear very exciting on the first look, the street where the tour begins from has been around since 1672. Then we walk though a street where obviously the most plant loving neighbours of the city have come together to live and come upon an extraordinary artdeco church. From there we move onto the part where the vineyards used to be, although they have lost their battles to urbanization long ago. However we discover that there are still some dead-end alleys in the area curiously. We come out on a plaza that I love which was chosen in 2020 by The Guardian as the most authentic neighbourhood of Europe and we use this opportunity to take lovely pictures of the place. Next we see one of the biggest and therefore most unexpected statues of the city and ask ourselves “Why?” Right after, we see another building where we once again ask “Why?”, I try to explain you the why, although I’m not sure how convincing the answer is, because personally I, myself, am not convinced. We come to “La Môme” Square where we discuss the statue made in his honour and what the architect was probably thinking when he was creating it. When we reach the square, it means that we are almost done but you have to soldier on for a small climb up two more streets to finally reach the really surprising and awarding end of the tour. We end in a totally unexpected neighbourhood where we cannot help ourselves and start the actually pointless discussion of what it would feel like to actually own one of these homes and wondering who lives here. In the end, if you have enjoyed the tour, I will also be recommending 2 restaurants and a wonderful café to rest your tired feet and enjoy yourselves. The cafe is both a nice way to end the day after lunch or for those who want to skip the lunch part. Especially the serene part at the end of the tour makes one feel as if they have gotten out of Paris, therefore I decided to name this tour “Serenity”. I loved to give this tour such an appropriate name without thinking that now I would have to keep naming all my forthcoming tours. 🤦🏻‍♂️

A Serious Wine Article or not !

A “philosopher” with whom I’m very close says that “The wine you like the most is actually the best wine”

Taking courage from these words, I decided to write an article on wine. However, I must confess up front that I might be way in over my head. I have many friends who know a lot about wine, I even have friends who are professionally involved in wine. While they are all out there, it’s me who’s attempting to write about wine. That’s some courage! Or maybe foolishness, we’ll see.

I will not bore you by starting with the fact that wine is an alcoholic drink produced from fresh grapes or grape juice through the process of fermentation, neither will I explain all technical details such as how during fermentation the yeast produces 1 degree of alcohol for each 17 g of sugar it consumes. Nor will I talk about how sometimes, when vines are planted too close by, they get stressed by the competion and send their roots as far as 20 m underground. However, I would still like to taste a glass of wine one day and turn around to tell my friends that “This wine has never aged in an oak barrel, it was aged in a steel tank into which oak shavings were added. It just doesn’t have the smoothness, that’s how you can tell.” Even imagining the shocked expressions of those around me is enough to give me joy right now.

Just like all other Turkish teenagers in that time, my first introduction to wine was probably by Kavaklıdere Yakut. I don’t actually remember because it has been so long, and as someone who started their drinking life with the awfully insufferable vodka and sourcherry juice, I really don’t want to go into my previous drinking experience. My true introduction to wine has come very late. When I first went into the restaurant business in 2010, I had my first chance to learn about the old and new Turkish wine brands, local grapes and their prices. That’s why it’s really not very realistic to expect a deep range of knowledge from me in such a short time, please don’t stress me with very high expectations!

When we were opening our restaurant in 2010, it was already decided that our menu would be based on fresh and local produce, therefore by selling only Turkish wine, we wanted to do our part to support the business. Another rule we had was not to have any sponsorship agreements with bigger brands so that we could include smaller producers we liked in the menu. You can see that we were very free-spirited. I saw now that we had wines from 16 different producers on the menu in 2015. It’s not bad at all for a small restaurant that seats 50 people. Of course you should never think that we forgot to take care of our customers who claim that Turkish wines ‘give them an headache’. We included 2 white and 2 red French wines for them on the menu as well. Naturally I did not see French wine as I see it now. But still I see that we still managed to choose good French brands, such as the 140 year old winery Joseph Drouhin, whose wines I had a chance to taste here in France later on. They are a 4th generation family-business in production in Burgundy. We had their Pinot Noir and Chablis on the menu. This reminds me of a joke I heard the other day. . “What gives people feeling of power?” Money? Status? Knowing that Chablis is Chardonnay? Correct answer is the last one. 

Since we’ve mentioned French wines, let’s continue in that line. When it was confirmed that we were actually moving to Paris, I decided to learn more about French wines. I started studying the wine menus at each restaurant we went to. After a couple of times, I realized that almost no restaurant has the same two producers on the menu. The menus are sometimes like little novels, pages long but still 95% of the wines are from different producers. That got me discouraged and I just thought there was no way I could accumulate any sort of knowledge. I can hear some of you saying “Don’t be ridiculous.” For those of you, I have prepared just the right analysis. And I believe this huge study deserves its own paragraph.

While we were stuck at home during the pandemic, as a way to keep myself busy, I decided to save to an excel file every single wine we drank between April 2017 and April 2021, collecting all data from my Vivino account and my phone. Yes I really did that, and I already had every wine we drank saved somewhere. The results are pure madness. To start with, in the last 4 years, we have drunk a bottle of wine every 3.5 days. However let me say, we are certainly not alcoholics. For example, I’ve been on antibiotics for 5 days and I drank a half-glass of red wine, only twice. See, I am able to control myself! I also want to give an idea on the price data I’ve collected so that you can see that there is a certain price range. Looking at that, you can understand the vastness of the French wine industry when you include all the more expensive and cheaper wines out there. Apart from a couple of specials occasions, the wines we drank are all between 20€ and 70€. This includes both supermarket and restaurant prices. It’s time to reveal numbers. In the past for years, 95% of the time with Ayca, we drank a total of 299 bottles of wine. Of these 167 are white, 123 are red and only 9 are rose. (There might a few more roses but they probably did not leave a mark strong enough to be recorded) But what is most amazing, is the number of producers these 299 bottles are from. We drank 299 bottles from 259 different producers. This is a mind blowing number for a Turkish person who has had a brief encounter with the restaurant business. I’m still analyzing the list, therefore there might be more articles about that coming your way. For now, I’ll leave it at that by finally mentioning more numbers about the regions of those bottles.

76 bottles from Burgundy, 57 bottles from Loire, 47 bottles from Rhone, 30 bottles from Languedoc-Roussillon, 28 bottles from Provance, 25 bottles from Bordeaux, 13 bottles from Alsace, 8 bottles from South-West, 5 bottles of Beaujolais, 4 bottles from Savoie, 3 bottles from Corsica, 2 bottles from Jura.

Looking at these results, we can see that as a couple we drank mostly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, followed by Sauvignon Blanc from Loire. Are we a bit boring? Why always the same classci grapes while there were so many options out there?!?!? Ayca, let’s think about this a little, he?? Hahahaa Talking about different grapes, some of the grapes that I heard of for the first time were Poulsard from Jura, Rolle from Provance, Marsanne from Rhone, Clairette and Roussanne, Jacquère and  Gringet from Savoie. I must also say that I tasted 3 of these grapes in Septime, one of my favourite restaurants in Paris. And I remember buying the rest of them from a wine store in our neighborhood. Every year at Christmas I set myself a certain budget to gift myself some new wines. This selection is usually chosen by Didier to take me on a wine adventure. Every year is a new excitement. Didier is extremely knowledged about wine. Every year I show his selection to my philosopher friend mentioned at the beginning of the article, or should I say my friend ‘the talker’? And Didier’s selection passes his evaluation with flying colors very year. Well, if Didier has managed to pair our Turkish style chickpeas with lamb and rice with butter with an amazing bottle of white wine, what more can one say about his skills. It was an amazing pairing. In case you are able to come across it one day, it was Rieffel Winery’s Granite, from the Alsace Region.

What deserves respect in France is the amount of varity available, and the effort all producers put into keeping high-quality standards in a sustainable production approach under the pressures of the threat of enviromental change. I’m impressed by and envy how the whole society works to own and preserve their food culture.

PS: The talking philosopher whose knowledge and friendship I value immensely is Levon Bağış. Nothing should stay hidden!

Fondugues-Pradugues

If someone were to ask me what would be my biggest learning, especially from the start, but also from the rest of the pandemia, it would be that we have to be more in-touch with nature, have to respect it and refrain from a life-style that would be harmful to it. As we were raiding the fresh produce sections of supermarkets on those first days, which one of us did not brood over the question of whether we would be able to continue to feed ourselves in the days to come? Remembering the indispensability of agriculture was a slap in the face. Which one of us did not finally understand the brutality and the barbarity of zoos (expect for foundations that treat and rehabilitate animals) during this period. For two months, we were prisoners in our own homes, the places where we usually feel the most comfortable turned into a psychological prison for most of us.  In a way, we are actually still detained in some form of confinement. We cannot stroll outside without a mask. How terrible that is! We try to breath in oxygen, our most basic need as humans, through a mask when we are outside. Nobody actually knows or explains the long-term effect this might have on our health. We are waiting for our turn to get vaccinated. We are waiting for a vaccine that was developed in a rush so that we can go back to ‘normal’, be able to go outside without a mask and hug loved ones again. One cannot stop himself from asking, how is it possible to develop a vaccine against a virus that we still have so little knowledge about. Anyway, this is not a pessimistic article. On the contrary, it will be an article talking about an amazing place. It is about a place that is in nature, respects nature and therefore takes its energy and strength from nature, the Fondugues-Pradugues winery and the pop-up restaurant right in front of it.

First let me tell you how we came upon it. You might remember from previous articles that choosing restaurants on holidays is my responsibility in the family. And I’m usually successful in my choices, but a failed attempt last summer led to my wife discovering this place. As you see there is a good in everything, a bad choice led to an amazing discovery. We were on our way back from a very average restaurant near Saint Tropez that had attached crowds who were totally happy with anything as long as it was Italian and there was pizza on the menu. While driving, we saw a garden full of light beneath tall trees that you wouldn’t realize was there if you were not looking in that direction. We couldn’t stop then but we marked it on Google maps and continued on our way. Because it was a long holiday, we were trying to go easy on our budget and therefore ate at home most of the time, choosing dinners out very carefully. It made me very upset that I had wasted one of those treats, but the prospect of a good discovery lifted my spirits a little; I can turn into a very unpleasant person when I’m disappointed. After a little research, we decided to try it for lunch one day.

Our first time was lunch on a very hot day. But the tall trees were casting a lovely shadow, and their leaves were fanning a cool breeze against the heat, therefore we were very comfortable at our table. This is one of those places you always imagine coming upon in small towns and villages. The tables are set apart from each other under the shade, the ground beneath you is pebble and earth, you are surrounded by colorful flowers, sitting right at the edge of the vineyard, the vines fully blossomed green because the harvest is very near, the view of a village set among trees on the opposite hill, an open kitchen and a vehicle that acts as an open bar with wine fridges set on its body. It is set very far from the road, and the parking space is in the opposite direction, therefore you are totally secluded from the noise and the dirt of the road and traffic. The only thing you can hear is birdsong and the wind, of course if you have not come with a very talkative company. I must add that, apart from a huge garden, there is also a petanque area so that kids can also enjoy themselves. And we were very lucky because another kid around Yasemin’s age came right after us and we could easily leisure in this amazing place for more than 2 hours. Our second time was for dinner and a friend of my daughter from school and his mom were accompanying us. The petanque area was a huge rescue once again.

For dinner, I would recommend you to reserve because they say they are fully booked most of the time. Our dinner started off with a reservation confusion. But dear Joshua Clever solved it with a very polite attitude and this way we had a chance to meet the person in charge of the restaurant part of the project. Joshua, after earning a “Natural Chef” certificate, has worked as a chef for 10 years before getting himself out of the kitchen. A restaurant manager with a kitchen background is always a good idea. If you have any questions about the food, you have someone very knowledgeable about the recipes and the ingredients to enlighten you. Joshua met Stephen Roberts in Chicago and they also lived together in Paris. When the project first came up, Stephen invited Joshua to join him here. He told us they had a good year even with the pandemia and he is planning to be here in 2021 as well to help with the new tasting atelier. He says that he loves the south of France especially in summer and plans to spend time here as long as he can.

The Fondugues-Pradugues is 18 hectares in total, 15 of which are vineyards. Laurent Nouvion’s mother Danielle Rey bought her first land in the 60s and and in time proceeded to buy adjoining plots to reach the size it is today. Danielle is a fifth generation wine-maker from the Languedoc region. You could say that as a family they know what they are doing. Hahaaha We met Stephen Roberts at the end of our dinner. Stephen is Laurent’s husband and has been living in France since 1999. He might be the newest addition to the family in the wine business but the greatest change has come through him. Stephen has worked at United Nations before and he has always been actively involved in environmental issues. Especially after their first daughter was born in 2010, he has wanted to take more responsibility about the issue. He started this first in his own land. He converted their holiday home into a working farm where their children could grow up in a cleaner and healthier environment. While studying wine, he also continued work to prepare the land for organic production. They harvested their first produce in 2014. He explains this process as follows:

“We added horses to work the land and sheep that come in winter and eat our ground cover. Biodynamic farming became a logical continuation after organics since the charter is very cohesive and helpful in choosing when to work on the vineyard according to the astrological and lunar calendars. Natural wines is a result of this coherence as well since following all these basic rules in farming and wine-making help make wines that taste like the place or terroir, I believe our wines are a true reflection of the Ramatuelle plain, which has its own special micro-climate. I use temperature control in order to keep our rose wine light in color and fresh, and this year is our first year of using zero sulphate in the winery during harvest, we have finally achieved this and I am very proud.”

Eventualy they became the first vineyard to receive the Demether certificate in the region. (Demether certificate is valid in 50 countries, given out since 1928, verifying that the production is compliant with the biodynamic regulations accepted internationally) They are growing Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Grenache, Rolle, Cinsaut, Chardonnay, Mourvèdre, and Merlot grapes. They produce about 25.000 bottles every year but are aiming to increase this up to 60.000 with new investments. 80% of the production is bottled as rosé and 20% as red, but he added that they will start working on white production next year. Towards the end of dinner, Joshua had a surprise for us. He gave us a bottle without a label. He said for now we are sharing this with friends and family only. How lucky we were! It is a wine of %100 Mourvèdre that they are planning to label in 2021. Who knows, maybe this summer I can write once again from Fondugues-Pradugues and get a chance to babble on about this wine.

So far we have talked about the magic of the place, the visions of Stephen and hospitality of Joshua, but we haven’t talked about the last person who has made this place perfect in my opinion. Valentine Costuna. Valentine is a 29 year old Australian chef. His passion for cooking is inherited from his family. Both his mother’s delicious cooking and the fact that both his father and grandfather being chefs, have led his to start working at a fine-dining restaurant when he was only 15. Even though he is only 29 years old, he has a lot of experience up his sleeve. He talks about some of his previous experiences before Fondugues as follows:

“I have been very fortunate to cook in quality kitchens all over the world. Some of my favorites and most impactful experiences were at Moxhe - a magnificent, charming seafood restaurant in Sydney. The powerhouse classic québécois bistro Joe Beef in Montreal, Canada. As well as a restaurant that was ranked 32nd in the world whilst I was there, Astrid y Gaston in Lima, Peru! I was also very fortunate to cook on expedition vessels in the Arctic and Antarctic for a couple of years. These experiences were indeed full of highlights.”

When I asked his about his own cooking style, what he feels about sustainability and what he likes cooking best, the responses I got were exactly as I had imagined them to be. They were totally in line with the vision of Stephen about the place.

“ I describe my food style at l'éphémère to be "refined, rustic" cuisine du marché. I deeply believe that cooking seasonally and sustainably is essential; not only in the restaurant business but also for in our homes and in our lives... Not to mention for the planet! I am pleased to see a resurgence of both farm to table and sustainable cooking in the restaurant world. We certainly need it.

I love most to cook with fresh & especially live seafood. I have worked closely with fish and seafood for many years and I love it so much because it is the most incredible expression of freshness. The difference between fresh fish that has been caught, killed & handled properly to another product, is so pronounced. This quality of seafood of course exists in France but I do miss the blend of these products with strong, spicy and herbaceous flavors that is so brilliantly done in Asia.”

One of the other things I was curious about was wine pairing because Fondugues serves only its own wines. Therefore I was curious whether he felt limited by this and what he did to overcome it.

“We have a chalkboard menu that changes in some way each day. This allows me to cook simply, yet freely. We offer both wine flight options with matching tapas as well as a chef’s inspiration menu which can be paired with wine. Actually, consistently pairing the same wines with different foods can teach us how foods pair differently with the same wine given their characteristics. So even though it can be restricting in ways, it's also educational and fun.”

Another object of interest was what kind of an adaptive rhythm he found as he was working on French soil known for its intricate bureaucracy, with a half French half American family. This is personally what I like the most about Paris and the South of France, the variety but I wanted to know what an Australian thought about this.

“We feel that we have magically found a way to find likeminded people, in the oddest of circumstances. Fortunately we have a similar concept on what good service is, as well as appreciating each other's style and taste. I am impressed with how we are able to bounce off of one another and how we continue to find inspiration and execute our ideas together”

I found out that I took a while for Valentine, Stephen and Joshua to find each other on skype. A lot of people were involved from the old owners of Yard to Septime to people in Quebec but eventually it has ended up in a perfect collaboration. And I’m so glad that it did. There are two chefs that Valentine follows all the time, Francis Mallmann and Alain Passard. He finds both their stories and kitchens magical and he romances dreams where he finds himself chatting with the two around an open fire in the garden. I definitely think that he should at some point work in Paris. Well, this might be a little selfish on my side, but he has actually had pop-ups in Paris before, only never stayed permanently.

By the way Valentine if you are reading this, I have some good news for you too. Stephen wants to give you your own garden if he can find a good gardener. Wouldn’t it be just great, you would collect your produce in the morning, cook it during the day and we’ll come and eat it at dinner?

(Last minute information: Valentine won’t be in Fondugues-Pradugues 2021 summer because of the Covid situation in Europe.)

My First Gourmet Tour

This article has been written on 22.04.2020

If this has been posted and you are reading it, then it means we are both healthy and well. I hope you are too. I know now, how lucky we have been. Looking back, I see that we have been a little too courageous, but we had our reasons then. One, I already lived here, and had to come back to Paris to my family. Two, we had been waiting for Inanc to visit us for so long. Three, we had organized the perfect eating spree. Put yourself in my shoes, one of the most loved friends of the whole family is coming to visit, and she is one of the best chefs of Turkey. How can you give up the perfect plan?

(As this was happening, the situation was not as serious as it is now.)

We have celebrated our third year in Paris in April. I have been obsessively trying out diffent restaurants, cafes, bakeries, chocolate houses and patisseries since we moved here. I mark my favorites on my mobile map and there are 100. I have been to all of them at least twice, and I can recommend all of them without a doubt. When friends come to visit, I recommend them places to go to that are always in the area they are staying at. Since they also do their own research, usually my responsibility is not that heavy. But now the case is totally different. The whole itenary has been left in my hands. It is very exciting because I have to take Inanc Celengil, who you know as the chef of Aman da Bravo Istanbul, but who for me is one of my best friends, to as many local, various and delicious places as I can in 5 days, digging into my 3 years of Paris experience. The pressure I was putting on myself was huge. I believe you will understand the weight if I tell you that I was creating excel sheets to plan the program.

It was a very lucky coincidence that our first day was my daughter’s birthday. Of course the birthday girl should decide where she wants to go, but I might have manipulated her a little. Thankfully, Yasemin also likes our neighbourhood restaurant a lot. La Table J’M became a part of our lives in 2019. Chef Julien Joalland his partner Isabelle Mesnil bought an old restaurant in an unpopular street of 16th Arrondissement. They changed the decor and the kitchen and reopened. This was one of my dreams when we were moving to Paris. An intimate neighbourhood restaurant that is close to home, has good food and is reasonably priced. We anticipated its opening excitedly. And our dreams have come true; we have already celebrated 2 special occasions here, we have had special deserts prepared for us, champagne has been popped, and we come back from holidays with local produce we find interesting for Julien, who uses it in his menu if he sees fit. Yes, you can guess by now. The menu has whatever is available in the market seasonally. They serve updated modern versions of classic French dishes, daily. Tonight’s dinner deserves Inanc’s comments rather than mine, so I’ll let her speak.

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İNANÇ ÇELENGİL

Well, what I remember from the first dinner was how I couldn’t take my eyes off the hamburger made especially for Yasemin, and how the cheese and mushroom ravioli that Okan ordered against all our protestations was actually the best dish. Of course a steak tartare was ordered right away, compared with ours at the restaurant and any short comings were evaluated. I can still picture as clearly as today and taste the chocolate ganache and layered chocolate crepe suzette birthday cake made for Yaso. And what was most impressive was the warm attitude the owners had to welcoming their guests, I hope they can get through this period in one piece.

Following the success of the first night, we started our second day early. We dropped Yasemin off to school with İnanç and went to the market. But there were obstacles on the way such as s branch of La Pâtisserie, opened in 2011 by one of Paris’s most mediatic chefs Cyril Lignac, and Benoît Couvrand.  Cyril Lignac moved to Paris in 2000, and had a very strong start to his career in Alain Passard’s Arpège, then moved onto another very famous establishment as chef, to Pierre Hermé. He has written 40 cook books, along with all the restaurant, tv and workshop business he accomplished. As much as he is a hard working person, I also believe that he has a very strong team too. Unfortunately they didn’t have the small sesame bread that resembles a ‘kumpir’ when we went, but they had the olive bun. We only made it to the market after we had a coffee and a croissant at the bistro next door. The market in the 16th Arrondissement is known as the most expensive in Paris, but at least the product quality is equally high. I love wandering around markets, the colors, the smells and the chit chat, and to have a chef to stroll along with is priceless. I hadn’t done this for a long while. My first market visit with a chef was with my old partner Didem Şenol Tiryakioğlu. We used to go for our restaurant. She would suddenly get an idea by something she would find in the market and put it on the menu right away. I would be impressed by her knowledge and creativity. Doing this again with Inanc took me back those days and happy memories. Things I did not even see when I was by myself gained a new perspective when Inanc drew my attention to them. I will definitely buy more stuff from herb stands in the future. For example, Inanc showed me something called garlic herb. We added it to a lot of dishes after Inanc left. We might have gone a little crazy at the mushroom stand because morels were in season; I’m sorry for anyone who had to wait their turn behind us. So our menu for dinner at home on Thursday was decided. We had a lot of herbs and mushrooms. What else were we having with those? We can put this question aside for now because our lunch and dinner is already set for tonight. So Inanc, did you enjoy the market?

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İNANÇ ÇELENGİL

Of course I enjoyed it a lot, there were so many different varieties of vegetables, herbs, meat, fish and cheese which we didn’t have in our markets. And I have a confession to make. I find gozleme very meaningless, it is a dry phyllo filled with a tasteless filling, usually very, very dry, I never understand why it is so popular. But we had a gozleme in the market made by a Turkish couple. They rolled out their phyllo there, used fresh herbs from the market and it really was the best gozleme I ever had. We also bought puntarella which I would be cooking for the first time, it was very exciting. There was arugula flower with rich yellow petals that exploded on your taste buds when you ate it. We have only recently started seeing the flowers of herbs and vegetables in small producers. It hurts a little that you can find them so easily in a city market in Europe and have no access to in Turkey. It makes one think that maybe we should be visiting farms rather than markets in Turkey.

In France, on Wednesdays the schools are either off or half-day. Our school is one of the half-day ones. So after picking up Yasemin at noon, we head off to have burgers like we usually do. Baāgaā is a very special burger place. They buy their bread from one of Paris’s most important bakers Jean-Luc Poujauran. Their meat is from French animals raised and fed natural grains in the Japanese tradition. Every morning, the meat is minced for that day. Their recipes were created by Thomas Boutin, chef and owner of de Le Vieux Crapaud. (Of course I tried his restaurant too, and it was very good) Because we go very frequently, they don’t even ask what Yasemin is having, anymore. Meat and bread! Sometimes I choose a cheeseburger and sometimes the hot burger. This lunch, the unexpected choice comes from Inanc. Bikini Burger! (I had never had it before) Without reading the ingredients, she ordered it straight away, thinking it would be the same as the legendary bikini sandwich of Tapas24 in Barcelona, and I couldn’t stop her. Unfortunately their only common denominator was mozzarella. There was no truffle, nor jamon Iberico. Baāgaā’s bikini turned out to be vegetable burger with mozzarella and piquillo pepper sauce. And judging by the size of it, it did not seem very appropriate for anyone looking to wear a bikini in the summer either, right Inanc?

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The Bikini was 3 sizes too large for my slim figure. I was very sad to see that this was not the bikini in Barcelona, however there were still things for me to learn from. It had a very strong grill taste that made it feel like a real burger, I remember the meaty oyster mushroom, good mozzarella, tomato sauce and pesto. And the thinly sliced raw green beans gave a delicious crunch to the burger.

On Wednesday night we had reservations for one of the restaurants on the top of my “to go list” and the only place Inanc herself had requested to go. Chef Stéphane Jégo’s restaurant Chez L'Ami Jean!  It is the oldest Basque restaurant in the city and it has been run by Brittany born chef since 2002. He’s a chef who sees his team as family, uses freshest seasonal produce, is constantly in touch with his suppliers, is happy to attract the attention of his guests during the service but can suddenly disappear without notifying anyone at the end of the service. When the pandemic started in France and all the restaurants closed down, he wrote a petition to President Macron and his ministers, asking that this health disaster is accepted as a natural disaster by the government. It turned into a campaign on Change.org. It was signed more than 20.000 times in the first 48 hours. He was requesting by this petition that establishments, especially smaller ones could claim damage from insurance companies if the situation was considered as a natural disaster. The ministry of finance responded by saying that they would not be announcing it as a natural disaster, but they were preparing a support package for the industry and they were in discussion with the insurance companies to get them involved. It is very assuring as a small establishment that the government is responding to your situation right away. Ok, after the additional information, we can go back to our dinner. I’ll leave the word to Inanc to talk about it. Chez L'Ami Jean and Baāgaā and a common characteristic, they both buy their bread from Jean-Luc Poujauran.

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I found out about this place from one of Aman da Bravo’s regulars who had told me that I would love it, it was so me. And I have been following it ever since, keeping alive my dream to eat one day one of the dishes the chef smokes by torching dried herbs over the food. We started off with grilled asparagus, bonito flakes and cream cheese, followed by caramalized octopus with a very aromatic salsa verde. Even though Aycavan does not like duck, we ordered it anyway, and she liked it with all the hazelnuts and so on. Scallops with spinach root and leek was compliments of the chef and made me regret not having such scallops in Turkey. Our smoked meat was leg of veal and came with an amazing broth, we spooned it off. We weren’t still full, grilled skate was served with bacon fried to the consistency of a potato chip. At this point we met the chef and between his very little English and my nonexistent French managed to understand that he had actually come to Istanbul for Parabere Forum and had lunch in my restaurant on a day that I was not there. We kissed each other’s hands to congratulate each other, and it was a very proud moment. There was no room left for dessert, but he sent us his famous rice pudding anyway. They serve it with salted caramel and granola. You spoon off from a large bowl onto your plate and garnish it as you like. We packed the left overs for take away and ate it for 2 more days. What should we have done, thrown away that precious rice pudding?

It was an amazing dinner, a fabulous ambience. You had to pull out the table to be able to squeeze into your seat, that’s how close everyone is to each other. Is it a problem? Never. It is actually a pleasure to share the same space with people who are also there for the food.

We had chosen Champs-Élysées for our morning walk on Thursday. The avenue will undergo huge changes by 2025 and there will no more be an 8 lane traffic. The sidewalks will be expanded, the rooftops will be planted and there will be small electric buses, more bicycle lanes and even a tram line. Last year, world’s most famous department store Galeries Lafayette opened a branch here with a very different concept to its existing store. It is a very modern 4-storied store filled with the latest designs. For me the most attractive floor is the food market on the lowest floor, it is filled with everything you should see and taste, food wise. I believe that not only gourmet lovers, but anyone interested in design and packaging should also go and see it. Many of Paris’s signatures names and delicacies, from its oldest patisserie Stohrer, to its most important chocolatier Pierre Marcolini, to legendary chef Alain Ducasse’s“Le Chocolate” are here.

After about an hour, we exit the store to go to lunch. Our destination is a restaurant in the 5th Arrondissement. It is called “Invitez Vous Chez Nous”, meaning ‘’we invite you over to ours”. Chef Julie and her husbad Aurélien do serve you in a home environment. It is one of my favourite places in Paris for lunch. They serve a daily menu of seasonal food in a warm and cozy atmosphere. The food is accompanied by a small wine list and beer from small producers. The food price parity might be another reason to come back here. They are open on weekdays for lunch between 12:00 and 17:00. They are closed for dinner and over the weekends. As an old restauranteur, I keep thinking that this is the dream job. What do you think Inanc?

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There are only 2 people working. One is serving and the other one is in the kitchen. Which makes you think right away, ‘what? So is the cook washing the dishes too?’ Well yes. This being the case, you wait as long as it’s necessary, and nobody is complaining. The menu is planned very cleverly. It is a limited menu as would be expected, for example the rice and sauce on my shrimp curry was also served on the vegetarian plate. There are a couple of slow cooked dishes that require no preparation ahead and can be reheated and served. It was super sympathic and everything we ate was very delicious.

After lunch we have our coffee at DOSE, founded by Grégoire and his cousin Jean-Baptiste. It is a brand well known among coffee aficionados in Paris. They import coffee from different regions of the world. The also serve healthy, mostly plant-based lunches, homemade granola, sweet and savory pastries and fresh juices. They also have an online website where they sell coffee equipment along with good beans. This store in 5th is a little smaller than the one at Batignolles, however it has a prime location because it is the only third generation coffee shop in this area and it is located in the best local shopping street, Rue Mouffetard. This was one of the streets I wanted to take Inanc to. I can check another item off my excel sheet. The history of this pedestrian street goes back to antiquity. İt is a street filled with butchers, cheese shops, bakeries, and wine shops. If you are a Meryl Streep fan like me and have enjoyed Julie & Julia, here is another reason for you to like this street. The shopping scene was filmed here.

I must confess that we didn’t buy anything here. But there is a reason. Because we are headed to another shopping street. It is as nice as this one; Rue Poncelet. We go from the 5th to the 17th Arrondissement. This one’s history also goes back to 1400. This was a holy route that goes up to the old Montmartre Monastry, for me today it is a holy route for food shopping. It is open everyday except Monday and Sunday afternoons, and filled with everything from butchers, to bakers, to charcuterie, fish and cheese. For me, it is one of those street that make you really feel that you are in Paris. I know of a Saturday when we spent more than 3 hours here. After the initial discovery tour, we decide to buy a little charcuterie and cheese to accompany the wine tonight. You must not forget that we already bought the herbs and morels yesterday. Who knows, maybe a new recipe will be born from this article.

Our primary target is good cheese, and the store is one of the best on the street: Alléosse. They specialize in aged cheeses and their selection is based on the accountability of their suppliers and the quality and the taste of their products. Comté in French, however the rest is not so easy. Fortunately, the genteman on the other side of the counter doesn’t let me suffer anymore and switches to English. Therefore my precious guest also gets involved in the process and I leave it to her choose from about 100 varietes in front of us. 10 minutes later we are able to exit the store with Selles-sur-Cher goat cheese and a Ossau-iraty we chose in order to have a more ‘smelly’ option. Good cheese should be accompanied by good bread. Right across Alléosse, we enter Liberté, an artisanal bakery. Production and sale is from the same location. They have 3 shops in Paris, and 2 in Tokyo. We bought cheese and bread, we have one more stop to make before heading home. For charcuterie, we go to Delitaly. The Spanish and Italian charcuterie are my favorite. Therefore Delitaly is one of the right addresses in Paris. The cold counter on your right is filled with fresh pasta, olives, cold tapas and salads. If I were alone here, I would be spending a fortune, but fortunately Inanc is with me and she is target oriented, the cold cut counter at the back of the store. I cannot take my eyes off all the tomato sauces, balzamics and olive oils on the other side as we exit, but maybe another time, we should really get out of here now. Tonight we will be enjoying ourselves at home. Inanc is here on vacation and so we don’t want her in the kitchen, but cannot stop her once she sees all the new ingredients we found. At least let me turn on the oven for you!

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We blended the morels, puntarella, garlic herbs, asparagus, fresh thyme, rosemary, garlic and olive oil, added some delicious French butter on top and put it in the oven. On the side we had water cress and cherry tomato salad with a vinagrette rich in lemon juice. The cheese was more in my mind and I was actually less curious about what was going on in the oven. But as a whole, it was a very nice dinner.

Dear readers, the big day has finally come. For Friday lunch we will be going to Septime, one of the most talked about but hardest to make a reservation at places in Paris which at the same time has the most complicated reservation system. And today Seda and Alp have arrived from Istanbul. Looking back, they might have made history as our most courageous friends during this period. It has even become a running joke among us that they came to Paris for a single lunch at Septime. You will soon understand why. I had been chasing this reservation for months. We had only been able to come here twice in 3 years, one of which was by pure coincidence. Both times the dinner was amazing. The quality of the service, choice of wine etc were all very explanatory as to why the restaurant was always full. After a while I had given up on trying to make a reservation. But this time I decided that I was willing to do whatever it takes for my friends. I was stubborn, I was ambitious, I even e-mailed a blogger whom I didn’t know, naturally to no avail, but then one day they answered my call and in 2 seconds I had a lunch reservation for a party of 5. At Septime, the 37 year old young chef Bertrand Grébaud changes his menu frequently according to the availability of seasonal produce, like at most of the other places we have been to. He advocates for sustainable farming and uses as little animal produce as he can. Before Septime, he has earned his first Michelin star at a restaurant in the 17th Arrondissement, when he was only 26 years old. After opening Septime, he made the 50 best list in 2013 and also earned his star here. (It is still so in 2019.) His latest project is to create a farm at the old air base in Brétigny-sur-Orge (Essonne) which is run by Fermes d'Avenir Association where part of the farming will be based on permaculture. Apart from Septime, Chef Bertrand has a walk-in sister restaurant called Clamato that serves sea food, a wine cellar also called Septime and a small boutique hotel in beautiful nature called D'un Ile, 2 hours outside of Paris. I ate in all of them and they were all really top quality. I saw once again the importance of having qualified people work for you and the strength of a good team. Seda and Alp came straight from the airport and we met them there. However we don't hug, we keep our distance but we've missed each other so much. Since we have no allergies, we are ready to eat anything they serve us; Alp chooses the wine, cornering our waiter. Well, it’s his right, at the end he came all the way for “just one lunch” Time for a confession; I think our first two dinners were better. But maybe Inanc will comment better on it.

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I believe that tasting menus put a lot of pressure on chefs. I’m sure that when it comes to creativity, a menu you are pressured to change constantly causes some problems. After a while, rather than showcasing what you do best, you probably start serving some plates that are not memorable, even a little mediocre for the sake of creating something new. I, myself, am not a chef who can push herself in the area of creativity. If I have a new idea, I put it on my menu, but I don’t serve something new just because it is different from what I had before. If there is no inspiration, I choose to serve what I cook best. But it seems the world disagrees, because tasting menus are still the hype, but anyway.

This is why I think we were not able to taste the plates that earned Septime its name. Our first course was a porcini soup with porcini and chestnut. It was followed by raw scallops, raw almonds, berries served with a berry sauce. I remember wishing it was more sour. We continued with grilled asparagus, served with asparagus sauce and water cress. For me, it wasn’t impressive. But I must also remind you that we had set our expectations very high. Then there was a stew of black truffle, bone marrow, pancetta and jerusalem artichoke. The main course was steamed seabass served with rhubarb sauce and caramalized endives. Dessert was a sorbet but I don’t remember the flavour. The experience as a whole was of course pleasant, but it wasn’t the best of this trip

However the main adventure was what happened after lunch. We recieved news from Turkey that they were closing the borders to France. İnanç, Seda and Alp were of course confused and panicked. Their families, kids, their whole life is in Turkey. They want to fly out that night but there are no available flights. The announcement by Turkey is very vague, there are no details. Is this restriction valid for citizens or not? Will there be rescue flights? Will they be quarantined on return? And many more questions come to mind. Normally, you would expect the embassy to have all the answers in such a case, but it seems they are equally clueless. We head out to the airport but cannot find any solutions or answers, we all head back home or to our hotels, empty handed. It seems we have no one to talk to. Later on the deadline to lockdown changes, only to be changed once again later on. The certainty and the consistency behind these decisions leave us nonplussed. Seda and Alp return on Saturday, and Inanc on Sunday.

Saturday morning we make plans in a mood totally different from our previous days. We decide a walk will clear our heads. Towards lunchtime we feel like a snack and to to Gregory Marchand’s FTG about which I’ve written in Gastereamag.  Anyone who comes to visit us eats once at FTG became true for Inanc too. As usual the kitchen staff is working away seriously in the kitchen.

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We have found THE Lobster Roll, it cannot be called just eating and we basically drowned ourselves in it. It is the best and the most expensive fast food I’ve ever had. If you make the mistake of converting euros into liras, you feel the dread. The fries are amazing. It justifies twice over why fries are call French fries. It is served with ginger aioli and it is so delicious.

And the last dinner!

As we leave the house for our Saturday dinner, France also starts announcing its own security measures, closing all restaurants and cafes starting tonight midnight. Restaurants and cafes who have not closed even during both world wars or the terrorist attacks of 2015 are closed. Without realizing it, we are also on our last dinner out along with Inanc. Our last dinner is at Restaurant Eels. This is my wife Ayca’s discovery. We ate here a couple of times thanks to her and have always enjoyed it. It is a very modern, modest, comfortable but chic place. It has a Scandinavian feel to it. Its owner chef Adrien Ferrand has been awared best young talent in 2015 Gault & Milau Awards. The whole team is young, like himself. They have opened Eels with sommelier Félix Le Louarn in 2017. They had been working together at another famous Paris establishment, Ze Kitchen Galerie. The menu consists of 4 starters, 4 main courses and 4 desserts. You can either order a la carte, or a fixed menu. In 2019, they were chosen as a new and notable discovery in the 50 Best list.  I believe this young chef and his team will be every successful in the future as well. The ambience, service, wine and the food are all worthy of our last night. I think this will be one of the first places I want to come back to when life returns to normal. Normally I had narrowed our options for tonight down to two and I let Inanc decide.

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I’m not sorry that we chose Eels in the end, it made us very happy. We orders lamb loin that was served with a fantastic red curry and beurre blancla. Its fat was crispy, and the black beans under the meat were a very nice accompaniment. Raw mackerel, aioli and a thin garlic breadcrust. Raw oysters, black and red caviar, and an aromatic herb butter. We ordered duck once again and were not disappointed. We finished off with a cream cheese dessert covered with chocolate. The wine pairing was very good too but with all the excitement around the food and the travel nerves, I forgot to take pictures. It was a very adequate finish in the end.

Our last meal was fried eggs with mushroom and a traditional baguette by Ayca. Then we said our goodbyes. I’m very lucky to have been able to make it back home directly, and not getting infected along the way was the cherry on top. I even had all three seats to myself on the plane. But my fortune in life is that I have best friends who live in Paris and know about food, which is also my biggest misfortune because they are also so far away. Point of view is relative.

 

I have nothing to add to Inanc’s last words, but I want to remind her something: Don’t forget who made the sandwich you had on the plane!!!