Thierry Marx moves to Paris

Thierry Marx at the Mandarin Oriental Paris next year.

Le Piege , opening September 2010 (?)

Like I said three months ago,  Jean-François Piege and Thierry Costes'  Thoumieux upstairs restaurant will be a six table gastro with a maximum of 20 people and be called Le Piege. Unfortunately, the opening will apparently be later on this year in September, on the date of the chef's birthday. They expect four month waiting lists...

Will I get credit for the name ;)  ?

My Monocolumn

Here's my little column on MONOCLE magazine's website on the new Michelin guide. Pretty general, but hints at the new Paris culinary zeitgeist.

Passage 53 - one star in the Michelin !!

Actually, I'm taking time out of my no-comment-on-the-Michelin-guide-hiatus to say bravo for giving my favorite restaurant of the year, Passage 53 their first star.

I've been railing on this subject ever since Adeline Grattard told me the guide called her a few weeks ago to tell her of her first one star promotion, believing that Guillaume and Shin deserved it better- for the hard work and transformation they went through, from a "modern bistro" concept, ripping out the bar and changing the decoration to make the dining room more comfortable, giving chef Shin his chance to follow his own culinary path, and just being all around great guys with a totally unique restaurant.

Seeing Jean-Luc Naret there during lunch a few weeks ago (he returned two weeks after for another lunch), and hearing that the inspectors had already come by a number of times gave me a clue, but this was a big surprise. I'm happy to have promoted/supported/been their biggest fan-boy. Congrats!

I predicted it in the above article a few months ago, surprised noone else saw it coming ;)

The other two tables of note, are  Yam T'cha with one star (controversial with many Parisian foodies who think the cuisine is flagging) and La Bigarrade, with two.