Condé Nast Traveller Hot Tables 2012 list (i.e. my Paris picks and piece ;) )

Enjoy! 

The Beef Club, Paris

I'm always up for a bright new establishment from my friends, the boyz behind the Experimental Cocktail Club, but with openings in Paris, London and New York, I seem to be losing track of their frenzied activity. I was very excited to drop in to their new steakhouse, on a quiet side street near the old Les Halles marketplace last week, and, despite a few teething problems, had a great time.

The restaurant , housed in a former butcher shop, serves Yorkshire born and bred beef from Tim Wilson, the man behind one of London's best steakhouses, The Hawksmoor. The meat is sent from Britain, aged a minimum of five weeks at the Beef Club's in house aging room, then prepared by media hungry butcher Yves Marie Le Bourdonnec, before being served up in an exposed brick dining room with wonky furniture.  The fillet of rum steak with side of macaroni and three (English) cheese was tasty (though lacking salt) and perfectly cooked in their special broiler, however after a one hour wait! The same laboriously slow service continued throughout the meal for water, wine, coffee and bill, but luckily we weren't in a hurry, and the (harried) waiter was friendly enough.

The downstairs club, the Ballroom serves up eight different cocktails (from 12-14€) in a funky subterranean speakeasy with loud music, and enough comfortable chairs and couches laying about to let the cocktails comfortably sink in, tummy full of meat.



58 rue Jean Jacques Rousseau, 75001
+33 9 52 52 89 34

Les Jalles - Bistro Volnay's great new restaurant

The girls from the Bistro Volnay have been murmuring tasty tidbits about their new restaurant for months now, and finally the gorgeous new place, just steps away from the maison mere has opened its doors. Les Jalles, as it's called, is an elegant and beautifully designed room with vintage lights and furniture sourced from England, plenty of dark wood and ceramic and looks more like a gentleman's club than a dining establishment. In fact, it doesn't look much like anything else in town. Open from 7h30 am for breakfast (pastries, home made jams, etc), and for lunch and dinner, it also has a speakeasy type bar upstairs festooned with Tamara de Lempicka style paintings of flapper era girls and headed by "the most incredible barman" says Magali. Look for this to be the hottest and most talked about opening for coming months.

Moore soon...


Les Jalles
14 rue des Capucines, 75002
+33 1 42 61 66 71
Daily market menu 42 Euros
Breakfast 17 Euros

PS I was mind blowingly hung over during lunch, but from the little I tasted, the foie gras was silky smooth, toasted brioche bread light and crunchy, and the entrecôte steak (prepared in a special broiler) perfectly cooked and accompanied by textbook dauphin potatoes and the best gravy I've had in Paris