Septime, 75014 Paris

The Bastille area of Paris is becoming the food mecca of Paris, with a lot of new restaurants showcasing young chefs springing up all over the place.

Septime is one of them – and one that has made it good.

It was listed in the top 20 of the 50 best restaurants of the world list  and yet has managed to keep  its friendly,  unpretentious style and excellent, inventive food.  The chef is Bertrand Grebaud, who was formerly with Alain Passard (with every ex-Passard chef I encounter I think I must be getting closer to Arpege and the real thing!!).  The décor is studied simple – rough wooden tables with plain white crockery and simple glassware.  The staff are attentive and friendly, and there’s plenty of them – the men all of a certain  “cool” type with a slight stubble,  and there are also some pretty girls, and everyone seemed to be at least bilingual. I counted six chefs in the open kitchen, including two  ladies, and they were all decidedly busy! And all this comes at reasonable prices.  The 3 course  lunchtime menu is Euros 28 and the 5 course tasting menu – which is a surprise – is Euros 55.  We settled for the former and were very pleased with our choice.  Starters were grey mullet, celery and lambs lettuce salad ,  poached egg in a mushroom broth with prosciutto ham, or carpaccio of veal with smoked eel and brussel sprouts.  The main courses were duck breast with swiss chard  and butternut squash or line-caught hake with lentils and mandarin oranges.   As you can see the chef is into vegetables! There was only one dessert  – which was the only criticism I could make, although we could have had cheese instead  – but it was delicious: baba au rhum with honey ice cream and candied  Sicilian orange slices.

Septime also runs a wine shop just around the corner on the rue Bafroi, so the wine list was very extensive.  You can buy by the glass as well as by the bottle , and we had a young Crozes Hermitage and a Chardonnay from the Languedoc region,  both at 7 Euros a glass.

And to complete this most enjoyable meal  the “ maître-infuseur” showed up to offer us his daily herb tea special – which was  made with mandarin oranges and cinnamon – served in a huge transparent pitcher enveloped in a starched white napkin. It was not easy to get a reservation,  but it was well worth waiting for and a great start to 2014!