RAVE - Outside the center, still Parisian
Sunday, December 13, 2009 - The Boston Globe - Travel - RAVE
PARIS - A needed breath of fresh air has hit the northeastern arrondissements of Paris, slowly luring Parisians and tourists alike away from the city center. Hotels like Mama Shelter, restaurants like Le Baratin or L’Escargot, and cafés like Titon and Le Léopard provide a mix of authentic, hip, friendly, and even inexpensive, while introducing the visitor to a part of the city they might not otherwise visit.
Lost in the outer reaches of the 20th arrondissment is one of the best of these new additions: Les Pères Populaires (The Fathers Popular, pictured here), which should win awards in the “fun, inexpensive, and inventive restaurant’’ category and the coveted “hip café I could spend all day working in’’ category.
Lunchtime prix-fixe menus run 13 euros (about $19) and recently included a three-for-three run of orange lentil soup with a dollop of parsley-laden ricotta followed by salmon filets covered in blue poppy seeds served with mesclun, and an ultra-dense chocolate almond brownie with candied orange peel.
This is, as Martha Stewart might say, a good thing.
Les Pères Populaires
46 rue de Buzenval
Paris
+33 1 43 48 49 22
myspace.com/perespopulaires
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