les crays is a solid wine and i find it to be not much below the cuvée auguste. but yeah i can see the frustration when the person in charge has not heard of metras 
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I love this thread and greatly appreciate all the experience. Thank you all for your contributions. We recently went to France for a couple of weeks and spent a few days in Paris.
Managed to get into Septime which was a thrilling meal. Decided to go with the wine pairing because the wine list was out of my comfort zone. Turned out ~1/2 of the wines were too, but we didn’t mind.
Clown Bar was great but not enough so to want to go back given all the other options in the city.
Someone fairly recently recommended Bubbles Bliss. Turned out to be around the corner from our hotel. Awesome list and we drank well.
Happened to be close by Bon Georges one day for lunch which turned out to be a highlight…sometimes the impromptu experiences are the most memorable. Ate and drank a ton. And then my wife starts asking about the fancy spirits and big bottles of port which ended up keeping things going.
Had much greater success with wine values in the Loire than Paris…Dageneau and Dauvissat for a song.
A few days in Normandy capped things off.
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Clearly not “natural” enough !
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With these people you gotta speak their language, or go low and try labels;
"Do you have that stuff with the Fox? The moon eclipse. The arrow. The one with the white tree. The lizard. The garden gnome.
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I always enjoy stopping in on this thread despite infrequent trips to Paris. I keep slowly working on my French comprehension and stumbled on this YouTuber to help with restaurant French. I know pretty much nothing about her, other than she speaks quickly and she’s a passionate foodie…with several years worth of reviews.
RT
For fans of Chez Nou and Malagón in Charleston, earlier this year they opened La Bonbonnette (wine bar) in the Marais. Samantha was the manager at Malagón and is now over in Paris running La Bonbonnette.
I was wondering if anyone in here has stopped by to try it?
We’re headed over in a few weeks and was trying to figure out if it’s more of a pre or post dinner type of place.
We just landed in SF after a week in Normandy (paying our respects at the WW2 memorials and then some fun time in Honfleur). We enjoyed one dinner in Paris and enjoyed some pretty good Chinese food in Paris (my Taiwanese American wife living in SF has VERY high standards).
If you are craving something different, I recommend Madame Fan. https://www.madame-fan.com/en
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some family reserved a table for us at lazu in the 9e for a family dinner. anyone have any experience or opinion with this place? fka boullion 47.
took a look at their wine list and noticed this policy which is pretty unique:
“Droit de bouchon :
Village 25€ l 1er Cru 50€ l Grand Cru 80€”
never seen sliding scale corkage before! village level is totally reasonable.
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Nice concept. Kinda makes sense, no? A resto is going to make more selling GCs than Village so it seems commensurate with list pricing. But do they go on trust when you bring in a Vin de France and tell them it cost x?
Eh. I don’t think that’s how counterfactuals work here. Does anybody pick a wine off a list and then decide to bring the same thing from their cellar. It’s two different calculations.
Saw another restaurant in Paris with a sliding scale for corkage. That’s a hard no for me.
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Diminishing returns of Grand Cru?
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They should charge people who bring in Grand Cru wines more for the food as well
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So what do they charge for Spanish wine, or California? Or do they just turn you away at the door?
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i think they should go all the way…
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No it’s just a really good deal!
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Or Jura, or Savoie, or Loire…
Write up and photos of my lunch at Restaurant AT. It was easily our favorite meal amongst ~20 very good to excellent meals. I think most everyone here knows I am close friends with Chef AT so take it with a grain of salt.
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