Best Paris Wine Bars: Les Fines Gueules

Entrepreneurs are reinventing the Paris wine bar with exciting boutique bottles and amazing food, as in the great recipes here.

Arnaud Bradol learned his simple, superfresh food philosophy from fish master Gérard Allemandou at La Cagouille. Equally obsessed with natural wines, he has hundreds from all over France in the cellar. “I can’t imagine drinking anything else,” Bradol says. He combined his two passions in a turreted 17th-century stone building with spare, half-timbered dining rooms right near the haute shopping zone Place des Victoires. Diners might start off with exceptional charcuterie and a glass of Mauzac Nature, the sparkling, apple-scented wine from Robert Plageoles’s vineyard in southwest France. Most of the fish dishes, such as moist pan-seared cod with Provençal vegetables, pair surprisingly well with reds, like the gutsy Matin Calme Sans Temps, a Carignane blend from the up-and-coming Roussillon region.

Paris Wine Bars:

• Best Paris Wine Bars: Alfred
• Best Paris Wine Bars: Cavestève
• Best Paris Wine Bars: Racines
• Best Paris Wine Bars: Les Fines Gueules
• Paris Old-School and New Wine Bars

Plus:

Superchefs’ Best Wine Bar Recipes

Published October 2008