Paris Journal 2015 – Barbara Joy Cooley Home: barbarajoycooley.com
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As far as I knew, Serena Williams was still right “next door” in the 7th arrondissement, still frequenting Thoumieux brasserie at 58 rue Saint Dominique. So I was surprised to see this morning’s sports section (something I rarely look at) refer to her apartments in Paris. Plural! More than one apartment!!! I delved a little deeper, in a Google search. Oh, she owns two apartments in Paris. Delving even deeper, I learned that she is selling the two-bedroom apartment in the 7th arrondissement, and is living in a four-bedroom apartment that she recently bought on the rue du Faubourg St. Honoré in the 8th arrondissement. The new place isn’t far from the Arc de Triomphe and the Élysée Palace. Not too shabby. These are a couple of the priciest areas in Paris. I then learned that she has a Yorkshire terrier named Chip. Cute. Like me, she is a Pinterest fan. She uses it for decorating ideas. Douglas Robson, who interviewed Serena in her apartment for NBC Sports, called her place a “hodge-podge of period furniture . . . and knick-knacks.” There’s a much kinder term for that, which we learned on Houzz.com. The more polite phrase is “eclectic maximalism,” Douglas. That’s the kind of décor that Tom and I are guilty of using. The restaurant where we had dinner last night is not guilty of “eclectic maximalism.” The décor there was elegant yet Spartan. We appreciated the fact that the tables were a little bigger than the typical small bistro square things, and that the open space in the middle of the mauve-and-peach dining room was not used to cram in yet another table or two. Almost everything about La Dinée on the rue LeBlanc was gracious. When we were well into our repast, beyond the cool, delicious millefeuille de legumes (below) starter and into our main courses, we were wondering why we were the only diners present in the restaurant. The food was, after all, very good.
Tom’s main course was a selle d’agneau, and mine was a foie-gras stuffed duckling breast served with a generous amount of richly flavorful mushrooms. Finally, at a bit after 8:30PM, one other party entered the restaurant: mom, dad, and grown son. They were a handsome family. As the family began their dinner, Tom and I shared an assiette gourmande with samples of the restaurant’s homemade desserts (below), and were still wondering why there weren’t more diners.
I was beginning to suspect that the reason was the relatively high prices at La Dinée. In this location, the far southern reach of the 15th arrondissement, there are many restaurants with excellent fare at very reasonable prices. La Dinée just is not competing with those places. When the bill arrived, at 95 euros even with a 30 percent discount, my feelings were confirmed. I do love the food there, but we probably won’t go back often because there are so many places that offer greater value in the 15th arrondissement. We did make some slightly expensive choices (there was a supplement on Tom’s main course and on the dessert), but then we also shared the starter and the dessert. We appreciated the inventiveness of the cuisine – the starter course, in particular. Thanks go to the chef, Osamu Naïto. Proprietors of La Dinée are Christophe et Tatiana Recouvreur, according to the restaurant’s web site. We think our server/host was Christophe. He made us feel welcome and comfortable. He had old standards from the Great American Songbook playing softly on the stereo. We felt right at home. |
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Across the
street from La Dinée is the Petite Ceinture – an elevated, green walkway on the site of
former train tracks. From our table,
we gazed at the green slope up to the walkway.
The selle d’agneau (roasted lamb), above, and
the duckling breast stuffed with foie gras atop a bed of mushrooms, below.
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