Spirit of the Bistro

When it comes to traditional French cooking and pure Parisian ambience, these cozy neighborhood restaurants still deliver

By Alexander Lobrano

Credit: Landon Nordeman

I thought I was sulking because of the thick knit tie and madras jacket I was being forced to wear on that stifling August night, but the real reason for my snit, though I couldn't articulate it at the time, was that Paris seemed so excruciatingly out of reach for a 14-year-old boy from suburban Connecticut. Instead of following my parents through the Louvre or visiting Napoleon's tomb, I wanted to be kissing someone on the banks of the Seine or sipping champagne on a terrace.

Still, I was hungry when we all got to the cozy bistro in St-Germain-des-Pr�s, and the smell of saut�ing shallots made my mouth water. I loved the pungent scent of the Gitanes a woman at the next table was smoking, and the saucers of radishes and sliced sausage the waiter delivered with our menus. I devoured the bread, a baguette with a crackling crust and lacey interior web of tangy crumb.

"Do you know what you're getting?" my brother asked when I ordered a salade fris�e aux lardons and boeuf aux carottes. I insisted I did. It was half true—a salad of some kind and beef with carrots, whatever that might be. If the chunks of hot bacon in my salad came as a surprise, the mahogany sauce on my braised beef and carrots stirred a sensualist bent I didn't know I had. Smoky and sweet, it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. Instantly I understood the smiling, sated radiance of the crowd seated around me in the front dining room at Allard. Here was the Paris I'd been longing for.

It was the memory of that sauce, as much as anything, that compelled me to pull up stakes for the city 25 years ago, and I've been eating my way through the bistros of Paris ever since. Every good bistro meal reveals the unassuming genius of this profoundly French genre of restaurant. But it was by making my way to the city's most beloved old-guard bistros—Aux Lyonnais, L'Ami Louis, and Chez Georges, all of which blessedly survive, like Allard—that I came to appreciate how time-honored technique and genuine care can transform the humblest of ingredients into transcendent meals.

Over the years, I've visited the temples of haute cuisine and developed an affection for Paris's fast-paced brasseries (the few that haven't been taken over by corporate chains, that is). Yet I remain convinced that the bistro is the truest expression of French cooking. Best known for plats mijot�s, or long-simmered dishes, such as boeuf � la bourguignonne and pot-au-feu (beef stew with marrow bones), bistros can also be relied on for roasted meats in generous portions and classic side dishes like c�leri r�moulade (celery root in a mustardy mayonnaise) (see Recipe: C�leri-Rave R�moulade) and potato gratin. It's what the French call cuisine grandm�re (grandmother's cooking), and in fact these places have traditionally been family-run, with the husband in the kitchen and the wife in the dining room (or vice versa). Recently, a new generation of chefs has put its own spin on the bistro, but the affinity for little neighborhood places you can call your own—and afford to visit regularly—has endured from the bistro's 19th-century beginnings. It was in bistros that I learned to eat like a Frenchman, and it is to bistros that the French turn for comfort and continuity.