Since I always enjoyed Chamarre when it was rather incongruously located in the 7th arrondissement--the warmth and sensuality of the cooking always seemed rather at odds with the uber bourgeois fastness of the Avenue Lowendahl, I was delighted when exceptionally talented chef Antoine Heerah reopened his restaurant in Montmartre in the premises formerly occupied by Beauvilliers. Heerah, a generous, jovial Mauritian of Indian descent, practices one of the most guileless, intelligent and original fusion cuisines currently available in Paris. What he's basically done is deconstruct all of the disparate elements of the Mauritian kitchen--French, English, Portuguese, Chinese, African and most of all Indian, and then put them back together again using his considerable technical skills as a classically trained French chef.

Though it's a favorite Indian Ocean getaway destination for the French, Mauritius is little-known to non-Europeans. Originally colonized by the Dutch, the fertile green island was traded back and forth between France and Britain several times before becoming a important coaling station for the British Empire. For much of its history, its most important crop was sugar cane, and the need for field hands explains the country's ethnic diversity. When slavery was abolished, indentured Indians were brought in to harvest the cane on the large plantations owned by a small elite of mostly French ancestry. The Chinese arrived as shop keepers, enriching a population that was also spiced with a smattering of AWOL sailors from American whaling ships and British naval vessels and later, South Africans and Portuguese fleeing the civil wars of that country's former African colonies. Tidy, literate and strikingly beautiful, Mauritius today is prosperous, pleasant, French-speaking place that lives off of tourism since the sugar plantations became economically no longer viable. (Should you go, by the way, don't miss the spectacular Bauhaus tea-processing factory that was designed by a Berlin architect who was among a shipload of Jewish exiles that Mauritius accepted over British objections and housed and fed during World War II).

Even if you knew none of this background, you'd be able to parse it out from the menu at Chamarre. The Mauritian kitchen is based on seafood, especially octopus and deep-water ocean fish, but also plump fresh-water prawns known locally as camarons. The island's pantry includes coconuts, mangoes, curry leaves, tumeric, ginger, cumin and a variety of Indian condiments, including pickled green mangos known as achards and chatnis (various local version of Chutney). China shows up in the island's love of "mee," the local word for noodles, and distant echoes of the high Victorian British empire come through in its love of old-fashioned steamed "puddings" and other Mrs. Beeton style desserts. Before tourism created a market for air-freighted produce from South Africa, the island lived off of its own relatively sparse produce supplemented by imported canned goods (corned beef, condensed milk, tomato sauce, baked beans) from Britain and other Commonwealth countries.

Heerah's cuisine mirrors the Cinderella-like transformation of the remote island into a jet-set destination with an honest respect for its traditional culinary heritage and a stunningly modern layering of flavors and tastes. Going to dinner here the other night on what is surely one of the loveliest outdoor terraces in Paris, a lovely quiet flower-filled balcony adjacent to the restaurant, I was impressed all over again by the ingenuity of Heerah's cooking, which he's planed down a bit since a slightly bumpy opening. As she never stops telling me, my Breton friend Michele likes "good, simple food--nothing too fussy," so I wondered how she'd react to Heerah's spring menu--very well indeed as it turned. She started with a mixture of spring vegetables--peas, fava beans, baby onions, asparagus and salad leaves in a "Mauritian pesto" spiked with ginger and curry leaves, and absolutely loved it, while my shrimp prepared three ways--wrapped in pastry filaments with curry leaves, chopped in a bouillon made from their shells, and marinated with tangelolo were superb. Next maigre (a firm mild white fish) with a Romanesco sauce and tiny artichokes in deeply reduced chicken stock for Michele, and steamed yellow pollack with a "tatin" of Noirmoutier potatoes with limequats for me. Both dishes were light, vivid, fresh and wonderfully originally, as was the sublime Basmati rice milk ice cream that came with the savarin that we shared for dessert. The service was the only fly-in-the-ointment of an otherwise delightful meal--poorly trained waiters and a haughty hostess who suffered from what Michele correctly diagnosed as "syndrome du Palace," or a psychological pose of exasperated superiority vis a vis those one has no choice but to serve. Though annoying, this was a minor blemish on an excellent meal, especially in such a wonderful setting, and I look forward to returning again soon. 52 rue Lamarck, 18th, Tel. 01.42.55.05.42. Metro: Lamarck-Caulaincourt. Open daily.

Though the name, Frenchie, is cloying without being cute and also perpetuates some much loved but completely daft idea the French have that English speakers refer to them as Frenchies, this vest-pocket bistro in the Sentier, or old Paris garment district, is a delightful spot with really excellent food. Gregory Marchand, the Nantes born chef-owner, works in a tiny kitchen in the back of a exposed stone and red-brick dining room that could easily be found in Nolita (NYC) or Shoreditch (London), and the vibe is similarly Anglo-American, which makes sense, because Greg mostly recently did a stint at Danny Meyer's sublime Gramercy Tavern and worked at Jamie Oliver's 15 before that. 

The short market menu offers two starters, two mains, a cheese plate and two desserts, and it changes often, which is a good thing, since this place has already acquired a dedicated crowd of young regulars. Waiting for Nadine to arrive, I drank a glass of very good Bossard Muscadet and studied the wine list, which is impressive, including Pic Saint Loup de Mas Foulaquier, a lovely Spanish Rueda, several outstanding cotes du Rhone.

Though the smoked trout with green, purple and wild asparagus sounded good, it was a cool, wet May night, so we both began with an excellent cream of celery soup that was laddled over croutons, a slice of foie gras and a coddled egg to create comfort food at its very best. Next, some of the best brandade de morue (flaked salt cod with potatoes and garlic), I've ever had. Marchard's version was wonderfully creamy, and came with vivid swirls of red pepper puree and parsley jus, both of which flattered the cod. The other main course was a paleron de boeuf, or braised beef, with carrots, and it looked quite tasty on our neighbor's table, too.

I ordered the cheese plate--a nice chevre and a slice of Tomme with a small salad and a dab of honey, to finish off our Rueda, one of my favorite everyday white wines, and Nadine succumbed to the chocolate tart, which was also excellent and came with raspberry puree.

Because the atmosphere's so cosy and the food's so good, Frenchie is exactly the type of happy, homey restaurant you'd love to claim as your neighborhood hang-out. It also offers an interesting snap shot of Paris dining in 2009 because it's main references are two countries that were once derided for their mediocre, even ghastly food--the United States and the United Kingdom--but which have now developed distinctive cuisine du marche styles of their own.

It's telling, too, that this Spring's two best new Paris restaurants--Frenchie and Yam'Tcha (see my previous posting)--have young chefs who returned home after cooking abroad (Adeline Grattard of Yam'Tcha worked in Hong Kong for several years), and that Battersea, Boston, and Bangkok are as likely to be a source of inspiration for ambitious young French chefs today as Bordeaux or Blois. 

Frenchie, 5 rue du Nil, 2nd, Tel. 01-40-39-96-19. Metro: Sentier

Yam'Tcha, 4 rue Sauval, 1^st, Tel. 01-40-26-08-07. Metro: Louvre-Rivoli

As an American in Paris for almost 23 years, I took a particular pleasure in reading David Lebovitz's delightful new book LIVING THE SWEET LIFE IN PARIS. Lebovitz, one of America's most renowned pastry chefs, a hugely successful cookbook author and blogger extraordinaire (www.davidlebovitz.com) recounts his decision to move to Paris and the sweet-and-sour baby steps of learning a new language and culture with wit, grace and trenchant honesty, which makes this book a far cry from the usual extremes of this genre.

Much too often, the tone of books about living in Paris by Americans runs to treacle or battery acid, with most of the herd tending to the former rather than the latter. What Lebovitz has penned instead is a nuanced and very personal take on Paris. As he said to me over lunch several weeks ago, "Many Americans spend a week in Saint Germain and think they've been to Paris, which makes about as much sense as saying you know Hawaii after a visit to Waikiki."

Refreshingly, the epicenter of Lebovitz's Paris are the city's 11th and 12th arrondissements, where he continues to perfect his terrific recipes--they're many of them interleaved through the chapters of this memoir as well--in the tiny kitchen of his apartment, shops at the wonderful Marche d'Aligre and deepens his gastronomic knowledge by working at a poissonerie and a chocolate shop. 

If he mostly enjoys his new life in Paris, he also discovers that the rose has a few thorns. The ACCUEIL (welcome) desk of any French department store, or the customer-service department, is unfailingly the least welcome place one can imagine, and Parisian grocery stores, specifically the FRANPRIX chain, are small, filthy, inhospitable, and poorly stocked when compared the average American or English super market (yes, yes, yes, the city has wonderful outdoor markets and great specialty shops, but everyone needs a good grocery store). He also ponders the peculiar incapacity of Parisians to understand or respect the American/British habit of standing in line, and rues the ambient aggressiveness of Parisians in any public setting. (He missed a couple of my pet peeves, including pay toilets in train stations and the general Parisian indifference to environmentally correct behavior like recycling and conservation). The coffee in Parisian cafes is generally ghastly, too, and hand-held shower attachments (as opposed to wall mounted) are a miserable inconvenience.

In general, however, he finds the city utterly delectable, and after five years here, he considers himself a dyed-in-the-wool Parisian. How did he know that he'd become a Parisian? He realized it the day that he took a shower and put on a clean shirt just to take out the garbage--as he quickly learned, appearances are everything in Paris, and this is one of the reasons that the city is such a lovely place to live. Clerks in pastry shops tie up your purchases in beautiful paper pyramids, the fromages really are fantastic, and oh the pastry shops!

A treat to read, LIVING THE SWEET LIFE is also a great source of insider's tips--Lebovitz divulges that the city's best hot chocolate is to be found at the tiny Patisserie Viennois in the 6th on the rue de l'Ecole de Medecin and his favorite chocolatier--Patrick Roger in the 16th. As always, Lebovitz's recipes are both tempting and impeccably written. Just in time for summer, this is a great arm chair read that will tantalize anyone who is planning a trip to Paris as much as it amuses anyone who knows the city well. I highly recommend it.

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Since I've lived in Paris, the rue Saint Anne has quite wonderfully become the city's preeminent Japanese restaurant zone, which is a real boon to anyone looking for a cheap, expedient and delicious feed in the heart of the city. The challenge, of course, is to know which of these places are the best. A big fan of gyoza (grilled Japanese dumplings) and noodles, I've been assiduously and very happily eating my way through the area for years, and finally have discovered what I think is the best noodle-gyoza restaurant in Paris--Hokkaido. I went for lunch on this rainy Saturday, and there was already a line at the door when we arrived. A mixture of Japanese residents of Paris and Asian food-lovers, they all clearly knew that this simple, busy place serves outstanding food. Today we scarfed down a double portion of gyoza (God are they good), and then Bruno has udon noodles sauteed with vegetables and beef and I went with the tonkatsu (fried breaded pork cutlet) in a bento box on rice with enoki mushrooms and a lightly scrambled egg. Both dishes were absolutely delicious, and lunch for two with two mugs of green tea was less than 30 Euros, making this place one of the best bargains in Paris. 14 rue Chabanais, 2nd, Tel. 01.42.60.60.95. Metro: Quatre Septembre or Pyramides.

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Since it regularly breaks my heart to see visitors to Paris falling prey to the myriad tourist-trap restaurants in Saint Germain des Pres, I follow new openings in this neighborhood with extra vigilance, always hoping that maybe another good new place might be added to the short roster of honestly good restaurants in this eternally popular part of the city. Thus I was hopeful when I walked by the great-looking new l'Atelier Mazarine on the rue Mazarine a few days after it opened. Off I went with my friend Judy who lived nearby, and we settled into high stools with low backs in the narrow dining room with high hopes. Low lighting, exposed stone walls, reasonably friendly service, and a country ham in a brace on the long counter that runs the length of the space were encouraging, and the short menu was interesting. Alas, things went off the rails right from the start. Judy's lightly grilled tuna came with a drab eggplant salad and a strangely fermented pistachio crumble--a composition that had no coherence whatsoever, and my grilled shrimp were a bore. Next, overcooked John Dory with a silly "vegetable sausage" for Judy and an awful griddled veal tartare with Parmesan for me. Drinking the cheapest red on the menu and skipping dessert, we still end up spending over a 100 Euros, which made this place not only a disappointment but an expensive misfire. So give it a miss and head for the excellent L'Epigramme (9 rue Eperon, 6th, Tel. 01-44-41-00-09. Metro: Odeon. Booking essential) instead.

L'Atelier Mazarine, 43 rue Mazarine, 6th, Tel. 01-43-54-12-43. Metro: Odeon. 

Almost nothing could be more telling of the impact of this year's steep recession on the Paris restaurant scene than the instant notoriety of Yam'Tcha, a sweet little restaurant that recently opened in an ancient side street in Les Halles. To wit, this 20 seat place run by earnest, amiable young chef Adeline Grattard, former second to Pascal Barbot at L'Astrance, has passed through global gastro cyber space with the intensity and speed of a comet. Because Grattard actually is a serious, talented and original cook, I'd like to think her table, which she runs with her Hong Kong born husband Chiwah Chan, will withstand the blow-back of a culinary media world that's so desperate for news that it exalts anything that's even slightly different and half plausible.

So am I being hypocritical in writing about this fragile new flower on this website? No, not really--though I'm flattered that your eyes may be rolling over these words, I wouldn't pretend to be such an oracle that famished throngs will be pressing their faces to Tam'Tcha's window on Monday morning. I assume that those of you who find their way to this quiet little patch of the culinary cyber world are people who are very seriously interested not only in eating well, but in thinking about gastronomy in all of its facets, which brings me back to Yam'Tcha. Quite simply, I worry that the relative paucity of restaurant news out of Paris this year means that the city's substantial core of food writers is going to pick this tasty morsel to the bone before its had a chance to find its groove.

I've been three times, and if I've eaten well on every occasion, and I like Grattard's shrewd, subtle and original Franco-Chinese approach to cooking, I've also been exasperated by the very slow (if well-meaning) service, the fiddliness of the idea of a different tea with each course in the dinner tasting menu (I like tea, and I like drinking tea with my food, but poor Chiwah Chan is way out of his depth as the sole tea steward meant to track twenty different meal from a single service bar). I also think that the tea option needs to be more carefully explained, and that there should also be a wine-by-the-glass option. Finally, no dinner in a casual Paris bistro should take longer than three hours; the last time I ate here, I thought the attractive young Brazilian couple at the table next to ours would become violent before their dessert arrived. Like us, they loved Grattard's cooking, but like us, they eventually briddled at the very long waits between courses.

We started with a delicious tiny complimentary appetizer of slivered broad beans with crumbled sauteed pork dressed with ginger, garlic and sesame-seed oil, then loved plump Mozambique shrimps steamed as over-sized pot-stickers, sublime duckling with sauteed eggplant, a lovely piece of Citeaux (an abbey cheese from Burgundy) with toasted country bread and a few drops of delicious olive oil, and a delightful dessert of homemade ginger ice cream with avocado slices and passion fruit. Fresh, healthy, original, sincere--this was a great meal, and Yam'Tcha is a place I'd look forward to enjoying regularly if I didn't know that it's going to be taken by such a storm that it will soon be impossible to get a table without booking two months in advance.

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I've known Yannick Alleno's cooking every since I first discovered him in a dreary Howard Johnson like dining room in the basement of the Hotel Scribe, and it's been a delicious pleasure to follow his deserved ascension to the Mount Olympus of French chefs--today he's head chef at Le Meurice and he received Bibendum's ultimate benediction--triple twinklers--several years ago. Because Le Meurice is shudderingly expensive, it's not a place that I go with any regularity, which is why I was delighted to be invited to lunch there this week. 

We decided to go with Yannick's new "Terroir Parisien" lunch menu at 90 Euros, and what followed was one of the best meals I've had in a very longtime. Ninety euros is a hefty chunk of change to be sure, but this stunningly good feed would have been worth twice as much. We nibbled on impeccably fried white-bait to start, and then the meal began with an exquisite lozenge of Norwegian salmon sauced with a vivid green watercress sauce and a charming confetti of spring vegetables. Next, steamed sole with pencil-sized asparagus from the Paris suburb of Auteil in a light sauce made with vin jaune, then Ile de France lamb cooked for a long time at a low temperature so that it was so tender you could eat it with a spoon. At this point, Alleno came by and explained the idea of "Terroir Parisien," which is to work with seasonal produce from the Ile-de-France, or the region surrounding Paris, and even to revive some of the region's signature produce. "French cuisine was born using the produce of the Ile de France," Alleno explained. "When the first restaurant's opened after the French Revolution, the chefs used what came from the countryside surrounding Paris. This explains dishes like a la Crecy, which always indicates the presence of carrots in a dish, since the village of Crecy was originally known for its carrots. Similarly, a la Montmorency, always means cherries and references the village of Montmorency, once known for same." Other local products that Alleno is using include brie de meaux, mint poivree from Milly-la-Foret, asparagus from Argenteuil, champignons de Paris, jambon de Paris, honey from the hives on the roof of the Opera Garnier, and, eventually chickens from Houdan. Located in the Yvelines, Houdan was once famous for its fowl. "La poule de Houdon was more famous in Europe than the poulet de Bresse," Alleno explained. "What changed everything was the Great Depression, when the government encouraged Paris chefs to use produce from all over the country and also the urbanization of the Ile de France between 1945 and 1970. The region still produces some wonderful comestibles, though, and I want to use as many of them possible in creating a new cuisine de Paris." Suffice it to say that I volunteered to become a recipe taster for the initiative as often as Alleno might need me. I think "Terroir Parisien" is a brilliant idea, and five days after left the table at Le Meurice, I am still savoring that exquisite spring lunch.

Le Meurice, 228 rue de Rivoli, 1st, 01-44-58-10-10. Metro: Tuileries

Yam'Tcha, 4 rue Sauval, 1^st, Tel. 01-40-26-08-07. Metro: Louvre-Rivoli

On my way to meet a friend, Martine from Cahors, for dinner tonight, I passed the ghastly sandwich counter of the Royal Trinite Cafe at the counter of the rue Havre de Caumartin and found myself wishing that France would create a new level of national security agents--food police, who would have the authority to instantly confiscate and destroy anything as nasty as these pallid baguette sandwiches filled with fake mozzarella, industrial chorizo, and wane pink ham garnished with brown-edged lettuce and slices of unripe tomatoes. 

These hideous sandwiches offer a terrible confirmation of the international blog chatter that would insist that France's best gastronomic days are behind it. And yet ten minutes later, I was seated in a quietly stylish bistro with perfect low lighting, pots of white orchids in the windows, and perfectly bleached ancient white beams overhead and staring at a truly superb menu. I'd been wanting to get to Pramil, in the ever trendier 3rd arrondissement, for a longtime, but it's rare that I have a night when I don't have to go somewhere that's new, new, new. 

Martine, an elegant woman who loves good food and wine, is someone I've known for years, or ever since she invited me to an epic wine-tasting at Alain Senderens's gorgeous chateau outside of Cahors. Our paths cross much too infrequently, so I really wanted to take her somewhere that was, well, very Parisian and served food she might not run into in Cahors. A gaggle of friends had recommended Pramil, and so I decided to take a chance (I rarely invite anyone aside from professional colleagues to dinner in a restaurant I haven't been to before). 

A warm welcome got things off to a good start, and I appreciated the comfortable distance between the tables in the front room, and the effort the waitress made to prevent our table from rocking. Next, the menu, which offered up a suite of temptations. Martine began with a salad of "ficoide glaciale," a fleshy succulent salad similar to the ice plant that's a feature of southern Californian landscaping, with grilled shrimp and roasted tomatoes, and I tried the white asparagus soup with a ball of foie gras ice cream. Martine's salad with excellent, and I liked my soup, but found the ice cream a bit gimmicky. A few ribbons of foie gras would have underlined the wonderful earthy flavor of the asparagus more effectively than the cold sweet ice cream, but the soup was beautifully made and pleasantly tinted with piment d'Espelette, which back-stopped its richness.

Next, exquisitely grilled scallops in a light cream sauce with wilted spinach leaves for me, and a succulent onglet de veau (veal steak) with olive-oil accented potato puree for Martine. A stunningly good white Savigny les Beaune was ideal with this main courses, and also worked perfectly with the excellent selection of cheeses, the best of which was a first-of-season chevre from the Loire, that I chose instead of dessert. Martine was very happy with her nougat glace, and asked for a card while I was paying the bill. "This is exactly the sort of restaurant I love finding in Paris," she said as we walked home afterwards, and I not only agree, but would submit that the brilliantly high incidence of restaurants like Pramil in Paris is the perfect retort to anyone who'd have you believe that Paris is becoming a gastronomic backwater. Now if I could only do something about those horrendous sandwiches at the Royal Trinite that I am forced to gaze upon everyday....

Pramil, 9 rue du Vertbois, 3rd, Tel. 01-42-72-03-60. Mo Temple or Republique. Open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday through Saturday, and also on Sunday nights.

If reviving any classic restaurant runs the risk of cliché and pastiche, the challenge was magnified when it came to Lyon’s La Mere Brazier, one of the most famous restaurants in France. “I knew it was going to be a challenge,” says Lyonnais Matthieu Viannay, 42, the restaurant’s new chef-owner. “Lots of people wanted the restaurant to remain exactly the way that it had always been, and so they weren’t going to like even small changes, while younger people who’d never known the original could find the menu too old-fashioned. What I had to do was find a personal balance between the classical French cooking that La Mere Brazier originally served and my own style.”

   When Viannay, one of the most accomplished of Lyon’s new generation of chefs, decided to revive La Mere Brazier, closed since 2004, he first immersed himself in the history of the restaurant, which was founded by one of Lyon’s famous “Meres” (female chefs) in 1921, and then sought the consul of a cook who’d been an apprentice to Eugenie Brazier in 1945—Paul Bocuse. 

    “Keep your cooking simple and be sure to master the sauces,” was Bocuse’s advice to Viannay, and so he did, with winning results—La Mere Brazier just won two stars. Viannay’s take on la volaille de Bresse en demi-deuil (poached Bresse chicken with black truffles under its skin) offers a perfect example of how he’s shrewdly reworked the classics. Tradition obligee, he serves the chicken with baby vegetables, a garnish of pickled sour cherries, and a voluptuous  velouté de volaille monté à la crème, one of the ultimate French sauces. Where Viannay goes his own way, is that the bird is served as two courses—first, the breasts, succulent and white as alabaster, and then the legs and thighs, which are grilled and garnished with a small salad of herbs.

   Ultimately, many of Viannay’s subtle revisions of Eugenie Brazier’s famous dishes come off as surprisingly modern. “I think traditional French cooking, the cooking of Escoffier and the religion of sauces, has actually become modern again,” says Viannay. “After the aberrancies of molecular cooking, we’re craving food that’s delicious, wholesome and reassuring.”

    Not everything on the menu is an heirloom recipe. Two dishes that Viannay considers to be signatures of his own cooking include a starter fricassee of escargots garnished with grilled calves’ ears and a main course of very thinly sliced ormeaux (a rare conch like crustacean fished of the Channel Islands) served with wild mushrooms and grilled pine nuts. Offering a subtle but delectable contrast between oceanic and earthy tastes and a brilliant combination of textures (ormeaux is pleasantly chewy, the mushrooms fleshy), the latter is a great dish.

   To be sure, simplicity alone isn’t always a perfect compass; scallops in their shells garnished with slivers of candied lime peel and green peppercorns were pleasant, but the only way this dish would have been really memorable is if the scallops were best quality and cooked just to that moment when they become pellucid.

   Aside from Viannay’s terrific cooking, including the grand finale of a perfectly made Grand Marnier soufflé, the well-drilled young service, an excellent and fairly priced list of Cote du Rhone valley wines, and a choice of two differently decorated dining rooms—the ones upstairs are done up in art-deco vintage Sarreguemines tiles, while downstairs is gunmetal gray, mean La Mere Brazier is once again pulling le tout Lyon, so reservations are essential.

La Mère Brazier, 12 rue Royale, 69001 Lyon. Tél. : 04-78-23-17-20.

  The sweetest secret in Paris recently came to end with the opening of La Chocolaterie, a striking new boutique in the trendy northern Marais. Before the only way to sample the deliciously confidential wares of chocolatier and patissier Jacques Genin was at Alain Ducasse, Joel Robuchon, Pierre Gagnaire, Yves Camdeborde’s Le Comptoir du Relais or one of the other select restaurants and hotels in Paris that carry his handmade chocolates and pastries or by prizing the his address out of someone and knocking on the door of his tiny atelier deep in the 15^th arrondissement and asking if he’d sell you some directly (a nice guy, he usually did).

  Now, as word spreads about Genin creations, among them his caramel éclair, cassis (black currant) and mimosa pate de fruits and Szechuan pepper ganache, an ever growing throng of intensely curious chocolate and pastry-loving Parisians are flocking to Genin’s bright, airy 200 square meter boutique in a 17^th building at 133 rue de Turenne. What they all want to know is who is Jacques Genin, and how did he manage to stay under the radar of the French capital’s thousands of avid chocolate lovers for so long.

   Designed by architect Guillaume Leclercq, who previously did several Louis Vuitton boutiques, La Chocolaterie is an elegant airy space where the precious and perishable sweets (Genin’s chocolates have a ten-day life expectancy) are kept in glass cases on top of ivory colored counters and there’s a warm, inviting salon with exposed stone walls, oak parquet floors, low lighting, and mocha and chocolate leather chairs by French designer Christian Liagre. A dramatic raw steel circular stair case leads upstairs to the immaculate 200 square meter atelier where Genin works with a team of eight.

  From the Vosges region of eastern France, the genial Genin, 50, found his métier after a variety of odd jobs (maitre d’hotel, self-taught chef) that culimated with the improbable good luck of becoming chef patissier at Paris’s famous Maison du Chocolat (he’d never baked so much as a single éclair, but learned fast). After four years of acclaim, he chucked it all again, and set up shop as a chocolatier in a 23 meter atelier.

   Using the best available fruit, herbs, spices, nuts, dairy produce and Valrhona chocolate, Genin taught himself the art of chocolate-making and started making the killer good   bons-bons that left the greatest chefs of France speechless.

   “I already have the tastes in my mouth when I start to invent a new recipe,” Genin tells me over tea from Paris’s exclusive Maison des Trois Thes. “Here, try this,” he says, placing a pate de fruit on a saucer. If I can identity the banana, I don’t immediately find the other flavor of this playful but potent treat. “It’s geranium. French cemeteries are filled with geraniums, so they’re the smell of old age. Children love bananas. The idea is a little edible sketch of life,” Genin explains. 

  I ask the ever-animated Genin why be became a chocolatier. “I love giving people pleasure,” he says. “I also like the way the danger of my work—creating caramel by subjecting sugar to carbon and oxygen, for example, yields a sensual product. To give someone a small intense moment of pleasure in life, that’s a lot.”

 La Chocolaterie, 133 rue de Turenne, Tel. 33-1-45-77-29-01