Tackle: 10, rue Saulnier, 75009
Hours: Open Tuesday-Saturday for lunch & dinner. Open Sunday for lunch solely. Closed Monday.
Phone: +33 1 45 23 51 68
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The identify Abri – French for “shelter” or “refuge” – all the time appeared a curious play on phrases at Chef Katsuaki Okiyama’s authentic, gallingly inaccessible luxurious bistro. On the authentic Abri, the problem of reserving tables gave one to suspect that removed from providing refuge to shoppers, Okiyama sought as an alternative to take it from them.
That air of antagonistic irony is absent from Abri Soba, the gracious and sleek noodle-based sister restaurant Okiyama opened in 2016. Abri Soba takes no reservations, however a real bar it isn’t, providing ample and comfy desk seating alongside its 9 bar seats. Service within the restaurant’s stylized inside of whorled wooden paneling is chipper and immediate.
The simplicity of Abri Soba’s founding idea – Japanese buckwheat noodles, made in-house and served in conventional cold and warm preparations – is belied by a prolonged menu that reads like a tapestry of Japanese culinary aptitude. Past soba, it consists of every thing from tiny snacks like chanja (kim-chi-style cod gut, fascinating, but completely immune to mastication) to small plates like some tuna medallions with flamed leek and French dressing. Bigger, shareable platters of glistening sashimi, Japanese omelets, and tonkatsu (breaded fried pork) spherical out the menu. There’s a danger of over-ordering earlier than one even sees the soba web page; then the noodles arrive because the unheralded caboose of an in any other case flashy practice of dishes.
The soba itself is as sober as the remainder of the menu is exuberant. Soba has a holy facet. Smart cooks resist makes an attempt to enhance it. Okiyama’s soba is modest, agency, and unsticky: exactly accurately. The tempura accompaniments are laudable for his or her beneficiant measurement and their pristine fry high quality, gently paying homage to buttered popcorn.
All that is strengthened by a beverage program that transcends its ethnic class: a robust craft sake choice mingles with an in depth, well-priced number of French pure wines with out excluding the primordial pleasure of draft Kirin. Abri Soba solutions the prayers of anybody who has ever wished his or her favourite Japanese restaurant provided higher issues to drink, executed with a wine panache born of lengthy expertise in Paris.
Abri Soba in Photos
In Different Phrases
François Simon (2017) additionally notes the impractical nature of eating on the authentic Abri earlier than persevering with to reward Abri Soba as his suggestion of the month, citing the uncommon magnificence of its bouillons and the complete philosophy of eating the restaurant embodies.
Time Out (2016) finds Abri Soba “zen,” which is type of like calling an Indian restaurant “nirvana.” Its four-star evaluation compliments the “sharp dishes” and “concise, well-thought” wine checklist.
Patricia Wells (2016) calls Abri Soba welcoming, informal, and pleasant, and helpfully takes care to notice for readers that the noodles include 20 p.c wheat flour, making them unsuitable for these with gluten intolerances.
L’Specific
(2016) praises the impressed plates at Abri Soba, and winkingly describes the
scorching or chilly soba as being destined for lovers of sturdy suction. There ought to
be some sort of charity set as much as attend to the yearnings of French meals
critics.
Télérama
(2016) praises the elegant and seductive rusticity of Abri Soba.
