Deal with: 26, rue des Grands Augustins, 75006
Hours: Open Tuesday-Sunday from 5pm to 11pm and Saturday from 1pm to 11pm.
Phone: +33 9 81 21 76 21
Fb / Instagram
Saying the identify of this calm, intimate Left Financial institution pure wine spot is a evident crimson neon signal, of the type one sees in speakeasies and intercourse outlets. It’s an earnestly louche design contact attribute of the multidisciplinary work of proprietor Emmanuel Giraud, who by turns describes himself as “artist, author, and journalist,” and, in a 2013 interview with Le Monde, as a “sculptor of culinary subjectivity.”
Somewhat than merely add “wine retailer” to his résumé with the opening of Augustin Marchand d’Vins, Giraud concocted a backstory involving a fictional character named “Augustin Marchand.” He conscripted many Paris meals journalists to mislead readers into believing that he, Giraud, is as a substitute Augustin Marchand, a person whose life is seemingly crammed with eyebrow-raising coincidences: discovering actual property on “rue des Grands Augustins” and turning into an precise marchand, or service provider, of wine.
In actuality, Augustin Marchand d’Vins – like Left Financial institution predecessors La Crêmerie, La Quincave, or the preliminary, wine bar iteration of Sauvage – is a bare-bones cave-à-manger (a wine store wherein one can dine, barely), consisting, on this case, of a smattering of spherical, marble two-tops surrounding a service bar festooned with wine bottles, flowers, and a cheese cage.
However in contrast to La Quincave, and somewhat extra like La Crêmerie or the current, restaurant iteration of Sauvage, Augustin Marchand d’Vins costs itself on the technique of its chi-chi neighborhood, which is to say its meals choices are somewhat expensive. Three wedges of smoked salmon, every the dimensions of a person’s center finger, run 26€. A salad of inexperienced beans, nectarine, and anchovy runs an unjustifiable 18€. Components are of effective provenance, befitting Giraud’s lengthy expertise within the subject of gourmandise. However they’re betrayed by a confetti-like hand with ineffective garnishes: carrot slivers, bits of celery, and so forth.
Redeeming the remedial nature of the kitchen is Giraud’s omnivorous pure wine choice, starting from the wiry Catalonian curiosities of Partida Creus to easygoing crowd-pleasers just like the Mâconnais chardonnay of Domaine Guillot-Broux. Wine costs are honest, at retail plus 10€ corkage, and this alone can render Augustin Marchand d’Vins a vacation spot on a street in any other case recognized just for a touristic Champagne store and the haute bistronomie of Ze Kitchen Galerie. Giraud – with or with out his fictional alter ego – shouldn’t have any bother discovering an actual clientele for sincere wine in a easy setting, between meals or after one.
Augustin Marchand d’Vins in Photos
In Different Phrases
Le Fooding (2019) calls Augustin Marchand d’Vins a “deliciously intimate wine den” the place one can eat “a scrumptious saucisson from Ardèche.” Sounds, er, scrumptious.
Simon Says (2019) François Simon winkingly observes that at Augustin Marchand d’Vins “the proprietor is a real connoisseur, wears a leather-based apron, and visibly is aware of the restaurant universe effectively.”
Le Figaro (2019) describes the plat du jour at Augustin Marchand d’Vins as “aristo-canaille,” or “aristocratic rogue.”
