Deal with: 3, carrefour de l’Odéon, 75006
Hours: Open each day for lunch & dinner
Phone: No cellphone
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Since Yves Camdeborde’s audacious, standing-room-only French pintxo bar L’Avant Comptoir opened its doorways in 2009, the superlatives to explain it have all been used up. Mouth-wateringly delicious! Flooding with pure wine! Pork-tastic!
The following opening of two close by sibling wine-bars (L’Avant Comptoir de la Mer and L’Avant Comptoir du Marché) has accomplished little to alleviate the mealtime crush on the authentic. The jostling, the jolly shouts from the bartenders, the thumping Latin pop on the stereo are all integral components of a eating expertise that’s extra expertise than eating. It’s a funhouse of charcuterie and offal.
It has matured through the years, notably turning into extra hygienic. The tins of free communal rillettes have disappeared – no tragedy, since they had been simply odd, whipped concoctions of pork fats anyway. When one reaches for the communal mountain of Bordier butter, one is now handed a plate.
As on the different L’Avant Comptoir areas, the pictorial menu suspended from the ceiling serves twin functions. It clarifies what the whimsically-titled dishes are for the overwhelmingly vacationer clientele. However it additionally disorients, confronting a customer with a blizzard of decisions. An in depth learn reveals they haven’t modified a lot through the years: charcuterie poppers which can be largely béchamel; sweetish, faintly Asian pork stomach; a lugubrious, quivering pork-skin sausage. Many, many dishes arrive sporting magenta curls of pickled onion.
The execution of
these easy heat tapas has grown uneven, to the extent that even their low
costs can really feel unjustified, particularly in gentle of wine mark-ups which can be excessive
for an institution providing such minimal service.
The unique L’Avant Comptoir stays revolutionary for its steadfast devotion to high quality product and a celebratory environment. In the present day one of the best ways to hitch the occasion – and to purchase into the hyperbole – is at off-hours, when there’s extra elbow room. When ordering, concentrate on the broad and refined charcuterie choice, which stays among the many metropolis’s greatest.
L’Avant Comptoir in Footage
In Different Phrases
Time Out (2017) recounts an occasion during which its reviewer helped end the andouille of some American neighbors at L’Avant Comptoir. It applauds the restaurant for upholding the spirit of a “comptoir populaire.”
Le Fooding (2015) “Even for these disoriented diners who come for a day snack, the ritual remains to be the identical at Camdeborde’s pintxos bar: stroll by the door previous the plastic curtain, wait on the bar surrounded by artists, vacationers or wandering souls (typically all three without delay…) and discover a spot at this tapas bar, with a basket of Thierry Breton bread and a jar of salt from Salies-de-Béarn. You’ll be rewarded with the next: a particularly comforting croque monsieur with marinated oxtail, flash-seared piquillo peppers and a horseradish cream in buttery triangular-shaped bread.”
Epicurious (2014) cites L’Avant Comptoir as considered one of “10 Eating places Parisians Received’t Inform You About.” That is true, however solely to the extent that precise Paris residents virtually by no means go to L’Avant Comptoir.
Not Consuming Poison in Paris (2011) “I ought to say that I truly appreciated the place properly sufficient. The deal is it’s a quality-conscious, natural-wine, Bordier butter institution that however is standing-room solely, with self-service bread and condiments, and no plates.”
Dorie Greenspan (2009) “To not be missed: Iberian ham croquettes (as soon as fried, the ham dissolves inside its crispy shell — too unhealthy I simply used the phrase voluptuous, it might be good right here, too)…”
Le Figaro (2009) “Quelques mètres carrés de néogouaille orchestrés par un Camdeborde toujours aussi fameux à faire trinquer mémoire et moderne…”
The New York Occasions (2009) “…This brief, slim, standing-room-only house with white tile partitions, a broad pewter counter and an open kitchen is what Camdeborde calls an “hors d’oeuvres bar,” and it serves up an array of scrumptious small-plate Basque- and Béarnais-inspired nibbles…”
John Talbott (2009) “Your complete Bayonne rugby group was celebrating; they had been very drunk, very into leaping in unison on the delicate floor-boards, chanting/singing Basque struggle songs, smoking and consuming rather more…”
The Paris Pocket book (2009) “Claustrophobics may need to abstain because it’s standing room solely on the zinc bar laden with a communal bread basket, a bath of Bordier butter, white jars of pickles and peppers meant to be shared amongst your neighbors…”
L’Avant Comptoir in Video
Anthony Bourdain’s Paris episode for “The Layover.” The phase on L’Avant Comptoir begins across the 12:20 mark.
