Deal with: 49, avenue du Maine, 75014
Hours: Open continuous from 8am-11pm Monday-Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Phone: +33 1 43 20 95 66
On-line Reserving / Web site / Fb / Instagram
Savvy diners keep away from eating places close to prepare stations for the wise cause that such institutions are primarily unaccountable to their captive, transitory clientele and lack any incentive to ship high quality. However anybody who has ever been pleasantly shocked by L’Specific de Lyon – the geeky craft beer bar in entrance of the Gare de Lyon – can be doubly surprised by Le Petit Sommelier, a flexible, non-stop-service brasserie with one of many metropolis’s most formidable wine lists hiding in plain sight beside the Gare de Montparnasse.
With its fusty, Artwork-Nouveau resplendence, buttressed by partitions upon partitions of empty wine bottles, Le Petit Sommelier evokes a timeless establishment, regardless of being identified in its present iteration for slightly below a decade. (The location previously bore the marginally mordant title Le Tabac du Départ, or ‘The Tobacconist of Departure.’) The restaurant is the work of younger sommelier Pierre Vila Palleja, who labored on the Ritz and Lodge Le Crillon earlier than taking the reins of his household’s bistro in 2015. He had already been buying wine right here since 2009, a reality evidenced within the phonebook-like wine checklist, 1000 references sturdy. Even the bathroom is lined with large-format bottles of Chartreuse and Puligny-Montrachet.
Vila Palleja’s checklist could possibly be described as one of the best a classical wine training can produce, a trustworthy reflection of the prevailing opinions of the Revue de Vin de France and different august wine-appreciation institutions. It’s a bonanza of wonderful Champagne, Burgundy, and Loire wines, at costs which are about common for Left Financial institution bistros however properly beneath what one sees on the export market. Pure wine followers could discover it slim pickings, however there’s nonetheless a good quantity of working towards natural and biodynamic wine on supply, like a bracing, stony 2013 Bourgogne Blanc by the late Anne-Claude Leflaive. (67€) Most refreshingly, the workers at Le Petit Sommelier perceptibly care about wine selection and wine presentation, a swish service facet that almost all Paris bistros have wrongfully deserted.
Most significantly, Le Petit Sommelier succeeds in a really elemental means, offering the uncommon and invaluable service of a high-quality, continuous brasserie. Chef Nicolas Bouillier’s menu is dual-faced, providing a web page of stable, well-sourced bistro fare (œufs mayo, boeuf bourguignon, foie gras) alongside certainly one of extra crafted “restaurant” creations (king prawn ravioli, guinea fowl fillet, and so on.). Even the wine-indifferent can recognize the thunderously flavorful Argentine steak or the seasonal consolation of sautéed porcini mushrooms beneath a parsley foam. Sure pitfalls stay, like a mountainous tutti-frutti-colored backyard vegetable salad that tasted principally of fridge. (“One is aware of what not to order at a bistro,” scoffed this reviewer’s French companion.) However all is forgiven on such an unlimited menu, at such an earnest restaurant, which so stratospherically exceeds the low requirements of railside eating.
Nota bene: trains return to Gare de Montparnasse from Bordeaux, the Loire, and Brittany. It’s at such moments that Le Petit Sommelier shines brightest, as a welcome dwelling to the city comforts of Paris.
Le Petit Sommelier in Photos
In Different Phrases
Le Monde (2019) observes that “a lot of our wine areas and plenty of international locations are represented on the Petit Sommelier (…) whereas avoiding the routine,” citing specifically the numerous vintages of Moulin-à-Vent domaine Château des Jacques.
Terre de Vins (2018) says “this restaurant on avenue du Maine is effervescent in every service,” and quotes Pierre Vila Palleja endorsing the pairing alternatives of skin-macerated Slovenian white wines.
L’Specific Kinds (2016) says “Don’t belief appearances: behind this tourist-spot façade hides a gem of a Parisian bistrot,” with “the wines of gastronomic eating places at bistrot costs.”
