A mainstay of Le Marais is Candelaria, a brightly lit micro-taqueria with bomb dot com frozen margs and a relatively short menu of well-executed Mex/Tex-Mex favorites. Walk through the unmarked door next to the pint-sized kitchen and you arrive to a sleek and sexy speakeasy specialized in agave-based spirits. Before heading over to Little Red…
In the bustling Marché des Enfants Rouges in Paris’s hip ‘n’ happening 3e is Les Enfants du Marché, a modest-looking market restaurant that is vibes vibes vibes on a weekend afternoon. While the setting suggests cheap and humble street food, a closer look at the (quite extensive) chalkboard menu reveals culinary creations worthy of a…
I frequently find myself at French train stations over an hour before my scheduled departure, driven there early by a groundless paranoia and an overwhelming sense of malaise. It’s weird. When it comes to airports, I’m cool as a cucumber. I’ve got the movements down, smooth, I know where to go and when. I know…
I was buzzing with excitement as we passed in front of the Double Dragon sign, painted by hand in gorgeous green and gold on the restaurant’s crisp, clean glass window. We had rushed from Montparnasse, getting lost during our transfer in Châtelet (which is more like an escape room than a metro station) and fumbled…
After a morning at the Louvre spent with Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo and Liberty Leading the People, we were hungry for a good sandwich, so I did a quick search and found KERN in the 9ème. There’s a cool vintage diner vibe at this casual eatery, where two ladies prepare photogenic sandwiches to what…
I write this article from aisle seat #44 of wagon #6 aboard TGV INOUI 12268 speeding towards Montparnasse, where a trade show awaits me, coincidentally scheduled for the day of my 34th birthday. I’ve been going to Paris more frequently these days and feeling some kinda way about this city, its cozy bistros and boisterous…
I met a foodie at the bar of Tayēr + Elementary back in October and we chatted about life, food, cocktails and wine. He asked me to recommend a wine region to visit, I told him about Priorat, and he went there a few weeks later. I asked him for restaurant recommendations for my next…
A cool but sunny Saturday afternoon in November found us exploring the East End, our rumbling bellies drawing us closer to Shoreditch for a 2pm reservation at Rochelle Canteen. I had seen the Reels and knew where the buzzer was. We arrived to the door marked “BOYS” surrounded by a Victorian era brick garden wall,…
Out of the three of us present at our dinner at Noizé restaurant in Fitzrovia back in August, no one was actually paying attention to the food. Or, at least, not enough attention. My friend was focused on her beloved bottle of Soldera, freshly pulled from bond, hoping our somm would remember not to decant…
In the London episode of his Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain has a Scotch Egg with Nigella Lawson at the Princess Victoria pub in Shepherd’s Bush. So on a trip to London with my mom, we also had a Scotch Egg at the Princess Victoria in Shepherd’s Bush. Actually, we had booked a Louis CK show…
A 1-hour Chiltern Railways ride from Oxford Parkway to London Marylebone brought my Mom and me back to the capital for a day of sightseeing and mother-daughter bonding. See it, say it, sorted. We walked through Fitzrovia and Saint Pancras to King’s Cross Station and crossed the foot-bridge to Granary Square on the banks of…
The first morning of a trip to London in September found me walking a lot. Through Hoxton and Haggerston, across Shoreditch High Street to Spitalfields, all the way down to London Bridge, where I took my own damn self on a romantic walk along the River Thames. I crossed the bridge, which for some reason…
After the perfect day of doing London things in London, I took myself out on a romantic dinner date to Andrew Edmunds in Soho. I read up on the place while sipping a not-so-frosty pre-dinner pint at the Duke of Argyll pub. (Do Brits like their beer room temp, or is it just me?) The…
You gotta get the soup dumplings and the spicy dan dan beef noodles at Dumpling Shack in Spitalfields Market when in East London. Opinions on this place converged; enough people with different tastes, budgets and lifestyles recommended it to designate a statistically significant sample size. So I popped over for lunch before my train to…
“Wanna meet for a bagel on Brick Lane? Big cultural experience.” An innocent enough message before a night full of misunderstandings that might have gone differently had I overthought a bit less and just gone for the bagel plan. But j’avais la flemme [insert shoulder raise and pursed French lips sputtering to express general annoyance…
That Best Bite 