Ask me about my recent birthday dinner at Pierre Gagnaire’s 2-Michelin-starred restaurant La Grand Maison de Bernard Magrez and I’ll ask you how much time you’ve got. A flawless experience from start to finish, though I never expected otherwise. This Relais & Châteaux gem brings together the essences of three great men. The menu is…

There’s a delightful little neighborhood called Saint Seurin Croix Blanche located beyond Rue Abbe de l’Epee, around the Place des Martyrs de la Résistance, behind our street. This neighborhood rocks. Gorgeous, super-traditional, Bordeaux-style limestone houses all in a row, the perfect park surrounding a beautiful church, a little wine bar called La CUV Saint-Seurin with an adorable red facade,…

I’ve been spoiled since living in Bordeaux by the occasional weekend road trip out to Angouleme to spend time with my French beau’s French mother, who happens to be an excellent home cook and a very warm, inviting and kind individual in general. Her green thumb is quite evident, with all kinds of flowers, ferns,…

MILES is a culinary gem in Bordeaux, highly recommended by pretty much everyone who has been there. And despite the quality of the experience, it’s surprisingly accessible. We made our Friday night reservation just two weeks in advance for the restaurant’s signature 5-course tasting menu, very reasonably priced at 43 euros per person. Upon arrival, we…

Now that the grades are in and my time as a student has come to its ultimate end, nostalgia has been creeping up on me. And besides the friends, the wines and the actual learning, I’m starting to miss all of those lunches together on the terrace of Hangars 16 and 18. I miss the makeshift…

Arriving just in time for our Saturday night reservation at El Nacional, I was already quite certain I’d be in for a great piece of meat – an entraña, a vacio or costilleras imported from Argentina or Uruguay, some chimichurri tapped gently on, nothing on the side. I had heard rumors that they serve Salta-style…

There had been a lot going on in the month of October with a trip to Barcelona, getting back to work, back to school, going to Rioja with school, and the next day leaving to Boston with a 22-hour layover in Lisbon. Somewhere in the middle of all that I met a friend from work…

Dinner with the girls. Exploring Bordeaux’s culinary scene. Didn’t take too much convincing me to decide on Jean Pince, a seafood restaurant specializing in the “democratization of lobster,” whose concept and star dish was inspired by none other than good old Luke’s Lobster in Boston’s Back Bay. The four French friends behind Jean Pince dug the…

“Elle connaît? Est-ce la première fois qu’elle en mange?” he asked my Frenchman with a half-assed nod in my direction. He wasn’t the best waiter, or even a very good one at all. But I get why he asked. “Oui, elle le connaît très bien,” came Ben’s answer. A lie but a well-placed one. When, on…

I’m about three months overdue on an account of my evening at Le Chien de Pavlov, a jewelry-box-sized, quiet little brasserie specializing in creative French dishes prepared with market-fresh, seasonal ingredients. We caught our 9:00 pm reservation after a beer out on the terrace of Le Trou Duck around the corner, and sat to a…