It doesn’t look like much, and funny enough, the waitress actually seemed apologetic for their lack of decor (some interesting paintings, not much to see in the way of furnishings or general atmosphere otherwise, and if you go during the height of winter, the random old people keeping the curtain in front of the door open to shout out to their friends that they got a table makes you want to throttle them, if you weren’t sitting by the door and freezing your ass off.)
Christophe was sort of a gut-instinct choice, rather than a more gourmet-sounding place; from the entry in whatever restaurant guide we’d pulled from our pile on this occasion one somehow got the impression that this was a place where a hairy Auvergnac proprietor slops unspeakable perversions of bacon goulash with pigs’ feet into earthen bowls. Not so. The ingredients are regional (technically speaking, industrially produced lime green lunch meat substitute is “regional”, but let’s not go there) whenever possible, and Christophe (I assume that’s the cook) puts them together into really delicious, creative combinations.
I had the foie gras and the lamb confit — if there’s any reason France should be a power to be reckoned with in the world, For Great Justice! it would be foie gras and anything-confit. Confit of duck, and its even more evilly sinful cousin, rillettes de canard, comes in big tin tubs and, if made right, is basically sex. Agneau confit works too, especially with Christophe’s wine pairings (generous glasses, yum.) If you’re planning on joining a large, drunken crowd for a very bizarre, very French cabaret evening where two members of your party belt out Jacques Brel while the rest of you look on in utter befuddlement and eventually decide to drown your confusion in several bottles of vodka while trying to decide whether the large-shoulded black singer is actually a man, I highly recommend this as a warmup. Go there anyway, it’s good.
www.christopherestaurant.fr
8, Rue Descartes
75005 Paris, France
+33 1 43 26 72 49
