Exquisite taste

Au Rêve
Paris

Café Au Rêve opened its doors in Paris’s Montmartre area in the 1920s, quickly becoming a popular haunt of French literary and musical icons. In 2019, however, it closed down. Now, thanks to the work of studio Atelier Saint-Lazare (ASL), it is reprising its role as a neighbourhood institution. “We revealed more than we renovated,” says ASL co-founder Antoine Ricardou. “We restored the bar with Burgundy stone, breathed new life into the floor and moleskin booths, rediscovered the 1930s embossed wallpaper and gave the Murano chandeliers their rightful place.”

Since the quiet reopening, film editors from the nearby Pathé cinema offices, journalists from newspaper Libération, comic-book artists and Montmartre residents have started to mingle again at the café’s tables. Mathieu Renucci, who took over Au Rêve after its previous owner Elyette Ségard retired in 2008, serves bistro classics such as croque-monsieur and charcuterie, as well as great cocktails. “Our vision is meant to be modernist, not nostalgic,” says Ricardou. “Above all, Au Rêve is a living space, not a museum.”
89 Rue Caulaincourt, Paris 75018

Recipes
Flourless orange and almond cake
Serves 6

Our Swiss chef Ralph Schelling has whipped up a light, fluffy cake with a subtle hint of orange. For an especially rich flavour, substitute the butter with some silky Fontclara olive oil from Girona.

Ingredients
250g ground almonds
4 medium-sized eggs
120g cane sugar
90g melted butter
1 large orange, juice and zest
½ tsp baking powder

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175C.
2. Grease a small springform pan with a diameter of about 20cm and sprinkle with two tablespoons of ground almonds. Separate the egg yolks and white. Beat 100g of the sugar with the yolks until frothy. Beat the whites with the remaining sugar until stiff.
3. Stir the melted butter, orange zest and juice into the yolk mixture. Mix the rest of the almonds with the baking powder and stir in carefully. Then fold in the beaten egg whites.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared tin and smooth out. Bake the cake for about 40 minutes, covering with aluminium foil halfway through if necessary to prevent it from getting too dark.
5. Dust the finished cake with powdered sugar if desired.
ralphschelling.com

Bouillon Service
Paris

Bouillon Service, a takeaway-only food spot from Paris institution Le Bouillon, has opened in Pigalle. While it might seem strange that an establishment that’s synonymous with waistcoat-clad garçons, crisp white tablecloths and art deco interiors would do away with table service, customers are queuing out of the door for Le Bouillon’s latest offering – its first opening in four years. The takeaway-only approach is an extension of the delivery system that the company established at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The deli and takeaway space in the 18th arrondissement, located just 50 metres from its Pigalle restaurant, prepares the establishment’s hero dishes and is open until 03.00. Think egg mayonnaise, jambon-beurre (courtesy of the on-site bakery) and canard confit to go.
bouillonlesite.com

Chateau Grand Rapids
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Michigan might not be well known for its French cuisine but you’ll find a dose of Gallic flair at Chateau. Husband-and-wife duo Chris and Allaire Swart have transformed a heritage shopfront in Grand Rapids into a daytime café and evening wine bar. The pair picked San Francisco’s Obata Noblin Office to design the space. Large windows allow in plenty of sun during the day but judicious lighting creates a moody candlelit feel after dark.

Green accents nod to the restaurant’s focus on natural wine and single-origin coffee. Chateau sets a new standard for Cherry Street, an up-and-coming neighbourhood in this Midwestern city. “We have taken a 100-year-old building and maintained almost all of its integrity, from tin ceilings and brick walls to slab-wood floors,” says Chris. “It was important not to shellac over history but, rather, to maintain that patina.”
chateaugrandrapids.com

Domo Bar
São Paulo

Domo, a listening bar in São Paulo’s Vila Buarque area, combines first-class hospitality with a sophisticated musical experience. Designers Flávio Seixlack and Rodolfo Herrera, whose coffee shop Takkø Café is just down the street, opened Domo last year. Since then, the bar has earned a reputation for its Asian-Brazilian menu, which features fresh takes on classics such as pulled-pork sandwiches with gochujang sauce, as well as creative cocktails and an eclectic music selection that comprises everything from bossa nova to Japanese jazz. The duo brought local studio Nina Morelli on board to tackle the interiors, where soft lighting is paired with wooden accents to create an intimate, record-filled space.

“Opening Domo was just a natural next step for us, especially after visiting similar places in Japan, London and Los Angeles,” says Seixlack. “Something that had always bothered us about our native city was that there was nowhere you could go to listen to good music and talk at a lower volume. And Domo is our solution to that.”
452 Rua Major Sertório, São Paulo 01222-000

Penny
New York

First, there was Claud in New York’s East Village, a French-inspired wine bar that became a big hit thanks to the delightful craft of its menu – think nutty chicken-liver agnolotti and rich tomato mille-feuilles. Now the team has opened Penny, a raw bar and seafood counter, in the space upstairs.

Designed in collaboration with Ian Chapin of Philadelphia-based practice Edsel, Penny has a quartzite oyster bar and is replete with cool, silvery tones. “The restaurants might appear different – Claud has warm, natural finishes, while at Penny there’s a blue tint – but they intersect in spirit,” says co-owner Chase Sinzer. Highlights include the Ice Box (oysters, clams and mussels), lobster and freshly baked brioche. To drink, there’s wine, saké and Suntory Premium Malt on draught.
penny-nyc.com

Galipette
France

Launched in 2016, cider company Galipette champions the apples of northern France. “In a world of one-dimensional ciders, we look for diversity and flavour,” says co-founder Antti Laukkanen. The company produces cider made from bittersweet apples harvested in Normandy and Brittany, where mild temperatures and plentiful rainfall make the orchards ideal for cultivating flavourful crops.

The brand’s newest variety, Galipette Doux, has undertones of toffee as a result of its shorter fermentation process, which helps to keep the natural douceur (sweetness) intact.
galipettecidre.com

Massalia
Amsterdam

Named after the French port city of Marseille, which was founded by ancient Greek settlers, chef-restaurateur Angelo Kremmydas’s new brasserie bears more than a hint of his Hellenic sensibilities. Massalia has been attracting a steady stream of eastern Amsterdam’s creatives in search of abundant produce and herbs from across the Mediterranean.

It comes off the back of Kremmydas’s success with Gitane, a contemporary take on the city’s brown cafés, designed by Dutch firm Studio Modijefsky. Gitane has lured plenty of western Amsterdammers into its wood-panelled interiors over the past year; Massalia is on course to be equally popular. Dig into salted-cod beignets with skordalia dip, octopus terrine with a burnt-pepper salsa and whole grilled artichokes. Finish off with a fennel granita with ouzo foam and grapefruit.
restobarmassalia.nl