Last night I joined a friend at a new-to-me Paris
restaurant, Clover. (http://www.jeanfrancoispiege.com/fr/restaurants) It’s a recently
opened, well reviewed, informal place
created by a well known chef. The kind
where you have to plan in advance to reserve and still are told you can come at
7:30 or at 9:30 pm. Always a full house.
Given that this is a tiny spot, full house means about 20
people. It’s a long rectangular room
with seating on one side, with an open kitchen taking up about quarter of the
space. With three servers, four in the
kitchen and 18 guests the space was full but didn’t feel cramped.
Part way through the meal I realized it was quiet enough to
easily converse with my friend across the table. Quiet I thought even though, as I looked
around everyone seemed to be engaged in conversation. Even the people sitting next to us were
talking but unless we were silent and
strained to hear them, their
conversation didn’t interrupt ours.
For someone from Los Angeles this was noteworthy. Fabulous actually. Accustomed as I am to restaurants so noisy
that you’d best only go with one person so you can shout across the table and
hope to be heard – it was a happy surprise.
It reminded me once again that one of the reasons I love
Paris is the quiet. In a
restaurant. On the metro. On the street. Conversations take place only between the
parties involved. Seldom is someone
shouting into a mobile phone and certainly not at dinner sitting next to
you.
And how was the food you ask? Delicious.
As lovely as the murmur of conversations up and down the room.