We both came to France in our 20s, one of us (John) for work at Activision and the other (Mashama) for a cooking school, and we both fell in love with Paris in our own ways. After we got the Grey in Savannah off the ground, we talked about opening a restaurant in Paris. We came to France to revise our book, Black, White, and The Grey, and after a couple of months eating out here, we were decided and started looking for space.
Now, we just opened L’Arrêt in the 7th arrondissement. We’re still in that beginning stage of trying to get a team together. We also opened in a very old building — there’s been a restaurant here for a hundred years — and we had to do a lot of renovations, since the last time it was renovated was in the early ’70s. We tried to keep a lot of the spirit of the old place, preserving and restoring the furniture, the lighting, and the bar face. We’re also bringing American culture and hospitality to Paris, and getting folks who grew up here to buy into that. There’s a relationship between Parisian food, French food, rural French cooking, and American Southern cooking. It’s not a small undertaking, even though it’s a small restaurant.
As Parisians have been getting to know us, we’ve been getting to know our local dining community even better and returning to old favorites. Below are some of the restaurants we love — some that we eat at all the time and some that inspire our work at L’Arrêt.
We love the owner, Pierre Cheucle, at this little place on the Rue de Stanislas in the 6th arrondissement. He’s a character and makes you feel so at home. It’s a traditional, French, old-school-style bistro and showcases food from Lyon. The best things on the menu are the kidneys and the mustard sauce. The old-school French bistros love a lot of offal, so there’s some history there. When kidneys are done wrong, they’re very metallic and kind of make the filings in your teeth hurt. But when they’re done right, they’re delicious, and Cheucle’s are delicious.
7 Rue Stanislas. Open from noon to 2 p.m. and 7:30 to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday; closed Saturday and Sunday
This is becoming like our bar from Cheers. We know all the waiters, and they’re happy to have us because we’re in the same business. They know we really respect how hard everybody works. It’s the camaraderie. We’ll go there after service, late at night, and order green salads, roast chicken, and steak frites. And then we’ll just sit there until 2 a.m., until we’re the last people in as they break down around us. After a couple of glasses of wine, you’re kissing everybody on the cheek goodbye. We love having regulars-status here.
Pro tip: It’s always the same guys serving. When you get a job there, you never leave. It’s one of the most coveted jobs in Paris.
151 Boulevard Saint-Germain; noon to midnight daily
On Sunday mornings, we go to the market and just buy stuff for the fridge for the week. It’s great getting to know the vendors, and after a few weeks you start to see the same people. Everybody loves the dogs and they get handouts as we walk through the market.
Boulevard Raspail; Open Friday and Tuesday 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; closed Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Thursday
This place is just around the corner from L’Arrêt. We try to eat in the neighborhood because we’re part of the neighborhood now, especially places where we have relationships with the ownership. Ravi does traditional Indian, including lamb saag, which is bomb. The owner is always there, so it’s one of those places where you always feel at home.
Pro tip: The chef makes big, fat, meaty drumsticks that are just to die for.
50 Rue de Verneuil; Open from noon to 2 p.m. and 7 to 11 p.m. Monday – Saturday; 7 to 11 p.m. Sundays
Le Bon Marché is a five-story shopping mall with high-end stores and boutiques. It’s connected by an airbridge across the Rue du Bac to the La Grande Épicerie de Paris, which is a food hall and super high-quality supermarket. It has a counter where you can get oysters and charcuterie, a section dedicated to foie gras, a fish section, and a cheese section. It’s the ultimate shopping experience, and it has everything you need for your life in Paris all in one place. Two or three nights a week, dinner is cans of spicy sardines from La Grande Épicerie (buy them by the dozen), half a baguette from L’Arrêt on the way home after working late, a few hunks of cheese, and some olives.
38 Rue de Sèvres; 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Saturday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays
La Tour Montlhéry – Chez Denise
This place is over in the 1st arrondissement by the Rue Saint-Denis, which is the red-light district. The myth goes that the eponymous Denise was a madam, and when she decided to leave the life, she opened this restaurant in the neighborhood. It was open 24 hours a day, Monday to Friday, and working girls could eat for free.
Going there 40 years ago, you could go at 3 a.m. after a night out at the bars to eat haricot de mouton, which is this mutton and white bean cassoulet, and swill the house Brouilly, which they poured from big casks at the front into big liter bottles. Eat until 5 a.m. on a Saturday night, go home, and wake up on a Sunday to read the New York Times on the roof and nurse a hangover. The mutton is the old haggard lamb. It’s really gamey and unctuous, and they cook it forever on the bone. As Jerry Seinfeld says, “Salad’s got nothing on my mutton.”
Pro tip: Pick the mutton up with your hands, and dip the bread in the beans and the sauce.
Editor’s note: The restaurant’s hours have since changed.
5 Rue des Prouvaires; noon to midnight daily
This brasserie is on an old street just off of Boulevard Saint-Germain. It’s cool and hip, and you can slip in there for sausage and lentils, or something like that.
6 Cour du Commerce Saint-André. Open from noon to midnight daily
This Pierre Gagnaire restaurant is a local pop-in for a bowl of pasta. There are 11 Michelin stars between his restaurants. Piero is this place on the Rue de Bac, and it’s his take on an Italian restaurant. The menu is very seasonal, including the pastas, which are always great. Right now, he’s got this super thin spaghetti with a spicy tomato sauce. The French don’t really like spice as a general rule — and this shit is genuinely hot — but he’s getting away with it. He just puts together a really good bowl of pasta.
His team is great; it’s all Italian guys. We’ll poke our heads in on a Saturday afternoon and ask to grab a few seats at the bar at 8 p.m. The bar’s only three or four seats, but they’re always welcoming to us. It’s an interesting dichotomy to have access to a chef with multiple Michelin-starred restaurants in a neighborhood place. They’re always packed and always kind. That’s hospitality in a really good way — and then you get really excellent food on top of it.
It’s the kind of restaurant we want L’Arrêt to be: a place people want to go, but there are always spots for the regulars. That’s a cultural thing you build.
Pro tip: The tuna and seafood crudos are always interesting. Gagnaire’s got this langoustine and beet crudo in beet jus that’s just phenomenal. It sounds weird, and when it hits the table, it looks weird, but it’s damn delicious.
44 Rue du Bac; noon to 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday; closed Sunday and Monday
This article is drawn from an interview. It has been edited and condensed for clarity.
