Le Mazenay

Good Food, Great Service: Pity About the Decor

November 18, 2015 | By Heidi Ellison | Restaurants

Le Mazenay is one of those restaurants whose success you hope for because the people who own it are so adorable but that you worry about because of the large number of empty tables.
The reason for that is not that the food is bad. Au contraire! The food we had there recently was more than ordinarily good.

AG Les Halles

Renewed Hope for a Fast-Food Ghetto

November 11, 2015 | By Heidi Ellison | Archive

Full disclosure: the friends who took me to the brand-new restaurant AG Les Halles know the chef, so we were treated like visiting royalty right from the welcoming coupe de champagne to the parade of extra treats that showed up on our table between courses.

Salt

A Magic Touch with Bread, Butter and Seafood

November 4, 2015 | By Heidi Ellison | Archive, Restaurants

The first thing I saw when I arrived at the new fish restaurant Salt was a young man stacking up knobby baguettes on the counter of the open kitchen. “Do you make your own baguettes?” I asked him in French. He didn’t understand and asked me if I spoke English. That was a bit of a surprise in a Parisian restaurant. He turned out to be the chef, Daniel Morgan, originally from Sheffield, England, who once worked at the renowned Noma in Copenhagen. And yes, he does make his own baguettes, twice a day. And they are delicious, crispy on the outside and soft inside, with plenty of flavor.