Restaurant Ripaille - Batignoles, 75017 Paris

Well today is the day!  I am dropping my whisk and hitting the keyboard to begin sharing with you my culinary discoveries in Paris (and other places where my travels will take me), where I have lived between October and May every year since 2007.  We live in a wonderful old French neighborhood, Le Village des Batignolles, at the foot of Montmartre.  The streets are filled with ateliers (artist studios) as many artists from the Impressionists on have relocated here.  A lively mix of restaurants, traiteurs (cheese, wine, ready-made meals, chocolate) and boutiques are around every corner, and I am going to focus today on a restaurant I discovered within a week of moving here, and continue to frequent with great pleasure. 

I always pay attention to crowded dining rooms, as I believe it is a very good indication of delicious things to come.  Such is the case with Restaurant Ripaille, a small simple bistrot, which is on my way to the metro so I pass by it every day.  And every day, at lunch and dinner, the dining room is packed with people who are clearly enjoying the food and wine.  The owner, Philippe Favre, warmly welcomes all the diners, most of whom he knows by name, as the restaurant has a great many regulars.  The dining room is intimate and cosy, and Philippe, who is also one of two servers and the sommelier, moves between the tables and guests with ease and grace.  Philippe is a sommelier by training, having worked at Chez Laurent and Chez G Faucher in Paris before opening Ripaille in 2005.  Chef Brendan Labarre is from Brittany (and Philippe from Normandy), so fish takes center stage at Ripaille.

Owner of Restaurant Ripaille, Philippe Favre 

At lunch today, both my husband and I ordered the formule dejeuner, which is an excellent value at 15 Euros for two courses and 20 Euros for three.  I had the Pate de Foie de Lapin with a salad, which was delightfully warm and melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  Kent had the Risotto de Anchoiade, which was perfectly cooked, creamy and had just the right amount of anchovy.

Pate de Foie de Lapin

Risotto de Anchoiade

I moved onto a Blanc de Poulet, Epinards avec Sauce Supreme, with a generous amount of spinach covered with the rich, creamy sauce supreme, while Kent had a Bavette de Flanchet (flank steak) with the most delectable Pommes Mitrailles we have ever eaten.  These tiny little potatoes come from the island of Noirmoutier, off the southern coast of Brittany, and they were delicious – I talked Kent into more than a few bites!  Neither of us felt like sweets, so we shared a Carpaccio de Elivaz, Tomates Confits, et Jambon d’Auverne.  The Comte-like cheese was sliced thinly and served with thin slices of delicious ham sprinkled with a little sherry vinegar and dots of sundried tomatoes.  It was really very tasty.  We each had a glass of Philippe’s red selection of the day, Domaine de L’Aigle, Pinot Noir, 2009 from Languedoc, which went perfectly with both the beef and the chicken.  We left completely satisfied and felt that we had been wonderfully taken care of by Philippe and his team.

Blanc de Poulet, Epinards avec Sauce Supreme

Bavette de Flanchet

Carpaccio de Elivaz, Tomates Confit et Jambon d'Auvergne

Ripaille, our little gem, is located at 69 Rue des Dames, 75017 Paris; tel 01 45 22 03 03.