Eating Paris

My late publisher’s daughter had been complaining. The new natural wine eating spots were all too fancy. It was as if the bar à vin naturel had shaved off its beard and climbed into a suit, looking for Michelin stars. I shared the same gnawing feeling waiting for the first of the five-course (€48) menu at the new resto Encore (in the 9th Arrondissement) where Chef Yoshi Morie is installed at the stove. It was all good, but not that memorable except a salad course that was a breath of spring with a crusting of jasmine flowers, an image and taste that will forever stay with me. The wines? Florian Perate has done his work and assembled a solidly deep list, and scattering in older vintages too, as if to tell the naysayers, vin naturel does indeed age.