Wine & Dine Walk #5: A Midsummer's Evening in the 7th Arrondissement

The 7^th arrondissement isn’t typically my area of predilection for en evening out. But I decided to leave my usual comfort zones on a midsummer’s evening when taking a leisurely Wine & Dine Walk with three very laid-back travelers.

 

Unless you’re staying in the area, the 7^th arrondissement is primarily a daytime sort of place as it spreads along the Left Bank from the Orsay Museum to the Invalides to the Eiffel Tower, by way of the National Assembly, the Rodin Museum, and Matignon, the Prime Minister’s residence. Whereas the 6^th arrondissement wears its charms on its sleeve and one need only move from a seat in the Luxembourg Garden to a seat in a café anywhere within 250 yards of Metro Mabillon to get a sense of life in the quarter, the 7^th is the kind of place where it helps to know someone—or at least to have a clear destination in mind. 

 

We started at 6pm at the café-wine bar Le Sauvignon (80 rue des Saints-Pères; 1 on map), a corner where the shop windows of the 6^th arrondissement begin to lose steam to the high walls of the 7^th (Bon Marché department store aside). Le Sauvignon is both a local watering hole and a fine setting for travelers to rest their weary shopping feet. The wine by the glass or by the bottle is young and reliable—e.g. our Sancerre red (pinot noir from the upper Loire, just west of Burgundy)—and it was early enough in the evening that we weren’t concerned with spoiling dinner by ordering what is now classic Parisian wine-bar food: ham and pâté spreads on Poilâne sourdough bread.

 

Le Sauvignon, like its wine offerings, exudes a sense of culture without taking itself too seriously. It truly is just a local wine-oriented café despite the up-market shopping bags and hair coloring found here. One of our party fully recognized that when, suspending the conversation about the American legal foundation fighting industrial environmental abuse that she runs, she announced, “I’ve never sat in a place where I could watch so many nice shoes walking by.” She would have stayed for a second round but I had other sights in mind.

 

Nice but comfortably shoed ourselves, we walked past the Bon Marché department store and the blind gardens of the prime minister’s residence and eventually reached the café-brasserie Le Vauban (7 place Vauban; 2 on map). An outside sit at Le Vauban with an eyeful of the dome of the Invalides across the square and a bottle of Saint-Emilion (Merlot + Cabernet France) can make for an evening’s entertainment by itself. The gilt dome of the Invalides is one of Louis XIV’s main contributions to Paris though it’s better known the crown to Napoleon’s tomb. Therefore, on this quiet evening, without any shoes to distract us, I led us into a discussion of the rise and fall and death and return of Napoleon Bonaparte. Eventually the empty bottle reminded us that we were late for our dinner reservation at Nabuchodonosor (6 avenue Bosquet, near Pont de l’Alma; 3 on map).

 

Peek into Nabuchodonosor in the afternoon and you might think it a stiff business restaurant of little interest for leisure travelers. However, Eric Rousseau, whose smile alone is a sign of both quality and tradition, has created here a true home to bons vivants, i.e. those with a healthy, lively appetite for the finer things in life. Sure you’ll find a consortium or two of suits and their decanted crus, yet in the evening you’re equally likely find a cartel of couples, a conglomerate of friends, and a local foodie single-shareholding the table by the pillar.

 

Mr. Rousseau and his amiable team of veteran waiters serve, with character, fine traditional fare and the wine to match any appetite. You know you’re in the right place when your waiter, resting the menu on his embonpoint, says that to help select the wine he’ll send over “that chubby guy over there,” referring to his boss. Nabuchodonosor is to me the 7^th’s equivalent of the wine restaurant La Robe et Le Palais located in the 1^st. Choice dishes that July evening included pressé de chèvre frais et aubergine grillées; trilogie de poisons marinés, fumés; dos de cabillaud rôti et tapanade, pommes purées; côte de veau aux girolles, raviolis sautées au parmesan; crème légère au chocolate blanc et framboise, biscuit craquant. Wine: a simple yet silky pinot noir from its true home in Burgundy.

 

Vital stats for Nabuchodonosor: 6 avenue Bosquet, 7^th; tel. 01 45 56 97 26, fax 01 45 56 98 44; closed Sat. lunch, Sun.. www.nabuchodonosor.net. Moderately priced. Cigars available. Nabuchodonosor, other than being a king of Babylonia, is the name of the largest size bottle of bubbly, weighing in at 15 liters or 20 regular bottles.

 

© 2005 by Gary Lee Kraut