Visitors to Paris quickly learn how difficult it is to get a restaurant reservation on a Monday night in this city – and that’s by design. After working long hours on Saturday nights, many restaurateurs shutter Sundays and Mondays to restock their fridges and replenish their energy before reopening again for Tuesday’s service. And when they’re off duty, apparently they’re all hanging out at Verjus Wine Bar.
I’m embarrassed to admit that until a few weeks ago, I’d never been to Verjus Wine Bar. This American-owned spot steps from the Louvre on a quiet street adjacent to the gorgeous Palais Royal gardens has long been a go-to among the expat crowd. And on a Monday night, it’s chock-a-block with Anglophone restaurateurs who come here for the warm service, lengthy wine list including both natural and conventional options, and cheffy small plates with slight international twists.
The wine bar opens at 6pm, but when we turned up at 6:45 on a Monday evening, it was entirely empty except for the owner and bartender. We had our choice of seats either at the bar or on a long bar counter lining the other wall. From here, we could easily take in the chalkboard menu of bar snacks, a cornerstone of the experience here.
In most Parisian wine bars, liquor laws mean that you have to order at least a bite or two to imbibe (which is where the tradition of ordering cheese and charcuterie boards really comes from). At Verjus, however, they go a bit harder than that.
You can, of course, get smaller snacks like cheese boards (9 for small, 16 for large), marinated olives (6), or tartines (12) which number two. The tartine of the day (12) is, I expect, a way of using up things that they have on-hand from the fine dining restaurant just upstairs. (Smart. Very smart.) On the day of our visit, it was topped with chicken; we opted, instead, for the goat cheese tartine (12), which proved to be one of our favorite bites of the meal.
The chewy house bread was fried until charred and topped with a generous squiggle of whipped chèvre, a drizzle of honey, and a generous herb salad featuring robust dill and tarragon. I might have loved it even more with a touch of cracked black pepper… not that that stopped us from devouring it within moments of it arriving.)
In addition to smaller bites, the wine bar also offers a few more copious main dishes, meaning you can easily either come here for just an apéro or stay through dinner. We adored the fish of the day (22) featuring meagre (aka croaker or corvina), a meaty white fish served with a soy-spiked beurre blanc, broccoli purée, and monk’s beard (aka saltwort). The fish was perfectly cooked with a crackly, crisp skin, and the beurre blanc was well-balanced with that kiss of soy. It was definitely a rich dish, so the lemony seaweed provided some much needed balance. The only part of it I wasn’t convinced by was the broccoli. It wasn’t bad… just a bit boring.
It’s also worth noting that while the mains are a bit smaller than at most similar spots, they’re also cheaper than they should be, given the area. And what’s more, they come with copious bread paired with a quenelle of soft French cultured butter – an anomaly in a country where buttered bread is a breakfast food.
Here, on the contrary, butter is all over the menu, including the rich pommes Anna (10), which in any other restaurant would be a side dish. Here, it’s revisited in a lovely, soft spiral paired with a generous quantity of sweet leeks, a touch of ginger and a cardiologist-worrying amount of butter.
The omnipresent richness is pretty much the only thing I can fault the savory side of this menu. While there was a simple salad on offer, I might have liked one more creative, lighter bite to pair with all of these rich dishes.
Oddly, I got the answer to my prayer in dessert: The “Orange Mess” (15) defied its name by being one of the prettiest plates I’ve seen in a long time. This assembly of crème diplomat, blood orange, passion fruit, white chocolate, and meringue was delicious and bright, topped with an orange sorbet and a delectably herbal sorrel ice cream. The combination of textures, flavors, and eye-popping colors was truly exceptional.
It was the perfect way to cap off the evening at a spot whose popularity I can now attest to first-hand: Whether you’re in the mood for a simple glass of wine or a full meal, this is the place to come to feel welcome and well-fed in the heart of the city.
Verjus Wine Bar – 47 rue de Montpensier