A wine bar, by definition, should be a place that’s serious about wine, offering a good assortment by the glass, with an actual bar where customers can consume a glass or three, whether or not they have anything to eat. The original Parisian ones were modest neighborhood comptoirs (literally, “counters”). They listed wine simply by generic name—Sancerre, Beaujolais, Cahors—with no mention of vintage years or producers; the food was rarely more elaborate than pâté, salami-like saucisson, and basic sandwiches. But they provided a quintessentially Parisian experience. Slouching against a time-worn zinc-top counter while a red-faced Frenchman in a Cabernet-stained apron poured glasses of something from the family property in Chénas and set down plates of duck rillettes or Camembert—that was Paris. However, when I spent a week not long ago visiting wine bars in every corner of the city, I discovered there’s a lot more to the modern wine-bar experience these days—and was reminded that some of the best examples aren’t even owned by the French.
Mark Williamson, a lanky Brit from Buckinghamshire, arguably started the modern wine-bar movement when he established Willi’s Wine Bar some 28 years ago. But Williamson gives credit for a first, tentative extension of the concept to Georges Bardawil, a Parisian journalist who, in 1978, opened a sort of super-comptoir called L’Écluse, on the Left Bank. “Instead of just pâté and saucisson and ordinary wines,” says Williamson, “Georges served foie gras, carpaccio, duck-breast ham, and good Bordeaux. L’Écluse took the comptoir idea to a higher level.”
But Williamson went further still. After what he has called “an education almost exclusively devoted to water sports on the Thames” at boarding school in England, he apprenticed in the classically French kitchen at London’s Connaught Hotel, then cooked in Paris, everywhere from the Galeries Lafayette department store to the posh Pavillon Royal. One year, for a change of pace, he worked a harvest at Château Ramage la Batisse, in the Médoc, and fell in love with wine. Back in Paris, he got a job at Caves de la Madeleine, a wine shop owned by fellow Englishman Steven Spurrier, taking classes at Spurrier’s Académie du Vin wine school in his spare time. (It was Spurrier who organized the wine-world-shattering “Paris tasting” of 1984, in which prominent French wine experts rated several California wines above their blue-chip French counterparts.)
After three years in the wine trade, Williamson started thinking about opening his own place. “I wanted to have a wine bar that would specialize in the wines of the Rhône, which I liked very much,” he says. “But my friend Jean-Marie Picard, who had a wine bar and shop called Le Petit Bacchus, said, ‘Rhône wines are not vins de comptoir. You need real food with them.’ ” That was fine with Williamson. He found a location he liked—a former gay nightclub with a handsome 1930s facade—and, with Spurrier supplying the wines, launched Willi’s. “There was nothing like Willi’s when it opened,” he says. “We really took the idea of a traditional bistro and put a wine list into it.” Despite Williamson’s Anglo-Saxon provenance (or perhaps because of it—the very novelty of an Englishman becoming a bistro owner and an expert on French wine got him a lot of publicity), his place was a success almost from the beginning.
Willi’s was such a success, in fact, that it started a trend. Wine bar became a Parisian catchphrase. “Everybody was calling everything a wine bar,” says Williamson, “but you’d go into some of these places and people were drinking pastis or Vittel-menthe [mineral water with mint syrup]. The whole idea became a bit of a joke.” In 1989, Frank Prial wrote in The New York Times that a dozen Parisian wine bars had closed the previous year. He also quoted Williamson as saying, “The old days, when you got by with a few cold cuts, are over. A wine bar is now mostly a restaurant that serves wine by the glass.”
That certainly describes Willi’s. It’s a homey place with a long oak bar and a scattering of tables at the back. The wine list is a treasure trove of bottles both celebrated and obscure, more than half from the Rhône and neighboring regions, with about two dozen wines by the glass. A recent menu offered such appetizers as cream of asparagus soup and grilled polenta with poached eggs and foie gras; main courses ranged from grilled tuna with hazelnut vinaigrette to roast lamb with sea salt and rosemary; and desserts included roasted pineapple with vanilla and—a Willi’s signature—bitter-chocolate terrine.
In 1997, Williamson bought an esteemed old restaurant called Le Mercure Galant, two doors down from Willi’s, and turned it into a breezy, lively place called Maceo. Maceo doesn’t pretend to be a wine bar. “It’s what I think a restaurant is meant to be,” says Williamson. “A nice space, where people can feel comfortable, where they can eat good food and have nice wines.” But isn’t that what Willi’s is, too? “I started the place,” replies Williamson. “I called it a wine bar, I defined the genre. Who is anybody else to say that it’s not?”
I think of Il Vino d’Enrico Bernardo—an almost sober-looking restaurant-with-bar, all black and white and gray—as the logical, or maybe enological, extension of Willi’s. If Mark Williamson married good wine to bistro food, Enrico Bernardo has mated it with more serious cooking in a way that makes wine the unquestioned star. His “menu,” in fact, lists no food. Instead it offers a dozen or so wines by the glass—the selection, about 80 percent French, changes every other week—marked as appropriate for first courses, main courses, cheese, and dessert; the waiter asks customers if they have any food allergies or aversions, then brings dishes matched to the chosen wines.
The kitchen uses raw materials often emblematic in their perfection and prepares them simply but superbly. For instance, an aromatic, unctuous 2005 Georg Breuer Rauenthal Nonnenberg Riesling from the Rheingau came with the ultimate German springtime delicacy: poached white asparagus, glazed in butter. The rich and elegant 1997 Château Pape Clément white was served with an inspired ragout of lobster and morels. A 2006 Bernard Faurie St.-Joseph complemented an impeccable risotto of cèpes. A knockout 1999 Château Troplong Mondot, poured from a double magnum, came with heroic portions of juicy, rare côte de boeuf. Prices rival those at the best restaurants in Paris—appetizers and main courses, each with a glass of wine, run 32 to 85 euros (about $52 to $136), with prix-fixe menus priced at about $80, $120, and $305—but the food is excellent and the wines are exceptional, some of them extravagances that mere mortals rarely have the chance to taste.
Like Williamson, the wiry, intense Bernardo came to wine by way of food. A native of Milan, he graduated from culinary school before embarking on a series of apprenticeships—even cooking for a time at the legendary Troisgros. He took a job as an apprentice sommelier at a hotel-restaurant because he thought it would help his cooking. “I wanted to learn things about tasting that would bring balance to my food,” he says. “I thought I’d work with wine for two or three years, then go back into the kitchen. That was nine years ago.” Along the way, he was named best sommelier in Italy (in 1997, when he was only 20), best sommelier in Europe (2002), and best sommelier in the world (2004). While working as head sommelier at Le Cinq, the highly rated restaurant at the Georges V hotel in Paris, he got the idea for a restaurant where the finest wines would be served by the glass and the food would follow their lead. “With Il Vino,” he says, “I’ve found my harmony.” He has also added a whole new dimension to the modern concept of the wine bar.
Il Vino d’Enrico Bernardo 13 Blvd. de la Tour Maubourg, 7th (01-44-11-72-00)
Willi’s Wine Bar 13 R. des Petits-Champs, 1st (01-42-61-05-09)
More Wine Bars
Au Sauvignon The real attractions at this popular Left Bank spot are the frescoed interior and the small, sunny terrace. There’s no cooked food, but the cheeses and charcuterie are irresistible, as is the just-baked bread from Poilâne. (80 R. des Saints-Pères, 6th; 01-45-48-49-02)
Le Baron Rouge This classic near the Bastille—complete with zinc bar and a great assortment of wines, pâtés, and cheeses—has an old-fashioned feeling and a terrific sense of raffish style. Go on a Sunday, when the bustling market is in full swing on the adjacent Place d’Aligre. (1 R. Théophile-Roussel, 12th; 01-43-43-14-32)
La Cloche des Halles A Paris institution. The food is fresh (terrines, tarts, salads, a specialty of ham and eggs in a copper dish), and the wines—the list is especially strong in Beaujolais and the Loire—are modest but well chosen. (28 R. Coquillière, 1st; 01-42-36-93-89)
L’Écluse Exclusively Bordeaux (including some of the big names by the bottle and occasionally by the glass), well matched by foie gras, carpaccio, various terrines, grilled fillet of beef, and tagliatelle with foie gras. The original Left Bank location is best, but all are congenial, with an atmosphere more English pub than Parisian comptoir. (15 Quai des Grands Augustins, 6th; 01-46-33-58-74, plus four other locations in the 1st, 8th, and 17th)
L’Enfant Rouge A wine-irrigated bistro, run by Dany Bertin-Denis, longtime proprietor of the popular Moulin à Vins, in Montmartre, and a woman with a real passion for good, unpretentious wines. Several dozen choices by the glass at the tiny bar or in the small dining room, with an abbreviated menu (excellent steak tartare). (9 R. de Beauce, 3rd; 01-48-87-80-61)
Juveniles The ebullient Tim Johnston reigns over this unofficial clubhouse for the Anglo-Saxon wine and food community in Paris (there’s a regular French clientele, too). Fifteen or 20 wines—from Australia, California, Spain, and Italy, as well as France—by the glass and a few high-quality spirits (the excellent Compass Box Juveniles malt whisky, for example). The menu includes gazpacho, grilled quail, and—Johnston’s a Scot, after all—haggis. (47 R. de Richelieu, 1st; 01-42-97-46-49)
Le Mesturet This hospitable restaurant doesn’t call itself a wine bar, but it ought to: There are 30 or so wines sold by the glass, at tables or at the bar. Among the best dishes are braised lamb shank with thyme and an exceptional terrine of pork jowl en gelée. (77 R. de Richelieu, 2nd; 01-42-97-40-68)
Le Rubis A look into the past, with its yellowed walls and miscellany of signage (and—fair warning—Turkish toilet), this old place has been dispensing wines by the glass, a couple dozen of them at any given time, for generations. Besides pâtés, cheeses, and the like, there are a few simple bistro dishes such as omelets, sausage with lentils, and brandade. (10 R. du Marché-St.-Honoré, 1st; 01-42-61-03-34)