Friday, June 29, 2018

Le Recrutement

Ken and I found two good brasseries one year (sometime in the '90s) while staying in this neighborhood not far from the Eiffel Tower. This one is called le Recrutement and was, at the time, kind of a sports bar/café. While eating there one year, Ken recognized a member of France's parliament walking by, stopping to say hello to friends or colleagues. She was Michèle Alliot-Marie and would later become Minister of Defense under Chirac and Secretary of State under Sarkozy.

This is where I ate lunch on a rainy Sunday afternoon in April.

The other place, called le Centenaire, is diagonally across the street. The first time we ate there I had one of the most memorable meals of my life: a simple roasted chicken with French fries. It was the best roasted chicken I had ever tasted, at least up to that point in time.

Back to last April. As I headed toward the restaurant, it started to rain. It pretty much rained during my whole lunch, but I was indoors so I didn't mind. Le Recrutement has been taken over by new management with a much younger staff and a new open kitchen. They had a chicken Caesar salad on the menu (admittedly not a very French dish) and it sounded good, so that's what I ordered, along with a small carafe of red wine. I was not disappointed.

After a coffee, I headed toward the Orsay museum where I was to meet up with my friends, but not before turning and snapping this photo.

4 comments:

  1. Buvette. That's an interesting word. Does anyone uses it anymore?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Another truly great shot. We were once walking in London in the '90s and bumped into Tony Blair when he was up and coming (and before he crashed and burned... us all).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was walking in Paris very early on a Sunday morning, back in the '90s, and noticed Sting and Trudy walking toward me (well, toward the direction I was coming from --- ha!). I guess it was all happenin' in the '90s!

      I love these little Paris tales and images. It makes me go to Google map streetview and explore, which brought me photos of the food at both of these restaurants. Yumm.

      Delete
  3. chm, maybe it's coming back?

    mitch, I literally bumped into Ted Kennedy one day when I worked in DC. Ken stepped on Jacques Chirac's foot.

    judy, Cool! I passed Bernard Pivot on the street once, and another journalist named Annie Lemoine on the Pont des Arts. It's funny to see famous people like that. Makes me remember that they're real and have real lives like the rest of us do.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think!