2008-09-08
By Georges RouzeauA new Parisian place celebrating tasty French dishes and sulphur-free natural wines.
 © Céline Morel/ViaMichelinThis is a new wine bar, just the way we like them, with a simple credo: to combine tasty little dishes with sulphur-free natural wines, some 120 on the list at prices starting at €12 on the table! Otherwise, reckon on €20-25 a bottle. Tiled floor, bottle racks hanging on the walls, wooden tables and chairs, unpretentious atmosphere and trendy gourmets: Racines plays the hand of the neo-organic bistro with panache. The slate displays the menu in three bursts of dishes, no more than nine choices in all. The plate of salted meats, each one from the best suppliers, comes in two versions, small or large (€8 or €16). The pigs’ cheek terrine (€7) goes down a treat, but you can also go for something a little more specialised: grilled Brittany scallops, Colonnata bacon and real 24-year-old Balsamic vinegar (€14). The latter dish is a little marvel that speaks in favour of young chef Pierre Jancou, a Frenchman from Emilia-Romagna with tattooed forearms and something of the Viggo Mortensen about him. The man spends his time tracking down products that make him squeal with delight and which he sends into the dining room in the simplest possible way…  © Céline Morel/ViaMichelinHe gets his vegetables from Alain Passard’s kitchen garden in the Sarthe region (although Racines is much less expensive than L’Arpège). Get Pierre Jancou started on his Colonnata bacon and he can talk for hours about this truly unique delight, which matures for several months in Carrara marble, and which he sources from his friend Fausto Guadani. For his ox cheeks in Chinon wine, he gets his supplies from the Boucherie Desnoyers butcher’s shop in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, a benchmark address. As for his penne with confit of lamb and parmesan aged for 36 months, it is a real osteria dish. For dessert, since the chocolate cake was sold out that day, I went for a well-crafted apple tart. The coffee is also noteworthy: a Jamaican vintage roasted in Verona by a friend of Jancou; this Italian craftsman, who roasts peppers better than anyone, has also been paid a visit by Olivier Roellinger, the long-haul seafaring chef.  © Céline Morel/ViaMichelinAdded to the delights of the food is the pleasure of contemplating labels whose crazy graphics contrast with the solemnity of the established vintage wines. Amongst the natural wines, there is a very refreshing post-May-1968 spirit; you’re smiling before you even open the bottle. Take, for example, the bottle of wine from Auvergne made without sulphur by Pierre Beauger: the grapes – the label reassures us – were harvested in flip-flops… In the middle of winter, there’s a warming thought. Practical informationRacines 8, passage des Panoramas 75002 Paris Tel: 01 40 13 06 41 Closed Saturday and Sunday. Booking highly recommended (36 place settings, including 10 on the terrace). | 
