Braden and Laura’s neighborhood wine bar and restaurant on the Palais Royale is an extension of their popular Hidden Kitchen dinners, staying true to the pristine ingredient tasting menu with a wine pairing optional formula.
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Cuisine: Modern French
Category: Ex-pat hot spot
Reservations: Dinner only, reservations on line or telephone
Telephone: 01 42 97 54 40
Address: right bank, 1st arr, Wine Bar: 47 rue Montpensier, Restaurant: 52 rue de Richelieu
Nearest Metro: Palais Royal, Line 1.
What to Expect: Market-driven menus, organic/small production wine, discreet unobtrusive service.
Website & Reservations: http://www.verjusparis.com, Reservations: verjusparis@gmail.com.
Hours: Wine Bar open Mon-Fri: 6 -11:00 pm. Restaurant open Tues – Fri 7-10:00 pm
Prices: Wine Bar Menu 5-14€. Restaurant Tasting menus 5 courses/6 courses 55€/70€- wine pairing an additional 30€/40€. Cheese an additional 12€ supplement. Glasses from 5-13€ and bottles from 20€-200€. About 60 bottles on the ever-changing list.
(+) Plus: Casual, comfortable, charming.
(-) Minus: Closed weekends, needs a wine list for clients to order bottles if they don’t want the pairings by the glass with each course.
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Ex-pat foodies and former Hidden Kitchen Supper Club hosts Braden Perkins and Laura Adrian have a new wine bar & restaurant Verjus (pron. vair-zhoo – Verjus is actually the juice of unripe wine grapes appreciated in cooking for its acidity, sometimes referred to as ”verjuice.”)
Prior to coming to Paris four years ago, Braden worked with Seattle celeb chef Tom Douglas in the front and back of house and Laura with Theo Chocolate.
It wasn’t long before they co-founded the Hidden Kitchen, a wildly popular supper club where they received over 1,400 emails a day, entertaining folks who booked months in advance for the opportunity to eat and drink with other foreigners who’d done the same. Laura greeted and introduced guests to each other with bubbling flutes of Champagne, with Braden in the kitchen cooking multi-course tasting dishes while Laura paired and poured the wines. I’ve been to several of these dinners – and it never ceased to amaze me how comfortable they made everyone feel when in fact they had complete strangers in their elegant home dining with other strangers. Not easy – and neither is opening a restaurant in Paris.
With their Seattle and Hidden Kitchen background and persevering through their opening adventures, the transition to having their own wine bar and restaurant seems as natural as could be – the end of the Hidden Kitchen and the beginning of Verjus.
What a pretty little gem it is – the pretty two-story space overlooks the historic Palais Royal theatre on the northwest corner of the Palais Royal. Downstairs, the wine bar’s entrance faces the rue Montpensier and sparkles like a jewel, its white lights illuminating the vaulted ceilings, rough hewn stone and white painted brick. The restaurant directly overhead is connected by a spiral staircase, and has its own entrance on the rue Richelieu.
Laura is stationed in the wine bar welcoming newcomers and pouring wines for merry revelers nibbling on plates of braised pork belly with pickled red chilies & spicy mayo and buttermilk fried chicken. These are only two of the (what they call) “snacks” on the menu – there are so many choices one could actually have a light dinner, including dan-dan sauce dumplings, Joe’s togarashi shoestring fries, a cheese platter or the Valrhona s’mores. (The frites are their way of playfully paying homage Laura’s dad who apparently orders fries in every restaurant.)
She is all too happy to suggest wines to go with each plate, or you can look over the chalkboard on the wall at the far end of the room that highlights the wines by the glass on offer. I was thrilled to see winemaker and friend Charles Hours’ dry white Jurancon on the list – the perfect glass to cut through the crispy fat in both the pork belly and juicy chicken pieces.
We climbed the staircase from the cave to see gorgeous wrought iron theatre balconies across the street wrapped in white Christmas lights – bringing a touch of New Orleans-Parisian glamour through the tall windows into the open dining room.
There isn’t anything stuffy about the wooden floor/chair/tabletop and red leather banquette dining room yet I loved the elegant touches where they were least expected – our server Adrianna placed an aromatic amuse bouche of bite-sized beets in buttermilk foam and smoked rice krispies on a silver tray in front of us (what a welcome!) alongside paper menus with sophisticated font folded “just so” that the words “Wednesday, December Fourteenth” hinted to our program for the evening.
Braden invited me into the kitchen for a peek and introduction to the staff as he would for anyone, obviously proud of them because they even mention the staff on the menus like the cast members in a play, “In the Kitchen: Benjamin, Braden, Gia, John. Wine Bar: Adrianna, Laura, Margaux.”
Marinated beetroot, buttermilk foam, rye, smoked rice krispies
Since we’d been catching up over the amuse bouche about how hectic things have been for each of us lately, Lindsey and I took one look at the multi-course set menu and said, “Done!” Turns out, the program for the evening was a choice of either 5 or 6 acts – cheese as a supplement and priced with or without wine pairings.
The first of our multi-courses was a soft egg inside a delicate ravioli pouch topped with roasted parnip and tangy sheep ricotta tasted like Thanskgiving on a plate, followed by pan roasted clams flavored with chorizo, saffron, fennel and vermouth broth and hickory smoked salmon with an unusual mix of miso marscapone, grapefruit, turnips and brussel sprouts.
Egg yolk raviolo, sheep ricotta, root vegetables, herbs
Usually I find so many flavors in one dish unnecessary, but as evidenced by the clean plates being sent back to the kitchen, the ingredients complimented each other and weren’t at all overpowering. My favorite course was this meaty hand cut veal tartare and all its accompaniments that brightened it up: seaweed, mayo, radish, garlic flower, chervil, porcini and the braised pork belly, again, brightened up with preserved lemon, mung bean, olives, spinach, hummus.
Veal tartare, seaweed, mayo, radish, garlic flower, chervil, porcini
Our hunger was definitely staved off after so many courses already under our belts between the wine bar & restaurant – so we probably made a mistake in passing up the selection of cheeses from the neighboring Maison Hisada shop (a 14e supplement for 2ppl) – but saved any room left for the final act: caramelized white chocolate cake, with sweet and savory beetroot, marinated cherries and frozen celery root mousse.
Braden is still coming out to talk to you table-side as he did back at the Hidden Kitchen and Laura is still introducing everyone and pouring the wines… they haven’t changed one bit, they’ve only expanded the venue and number of opportunities to share their passion for cooking, drinking well and conversing with guests.
Although not a realistic budget option every day, it is just a comfortable place to be, with nice people and lots of good food and wine. I don’t even remember the space that was there before – it is as if Verjus has been there all along.
Verjus
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Never in my life have I had such amazing, gorgeous, beautiful, delicious, clean food. My last night in Paris OMG. The flavors burst in your mouth in such a delicate way. Just amazing? I cannot wait to return with my husband. Wine, atmosphere, service it has it all. When does a chef come out to present your food and describe what you are about to eat? No where in my travels except Verjus Paris
We had a few drinks and dishes downstairs in the bar a few weeks ago and i loved Verjus. Looking forward to heading back for a sit-down meal soon. Happy Holidays, Wendy!
We can hardly wait! Verjus sounds like a great place to bring in the new year.