Paloma

Ever since meeting at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Marie-Anna Delgado and Olivia Brunet have been inseparable. After sharpening their respective blades for a few years, the chef (the former head chef at Le Dindon en Laisse) and the cabinetmaker (several of the restaurant’s shelving units were crafted by her) decided to team up and open their own place near Belleville in Paris. The result of their union? Paloma, a darling bistro (retro tiling, vintage furniture, a sign designed by Studio Mieux) that’s winning over the neighborhood! The day we went for lunch, seated on the huge terrace, we had all of the following: an utterly simple salad of lentils and goat cheese, titillated by a lemony chervil sauce; lovely beef tataki with new potatoes in garlic and parsley butter; and a cheeky lemon sponge cake that went down easy. At night, make way for delicious snacks: a runny egg spilling out onto garlic and parsley breadcrumbs, with carrot and goat cheese cream; intensely flavorful mussels and chorizo deglazed in mezcal; dauphine potatoes with Cantal mousse; pasta with razor clams and brown butter; or even homemade pita bread stuffed with duck hearts, garlic cream, mint and cilantro. // Louise Delange

FEELING THIRSTY? Highly natural bottles of wine: a pinot noir, gamay, côt du loirien blend produced by Philippe Tessier (€6.50 a glass), a Vouvray chenin from Sébastien Brunnet (€43 a bottle), a skin-contact gewurstraminer by the Alsatian producer Pierre Frick (€42) or even a Languedoc syrah from Olivia Cohen (€33)…

(a Vendée white from Jean-Marc Tard at €6 a glass, an Aveyron red from Pauline Broqua at €27 a bottle…), along with a few Normand beers from Les Deux Amants (€5 for 330 ml).

PRICE: Prix-fixe menus €16 (lunch), plates €6-14 (dinner).