About bread

When I was 10 years old my family spent a year in California’s Bay Area and one of our regular treats would be a Sunday afternoon dinner at Tarantino’s. Overlooking Fisherman’s Wharf, it was (and probably still is) a white tablecloth restaurant featuring seafood from an Italian perspective. What I remember most, though, was the sourdough bread. Up to that point, I’d only tasted supermarket bread and a spongy bread like thing served at what passed for Italian restaurants in the early ‘60s.

This sourdough, though, was something else altogether. The crust was thick, crunchy, and chewy.  The interior had a real texture and even more surprisingly, flavor.  I fell in love with that bread and could destroy the bread bowl all by myself.

Ever since that time, I’ve been passionate about bread.  Too passionate, at times, as my waistline can attest. Nevertheless, for me that bread bowl at he beginning of the meal is not an inconsequential add-on.  It can be one of the most interesting and delightful part in of a meal.

And I think I can say with confidence that my favorite bread in the world is French bread in France. We’ve been here about a week now and bread has been part of every lunch and dinner and the worst bread we’ve tasted has bee pretty good.

Le Comptoir is a fantastic restaurant in the Odeon section of St. Germain.  We were introduced to Le Comptoir ten years ago by a friend and I remember being amazed by a wild boar râgout.  It’s that kind of place. It’s also the kind of place that has no menu on weekends – you get what the chef wants to serve, if you can get a reservation.  We dined there on Tuesday and had some fabulous cod ceviche, octopus and potato, and grilled lamb but I have to put a spotlight on the bread.  It was out of this world.

The exterior was perfect – thick, chewy, and crunchy giving way to a delightful interior with plenty of texture on its own.  It also had a big robust flavor that stood up on its own.  It was also perfect for sopping up the octopus/potato.

I guess you’d expect that a restaurant like Le Comptoir would have great bread but I wasn’t prepared for a great bread basket at Le Gourbi, a wonderful little gem in the 14eme arrondissement right around the corner from our hotel. Le Gourbi specializes in Berber cooking from Morocco and Algeria. I wasn’t surprised that the bread was good, but I was amazed that it was FRENCH bread and it was fantastic. It had that thick delicious crust and toothsome flavorful interior that marks the best French bread and was perfect for the aubergine (eggplant), chili, and pepper dips that constituted the entree (appetizer).

So far, I’ve been carrying on about restaurant bread but that’s only scratching the surface.  Our hotel is situated on rue Didot, a typical residential street, and there are FIVE bakeries in the space of 200 meters or so and three other stores that sell baguettes.  All of the bakeries undoubtedly have fabulous pastries but the lines of people waiting to pay are picking up baguettes.  And, by the way, a baguette usually costs about 1€25 (about $1.45).

We’ve had supermarket baguettes and bakery baguettes and they are all varying degrees of great.  In our neighborhood, though, there is a bakery just across the highway that has three signs declaring that they won the award for the best baguette in Paris in 1998 and 2014, and all three signs are much bigger than the sign with the name of the shop.  I can testify that those awards are well deserved.

Soon I’ll be back in Philadelphia and I’ll buy a baguette at Whole Foods or will have some nice Italian bread at a nearby restaurant and I’ll enjoy the experience.  It won’t be the same though.  I’ll always be thinking of the bread we get everyday at our “second home” on rue Didot in the 14eme arrondisement.