La Bonne Franquette
You'll find La Bonne Franquette nestled atop Montmartre. Anyone would work up an appetite climbing the steep streets and steeper stairways through this idyllic neighborhood crowned by the Sacre Coeur and stunning vistas of Paris. This classic French eatery with a unique history is perfectly in tune with its endearingly timeless Parisian setting, at once both exquisite and quaint.
La Bonne Franquette has garnered a reputation and history few (even very old) establishments in Paris can boast of. As artists ourselves, the long history of artists who made this place their haunt was a definite lure.
La Bonne Franquette has a well-curated, easy-to-read historical recounting on their website that we recommend to art and history geeks and those who like a little backstory! Here's a fun excerpt:
"At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, La Bonne Franquette was a meeting place for artists such as Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Monet, and Zola, who all used to come here for a drink under the arbors in its garden after climbing La Butte. Vincent Van Gogh painted his famous painting "La Guinguette" here in 1886."
We loved this as well: "The French phrase "À la bonne franquette" means without ceremony, unpretentious, simple. Derived from the word "franc", the expression "à la franquette" originally meant "frankly", "sincerely". What a perfect way to describe the lovely experience we had there, yet while the hospitality was warm, welcoming, and unpretentious the food was worthy of the location and each dish was memorable.
We deliberated over the menu, sipping sparkling wine and enjoying the idyllic view from our corner of the terrace, appointed just above a cobbled tangle of alluring shops. We selected a sampling of starters, Salade Périgourdine and the Six Petite Escargots de Bourgogne paired with a sparkling white.
For our main we selected Estouffade de boeuf au Beaujolais, carottes au miel-stew and the Cuisse de canard rôtie à l orange confite-orange duck paired with a red wine. Both meats were tender, cooked so as to almost fall off the bone and presenting two very different but equally excellent savory profiles in good portions.
We were in an excellent mood and as the evening lights started to glow we capped off the evening with dessert and aperitif, sampling the Crème brulée, and refreshing crisp “Nougat glacé au coulis de framboise”.
We couldn't leave without capturing a few more snaps, this moment was postcard-perfect, lights glowing with the Sacre Coeur framed between tiny cobbled streets.
