The Paris street no food lover should miss

Paris notes to keep the Olympic spirit going. Plus, reader taco picks, Michelin stars and something we all need in the midst of summer — a guide to margaritas. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Rue Mouffetard’s Movable Feast

Mushrooms, fruit and more produce at a vendor along the Paris market street Rue Mouffetard.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

With all the Olympics coverage out of Paris these past two weeks, including Snoop Dogg discovering a love for lardons with Martha Stewart, I’m sure I’m not the only one inspired to plan a trip to France. I love exploring Paris’ neighborhoods, including the African food and fabric shops of La Goutte d’Or, which I’ve written about before. Another place I definitely want to revisit is Rue Mouffetard.

Rue Mouffetard is not an undiscovered Paris street. It got a mention in Ernest Hemingway‘s “A Moveable Feast” as “that wonderful narrow crowded market street.” And Eiffel Tower trinkets are abundant in the shops here, even though the 5th Arrondissement neighborhood is, as travel writer Rolf Potts wrote in his book “Souvenir,” “not particularly close” to the tower.

At the same time, the 5th, he points out, “isn’t among the top five tourist districts in Paris” so you won’t stumble across Rue Mouffetard if you spend all your time around the Louvre or Champs-Élysées.

It’s worth seeking out. The Latin Quarter’s cobblestoned walking street, home to fishmongers, bakeries, cheese shops, produce stands, coffee spots and cafes, is the kind of spot cooks and eaters love to explore. Just as our Santa Monica, Hollywood, Alhambra and many other farmers markets have become destinations for locals and food-focused tourists, there is a similar mix among the shoppers along Rue Mouffetard.

Many gravitate first to the Mouffetard location of Androuet, a small fromagerie chain founded in 1909 by Henri Androuët, who became France’s leading cheese ambassador and is the person who named the beloved triple-cream Brillat-Savarin after the gourmand and writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. The cheesemongers in the Mouffetard shop are knowledgeable and happy to help you choose a great walking-around cheese or a more elaborate selection for a picnic or party.

Not far from the Androuet is the site of a bakery I fell in love with last fall, Patisserie David Doualan, where the young, charming baker made gorgeous pain au chocolat, tarts and an incredible financier. I’m sad to report that the pastry shop shut down earlier this year. If you spot Doualan at another location, let me know.

Of course, there are many other bakeries and places to stop for coffee along the street, including Dose, which uses small-producer coffee beans and makes an excellent espresso (not always easy to find in Paris).

There’s even a modern izakaya-style bistro, Otto, a wine and small bites spot from Stéphane Offner and Tony Alvarez-Parage, two friends who teamed up with chef Eric Trochon of the nearby Michelin one-star restaurant Solstice. I had a terrific meal there last fall. “Fish no chips” came with black curry mayonnaise, yakitori skewers are cooked over binchotan coals and I think even escargot-averse Snoop would have liked the fried celery root beignets with hazelnut sauce.

But my favorite thing to do on Rue Mouffetard is to stop at Poissonnerie Quoniam, not only to admire the beautiful seafood display, but to have a glass of cheap but crisp white wine and half a dozen oysters. You eat and drink with little to no ceremony from an ice-filled foam tray while standing at a tall metal table while watching the street life all around. Sometime you’ll even hear someone burst out into song and dance. A perfect Paris moment.

Also ...

• “Here in L.A., where you’ll find endless expressions of Mexican cuisine, local restaurants and bars are finding new ways to reimagine the classic margarita,” writes assistant food editor Danielle Dorsey in her new guide to 16 of “the most delicious, creative margaritas to try in Los Angeles.” Excellent timing for the coming hot days ahead.
  

  

  The scene at Holbox, which earned its first Michelin star this week.

  (Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)

• Stephanie Breijo reported on the newest restaurants in California to earn new Michelin stars at a ceremony held this week in Half Moon Bay. The L.A. spots to newly earn stars are Jordan Kahn’s Vespertine, which saw the return of two stars after it reopened this year, and Kahn’s Melrose Avenue spot Meteora, which earned one star. Holbox (The Times’ 2023 Restaurant of the Year) and the kaiseki restaurant Uka in Hollywood’s Japan House, also earned one star each. And “Ian Krupp, wine director of Anajak Thai in Sherman Oaks, was awarded the 2024 Michelin Sommelier Award.” Breijo also reported the news that chef Curtis Stone is closing his tasting menu restaurant Maude next month and will replace it with the Pie Room. And as this newsletter was being finished we got the sad news that Timothy Hollingsworth is closing his downtown L.A. restaurant Otium next month as well.

  

  A rally in December 2023 protesting the eviction of Suehiro Café from its longtime Little Tokyo home.
  

  (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

• “Little can offset the departure of Suehiro Cafe from the historic storefronts” of downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo, writes Thomas Curwen in his story about “the fight to save Little Tokyo before it’s too late.” But he found a few signs of hope. For one, there is a new development project being driven by people within the community instead of outsiders. And although “Mikawaya, where community icon Frances Hashimoto invented mochi ice cream, closed two years ago after more than a century, a block away at Brian Kito’s Fugetsu-Do sweet shop, established by his grandfather in 1903, lines form to the sidewalk for the mochi and manju.”
  

  

  At Evil Cooks’ metal-themed, front-yard puesto in East L.A., anything can get turned into a taco, from black pastor octopus to a bacon cheeseburger.

  (Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)

• After we dropped our big 101 Best Tacos in L.A. guide last month, we asked you, our readers to share your own best-taco picks. And you weren’t shy about telling us what we missed. Danielle Dorsey collected the comments and this week published the responses. She also broke out a separate list to 18 of the best seafood tacos in L.A. from the 101 tacos guide. Tacos forever!