Paris Wine Bars : la Vierge de la Réunion

The Vierge-de-la-Réunion wine barParis, 20th arrondissement
The sign on the bar says it all : Bistro - Cave : here is a place to drink a glass and buy a bottle to go when you liked it. "A la Vierge de la Réunion" is a nice wine bar, restaurant AND caviste located in the up-and-coming blue-collar and immigrant district of the lower-eastern 20th arrondissement of Paris. The bar is located at rue de la Réunion and rue des Vignolles a short distance from the leafy Pére-Lachaise cemetery, where anonymous or enlightened individuals like Molière or Jim Morisson (and a few others) lay to rest.
Mourad Hallouche discovered wine in his teenage years in Algeria. Being a native of the wine region of Tlemcen there, wine was a beverage of choice for young Algerians (things may have changed since...). When he came to France, he kept learning and tasting different wines. The turning point in his wine culture was his frienship with François Morel , a wine writer and discoverer. Mourad discovered that wine could be beautiful and alive. We all at some point had our turning point in our own wine culture, and for many people it has been indeed the natural/artisan wine thing that turned much of our routine perceptions on wines upside down. He didn't wait this discovery to explore the different wine styles, but it gave a new dimension and passion to his wine culture.

Mourad at the barMourad Hallouche's first venue was a restaurant, not a bar, but its name was full of promises : "Chez Rasades" sounds in French like the arabic name Sheherazade but the spelling "chez" (at) "rasades" (glassful), points to a place where wine and laid-back conviviality go together. Located on the rue de Bagnolet nearby, the cuisine at "Chez Rasades" was Mediterranean. After this first restaurant experience, he worked a few years for a wine shop, Au Bon Plaisir, owned by Didier Lefort. La Vierge de la Réunion was the result of a venture between Mourad and Didier, the restaurateur and the caviste imagined this cave/bar/restaurant as the right format to try in this low-income neighborhood of Paris. The place is relatively large, or long, to be precise, with the bar in the center, the main room and wine-shop side on the right, and another attached room on the left with more tables. The whole building's exterior was preserved by the Paris administration in an appartment renovation program and Mourad worked a lot on the interior remodeling. The caviste/wine-shop in the backgroundIf wine was our focus when we visited la Vierge de la Réunion, the food also explain why people like to eat there : the cuisine here is the gem hiding behind the bottle. Mourad and Leila prepare and serve a cuisine with no geographical exclusive. He likes to answer as a joke to new-comers asking for North-African cuisine that he is a specialist of choucroute, the emblematic dish of Alsace. Seriously, they prepares dishes that are not limited to geograhical boundaries : Leila, who had a life before la Vierge de la Réunion, has both Moroccan and Belgian roots and she can make alternatively Morrocan dishes, Flemish recipes or traditional French ones. She is also good at making aubergin lasagnes, fish lasagnes. Her Flemish favorite dishes have become the patrons' favorites, like her Stoemp. Served with leeks, this potato-base dish is a hit rue de la Réunion. Also ask for her chicken waterzoi, another Flemish dish, a sort of soup popular in Belgium and in the northern tip of France. Her version is less soupy, more purée. Mourad prepares dishes like (he likes meat) Joue de Boeuf, Boeuf Bourguignon, Blanquette, Brandade de Morue. Even if cuisine from North Africa is not dominant here, ask for Leila's Pastilla (I just discovered this cuisine blog with very good pictures), we loved it. Pastilla is a traditionnal dish made with pigeon, almonds and other spices. Instead of pigeons which would have inflated the retail price, they use farm chicken bought in one of the last "volailler" (vuh-ly-AY) of Paris. This poultry shop is located rue d'Avron very close, and the free-range chickens taste so much better than the ordinary industry ones. The pastilla here costs 12 Euro and it can be shared by two people.Our glasses of Marc Tempe wines Speaking of wine pairing for the pastilla, the whites usually make a good match, he says. Otherwise, some reds can make it, but structured reds, not some light Gamay. A structured Rhone has what is needed to counterbalance the salty-sugary balance of the pastilla. Mourad says that the difficulty with chocolate makes people think straight to Champagne when a sugary Banyuls, this sweet wine from the Pyrenées along the Mediteranean and near the Spanish border, makes a perfect match. He says that's the priviledge of white Grenache. Another thing that I learned here is that Leila not only uses organic free-range chicken for her pastilla, but she makes herself the whole almond preparation, washing the almonds, then boiling them and mixing the cinnamon and the rest. No ready-to-use almond mix like in some restaurants with pastilla on the menu. The other types of meat come from the Aubrac, a remote region in central France and a meat Appellation renowned for its quality, it is purchased from the Maison Conquet. Conquet has btw a very informative page where you can mouseover on a beef and see names & pictures of specified beef parts (who hasn't eaten a delicious queue de boeuf - beef tail ?)They have also several types of artisan saucisson and charcuterie from central France and Corsica.
The wines-by-the-glass list :
7 whites and 6 reds, only good stuff sold by the glass (14cl - beginning at 2,9 Euro), by the pot (46cl - beginning at 10 Euro) and of course also by the bottle, beginning at 14 Euro). This latter one is Marc Tempe's Alliance and it is quite a good deal for an apéritif. A few names from the glass list : Jérome Vic (Languedoc), Jean Foillard (Morgon), Jean Baptiste Senat (Minervois-Languedoc), Philippe Peulet (Côte Roannaise), Marcel Richaud (Côtes du Rhone), Marc Deschamps (Pouilly Fumé), Domaine de Villalin (Quincy), Domaine Combier (Saint Véran)....Leila in the kitchen, son in the backgroundWhen I shot this picture of Leila in the kitchen (son in the background), she was giving the last touch to her guinea fowl cooked with cabbage and apples in white wine. By curiosity I asked which wine she put in there, she said Edelzwicker. I said, no, you didn't put Marc Tempé's Edelzwicker, didn't you ? she did. I know good wine must be used even for cooking (who hasn't thought once : nobody's looking, I'm going to use this bad wine to cook this meat) but still, I loved this simple Edelzwicker... When we dropped there a few days before for a glass, B. and I had chosen a glass of Marc Tempé, a colorful, energetic alsatian vigneron who uses biodynamic farming. B. had a Gewurztraminer and I chose the Edelzwicker, the entry-level blend-wine in Alsace which Tempé names Alliance. Beautiful, some dry raisin aromas and white fruits, a pleasure. This Edelzwicker which was a 2006 if I remember is a blend of Chasselas (40%) and Riesling, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer. The one-liter bottle to go costs a mere 8 Euro here.
You must know that in addition to be a great cook, Leila is a writer : food for the soul is also part of her life.Armand, rushing a plate to a tableThe wines by the bottle :
A very good selection indeed. More than one hundred different wines on the shelves, either to go or to drink here, with a 7-Euro cork fee, which makes a very good value restaurant bottle as many of the wines are very affordable. Here are a few prices from the Carte des Vins (meaning the cork fee is already included). Mourad says the vignerons are often surprised by the prices, as most restaurants make more money on wines :
Foillard Morgon 2006 at 19 Euro, two Chermette wines at 21 Euro, Monthelie Prunier-Bonheur "les Crays" 2002 (25 Euro), Volnay Vaudoisey-Creusefond 2005 (26 Euro), Vacqueyras Christian Vache Domaine de la Monardière 2005 (22 Euro), Chateau Vieux Lescours 2005 (19 Euro), Lalande de Pomerol Chateau d'Haurange 2004 (21 Euro), St Estèphe Chateau de Come 2004 (21 Euro), Cote Roannaise Domaine de Perrière, Granits 2006 (17 Euro), Domaine Breton, Bourgueil les Perrières 2005 (26 Euro), Chidaine les Argiles 2006 (22 Euro). Lots of other good bottles here...
The place also sells/serves Champagne, three labels, with the entry-level being a Henri Giraud Brut "Esprit" which many people buy here on a regular basis. The last time I visited, a girl walked in and asked for a bottle of it that Armand took in the fridge. It was 9:30pm and she had a good Champagne for only 24 Euro for whatever private event she was heading for...
This very evening, I was thinking about ordering a glass of Morgon Foillard 2006 (for 3,8 Euro) when Mourad took a bottle from the fridge with a yellow juice-looking liquid inside : verjus (or bernache, or vin nouveau !), the new wine, the sweet-grape-juice gently fermenting that you drink in the wineries from a glass filled straight from the vat... Nice gift. He got it from the wine shop of his associate (Au bon plaisir, rue des Pyrénées). He says it was brought by a vigneron from Valençay (Loire) but he didn't note who it was. Deliciously-intoxicating juice with plenty of vivid aromas, candy, lemon, lichees, peach... I still ordered my Foillard after that, and although it was the base cuvée, this was just so good. Couples and friends had begun to arrive at the restaurant for dinner and all seemed to know Mourad and be long-time patrons coming back for the good food and the wine.
It is wiser to reserve in advance but you may get a table without doing so.
"A la Vierge de la Réunion58 rue de la Réunion75020 ParisMetro : Alexandre Dumas (line 2), Buzenval (line 9), Avron (line 2)phone : 01 43 67 51 15Open tuesday to saturdayEvening only 6pm-midnight or laterwww.alaviergedelareunion.fr

Comments

[M Yacoby]

This is a great website about this Restaurant, it was about time that this place gets the "KUDOS" that it's deserved, real natural food, good wine and a warm service indeed! The owners are just so "human" and so friendly!!! Thank you, we will keep on coming back over and over...to have a great dinner and great wine!