L’Authentique is, as one can guess from the name, the classic café-bistrot type of restaurant that you can find in Paris when you walk away from the big streets, in residential and small-office parts of Paris. It’s a simple café but with a food and wine ambition. You can see some of it from the nicely folded chequered white-and-red napkins or the long list of wines on the chalkboard (two good signs for the restaurant sleuth!).
It’s as far from “haute cuisine” you can get. It is simple, well-prepared food in classic French style. Grilled meat, sausage, steak tartare, or salads, long-cooked leg-of-lamb and some other dishes, most in the classic café style. Starters around 10 euro, main courses roughly between 15 and 20, or “today’s menu” with three courses for 17 euro.
Quite a lot of wines to choose from, mainly from independent growers and a reasonable selection by the glass (unusual in Paris cafés). For example: Costières de Nîmes from Paul Blanc for 27 euro or an Alsace Kritt pinot blanc from Marc Kreydenweiss for 25 euro, at the lower end of the price scale. A restaurant in the good restaurant de quartier school.
Restaurant L’Authentique, 167 rue de Vaugirard, Paris 15, metro Pasteur, 01 42 19 07 43, www.lauthentique.fr
