The BEST discovery of this Paris trip.
 

We were wandering around the Pont Neuf end of the Île de la Cité because the restaurant recommended to us hadn't opened yet for dinner (it was about 6:30 and they opened at 7pm) and at the entrance to Place Dauphine on Rue du Pont Neuf was a little wine bar...the Taverne Henri VI.

THIS IS THE BEST PLACE WE WERE AT IN NINE DAYS!!!!! (We went back 3 times; I would have gone back for a 4th...or 5th, but there wasn't time. Hell....I would have LIVED there if Deb would have let me.)

The proprieture & his wife were wonderful, fun, funny, warm and engaging and whose English was better than our French (not hard to do..). Interestingly...so were the 4 or 5 tables of customers that were there each time we went (it has 2 rows of small tables, about 16 in total).

Each time we had a 1/2 carafe of wine (pick any...every one we had was very drinkable) and the cheese plate (4 or 5 different cheeses + wonderful small rounds of dark bread) for one ....which easily satisfied 2 (I can't IMAGINE what the cheese plate for 2 would feed).

This is, without qualification, the BEST CHEESE I've ever had at one place!!!!

I can't say enough for this bar; it stood out head and shoulders above any of the 20 other restaurants/brassieres/cafes/bistros we ate at.

Oh...and it's (relatively) INEXPENSIVE..unlike the other 20 places.

If you go...tell them that you're there because of the "deux vieux, gros Americaines from San Francisco"....maybe he'll remember. (Regretably...we never got their names.)


I can hardly wait to go back again.

The cheese plates for dessert in Paris are fabulous. I had one at the Le Relais de Saint-Paul restaurant (near Marais) that was enough to serve 3 people! It was heaven! There were 5 different kinds of cheese on my plate. 3 would have been fine!

Oh, I ate evet bit!

Here is the link to my review on my blog;

http://richardab.typepad.com/iheartp...ais_de_sa.html

Le Relais Saint Paul, 33 rue Francois Miron, 75004 Paris, tel 01 48 87 34 20

Thanks for this info. I'll look for it when I go in March!

Thanks for the info! My husband and I must have walked by there at least 20 times when we were in Paris last summer, but I never even saw the place!

Leaving for the airport in 1 hour. Why can't I picture where this is..........

Oooops....sorry....address is:

13, Place du Pont Neuf


:)

just wondering if there were other items besides cheese plates on the menu.
Desserts?

The problem with ordering those delicious cheeses from the tray is that the portions are so BIG. We finally learned to let the server lay out a selection and then say that it would suffice for both of us.

I suspect that it is the Taverne Henri <i>IV</i> and not Henri <i>VI</i> since it must be close to the Square du Vert Galant.

Thank you for this tip! My son and DIL may be headed to Paris for a belted wedding gift, and this sounds like a wonderful place for them to try. (I will certainly look for it the next time we are there, which I hope is sooner rather than later!)

Ramblero, the Taverne Henri IV (not VI)is a very famous and well-respected wine bar in Paris. It's been around for more than fifty years. The owners buy their wines directly from the wine growers and then bottle it themselves in the cave below the bar. It's a wine drinker's heaven, as you found out!

This may be viewed by some as a stupid, naive question, but anyway, why does it seem that wine and cheese complement each other, and make the other appreciated all the more, UNLIKE seemingly any other combinations I can think of? Being a left-brained person, I tend to think there must be a biochemical reason for this, of which someone out there is aware.

I think it's sort of a chicken or the egg question -- wine and cheese belong together.

I don't think wine goes better with cheese than anything else, but generally foods high in protein and fat (like cheese or steak) go well with wine because they counteract the tannins in the wine.

and red wine 'counteracts' with the fat (cholesterol)...;)

If it is in fact true that the &quot;red wine counteracts the fat&quot; can the &quot;wine diet&quot; be far behind?????

Mon Dieu!!!!! * slaps forehead * Mais oui....of course it IS IV, not VI!!!! * dyslexia apparently setting in at an old age *

Oh....and there are other things on the menu. In fact, quite a few, but we never got that far, as we were always on our way to dinner somewhere. (It's a GREAT end-of-the-day-after-spending-7-or 8-hours-going-through-museums-and-galleries and-sights kind of place to tide you over 'till dinner.)

As I said, I wish we had had more time just to &quot;hang out&quot; and see how the place changed during the day.

Now that we've seen much of the major Paris sights, I really look forward to the next trip where I just wander around neighborhoods, poking dead things with a stick (my idea of traveling; Deb's is rushing by taxi or train or plane from one museum/gallery/architectural wonder to the next on a kind of Sherman's-March-through-Georgia, leave no prisoners approach. Both have their merits, but I'm always exhausted and feeling like I haven't gotten to &quot;know&quot; the place.)

Next is 8 days skiing in the Alps and a 10 days in Sicily or Greece or ??? in March. Wish me luck.

Have you ever had a glass of orange juice just after you have brushed your teeth? If you really want to know why some cheeses go well with some wines this article is excellent.
http://www.springhillcheese.com/jerry.html

so, um, what other things were on the menu? Just curious. I'd probably do just wine &amp; cheese, myself, but sometimes I crave other things.
:)

Ramblero,

I really enjoyed reading your humorous post! Because of you, I am going out of my way to search for this fantastic wine-and-cheese-bar that you mentioned.

Thanks!

--Betty

You won't have to go far out of your way to find it--it's practically on the Pont Neuf and very well known.

A long time favorite of ours in Paris. . . thanks for the memories.

Thanks for topping this, Betty! I had forgotten about it, now we can try it next week!!

Thanks for topping this....I leave on Friday!! I'll have to check it out!

Heading to Paris tomorrow and staying close to this tavern, on the Ille St. Louis, so if we get the chance we'll call in and report back.
Thanks for the post.

Ahhh. 60 days and counting. Lucky allisonm, ketbert and stevenallen - I understand the forsythia's in bloom. Enjoy April in Paris and please do post back and let us know how you enjoyed Henry IV.

Can this be added to the Paris superthread somehow? I'd love to remember this link closer to my trip.

Anyway, thanks for the great tip!

Robjame, interesting article, and pretty easy to understand. Looks like my light reds are pretty safe.

Ramblero, thanks for the tip. I'll be staying steps from the Pont Neuf, and I'll be sure to try the Taverne right off the bat!

Danna, when I'm planning a trip, I open a new file in word processing and copy interesting info into that. Every time I'm on Fodors, that WP document is open as well, so I can add interesting tidbits as I find them (knowing full well I'd probably never be able to find them again).