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Travel

In Paris, where there's smoke, there's ire

It's not easy to find a restaurant where you can enjoy a smoke-free meal. But the concept is spreading - ever so slowly.

By TIM HILCHEY and PATRICIA RYA
Published October 8, 2006

PARIS

We had just ordered dinner at Il Barone in Montparnasse when, in polite French, we asked a woman sitting next to us whether she would mind not smoking while we ate.

"They haven't put us in a cage yet," she said, then lit up a cigarette as the waiter brought our entrees.

Being a nonsmoker in a city that seems to love its tobacco as much as its food is not only a problem for clear-lunged Americans like us, but also for Parisians.

"If smokers ask me if it's inconvenient for me, then I can say yes or no," said Geraldine Leser, a nonsmoker who works as a communications consultant for a Parisian bank. "The problem is that they never, never ask."

Last week, after a five-month governmental inquiry, a parliamentary committee approved a proposal to ban smoking in public areas. Under the measure, cafes, hotels, restaurants, discos and casinos could designate spaces for smoking only if they could be "hermetically sealed."

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said he would decide quickly how to proceed on the panel's recommendations.

While politicians debate, there is hope for the nonsmoking diner. In a city of some 12,000 restaurants, one popular Web site lists more than 200 that offer smoke-free dining, and many would be worth visiting even if you love your Gauloises.

Spoon Food & Wine, Alain Ducasse's sleek outpost on the Rue Marignan off the Champs-Elysees, has been smoke-free since it was renovated last September. Christian Laval, the manager, said he and Ducasse agreed that it would be better to ban tobacco than to divide the small dining room with a barrier between the smoking and nonsmoking sections, as required by a lightly enforced French law.

"It was a very difficult choice to make," said Laval, "but our guests travel a lot, and they're used to nonsmoking restaurants." He added, "You feel that people are happy on the phone when we say we're 100 percent smoke-free."

Joel Robuchon designed his restaurant Atelier in 2003 with a horseshoe-shape bar that surrounds the open kitchen. Since French law prohibits the use of tobacco in areas where food is prepared, Robuchon's partner and chef Philippe Braun said, they had to ban smoking anywhere in the restaurant.

The "Espace Non-Fumeurs" sign is etched on the glass front door, and Braun said he knows of only one customer complaint - though a vivid one.

When asked to stop smoking, a young Parisian woman angrily stubbed out her cigarette on the shiny bar, and then smashed a plate before leaving the restaurant.

That customer would have had fair warning at the tiny, packed bistro L'Epi Dupin, just a short Left Bank stroll from the Bon Marche department store. It offers fresh seasonal produce, inventive presentation, a solid selection of wines and a blue-and-white symbol that is used in the window of many of the nonsmoking restaurants: "Ici C'est 100% Sans Tabac" ("Here It Is 100% Tobacco-Free").

Its chef, Francois Pasteau, insists that no tobacco fumes come between his customers and their caramelized Belgian endive and goat cheese tatins. His own sign explains: "For your comfort and that of your neighbors, L'Epi Dupin is nonsmoking."

The 2006 Michelin guide gave L'Epi Dupin its Bib Gourmand rating, awarded for providing a good meal in the Paris region for less than 34 euros, not including drinks.

Neither Michelin nor American guidebooks do much to help nonsmokers. Under "smoking," Fodor's Paris 2006 advises, "you can count on it." The Web site Les Droits des Non-Fumeurs, or the Rights of Nonsmokers (dnf.asso.fr/guide/index.htm), provides a list, arranged by arrondissement, of 231 Paris restaurants that accommodate nonsmokers.

Only three Michelin-starred restaurants - La Table de Joel Robuchon, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Table du Lancaster - and the "rising star" L'Astor appear on this list.

A less exalted selection, also near Bon Marche, is the tearoom L'Artisan de Saveurs on the Rue du Cherche-Midi. Weekend brunch, with, say, a light, cheese-filled omelet and a basket of fresh-baked bread and muffins, is so popular that reservations are a must. But you can drop in at other times for a chilled chai or a bittersweet hot chocolate.

In the Galerie Vivienne, at the venerable Legrand Filles et Fils, Emilie Pineau, the sommelier, said the wine bar doesn't allow smoking because "it could interfere with the enjoyment of the wine."

Fish La Boissonnerie on the busy Rue de Seine in the St.-Germain-des-Pres neighborhood is set in a tile-fronted former fish market. The fish is still market-fresh here, and the three-course lunch is a bargain at 21 euros. One of the owners, American-born Juan Sanchez, also runs the wine shop La Derniere Goutte on nearby Rue Bourbon-le-Chateau, so the wine list is extensive.

Le Beurre Noisette is chef Thierry Blanqui's "gastro bistro," hidden away on the Rue Vasco de Gama in the 15th arrondissement in southwest Paris. The seasonal blackboard menu changes daily, but the madeleines are an ongoing attraction. We bought eight-packs for gifts, but they never made it back to New York.

The congenial Beurre Noisette, which also wears a Bib Gourmand from Michelin, is what might be described as a smoker trying hard to quit. There are no signs on the door, but the host said that customers here "willingly" smoke outside.

Such willingness is likely to be essential, even if legislators pass a smoking ban.

"There is a saying in French, 'My comfort is my priority,' " said Leser, the bank consultant, who said she enjoys the ambience at Legrand Filles et Fils. "I'm afraid, because of this cultural tendency, the law would not be enforced."

[Last modified October 6, 2006, 11:59:48]