Alexander Lobrano meets two expat American chefs in the capital and tips a rising southern talent for Michelin stardom…
“When good Americans die, they go to Paris,” Oscar Wilde famously quipped about the passion so many Yankees have felt and still feel for the French capital. In a time of political flux in the States, it looks as though the predilection of worldly, well-educated Americans for the city has jolted into overdrive.
Estate agents report brisk sales of Paris flats in the toniest quarters of the Left Bank, but also in the Marais and 9th and 17th arrondissements, to Americans who want a European footprint, with an eye to possible permanent relocation.
The new American influx is also creative, since the city has always been a place that’s nourished North American artists, writers and bohemians, including chefs, too. The latest newcomer is Mashama Bailey, who’s won several James Beard Awards for her Southern port-city cooking at The Grey, a restaurant housed in the old Art Deco Greyhound bus station in Savannah, Georgia.
L’Arret Paris Copie de _larret-P1-copyright Ilya KAGAN @ilyafoodstories-export
Bailey trained in New York City and at Anne Willan’s famous Burgundy cooking school, La Varenne (now closed). She and her business partner, restaurateur New Yorker John O. Morisano, are Francophiles who have always dreamed of opening a restaurant in Paris, so two years ago, they took the plunge and acquired the former Café L’Espérance on rue de l’Université, in the Faubourg Saint-Germain on the Left Bank. “I wanted to refine the cooking I’ve been doing at The Grey in Paris using French ingredients and also by exploring the reciprocal influence of French cooking on the kitchens of Charleston, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans, and the way in which new products, flavours and techniques crossed the Atlantic to France from America,” explains Bailey. “I’ve just always dreamed of living in Paris,” says Morisano.
So after two arduous years of legal battles over the building where they’re located – the upstairs neighbours were disinclined to let the pair install a necessary new ventilation system because they didn’t want a busy restaurant on the ground floor of their building – they officially opened on September 16, 2025.
Though Paris is mad for American hand-held foods like cheeseburgers, bagels, donuts, tacos, pizza and lobster rolls, the menu at L’Arrêt challenges the French on gastronomic turf they consider their own – cooking defined by subtlety and respect for the best seasonal produce. One wonders if the French will be able to move beyond the tenacious stereotype they hold that Americans subsist on the junk food they secretly love. But if anyone can coax them towards a delicious and deeper understanding of American cooking, it’s surely Mashama Bailey.
“My menu will evolve all the time,” she says. “We’ll serve roasted oysters during oyster season, but they won’t be there during the summer.
Certain dishes will be signatures, though, like the NYC sandwich (egg, bacon, cheddar in a bun) served at breakfast.
There’s also the Poulet Captain, a succulent preparation of chicken braised in curried tomato and pepper sauce with currants and almonds, a colonial classic all the way from the kitchens of Charleston, South Carolina.
And just to let the locals know that Morisano and Bailey have mastered the snobbisms of the quartier, cheeses come from Barthélemy, the renowned local cheesemonger, and the ice cream and sorbet are supplied by Le Bac à Glaces in the rue du Bac.
36 Rue de l’Université, 7th arrondissement, Paris,
Tel. (33) 09 84 00 09 08
www.larretparis.fr
Lunch menus €25, €33, average à la carte €40.
From France Today Magazine
Lead photo credit : L’Arret Paris Chess Pie – Photo credit_ Ilya KAGAN @ilyafoodstories-export-light-16
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Dining and Cooking