RFT
Staff Picks,
Best Table: Le Petit Paris
Where
Magazine
"Most Romantic Table 2001"
Coalition for a Tobacco-Free
Missouri
"2001 Smoke Free Dining Award"
The St. Louis
Jewish Light
"Restaurant of the Month"
July 2000
You're ensconced in the curtained alcove at Le Petit Paris, late on a Friday evening. Outside, South Grand's a streaky blur of neon and headlights and rain. But you've already forgotten the huddled, shoe-squishing walk from the expired parking meter, forgotten the adrenaline-laced day that preceded it. You're together now, somewhere in North Africa, surrounded by brilliant expatriates whose lives tell a hundred stories. In the haze of candlelight, you peruse the delicately ethnicized French menu. Debating the lobster crêpe or les huitres Normande (oysters baked in garlic, butter, fresh fine herbs and sherry), your brows wrinkle. Then they smooth, and you lean toward each other, murmuring your desires.
Chef Phillipe, a Parisian who married a woman from North Africa and ought to know, calls this tiny table for two, the "lovers' corner." Has anyone...er...gotten engaged here, or otherwise entangled? The waiter fields the questions with a wry raised eyebrow, a hand run through brown hair. "Not yet...but I've only been here two months." The bistro itself is young and unapologetically romantic,seizing St. Louisans by their gabardine lapels and tugging them away from barbecue, fast burgers and fancy Italian. And once you are marooned, cut off from everything familiar, the place releases your lapels and crooks one soft, trembling finger, beckoning you into its exotic world.
Ah, but in St. Louis, "exotic" needs definition. This is not the crowded exoticism of a bazaar throbbing with smells and colors and turbaned barter. There is no chaos here, no threat or strangeness except your own dangerous impulses, too long restrained. At the lovers' table, you escape into a secluded exoticism, drenched with the ritualized, sensualized passion that's drained from Western life. Every dulled sense comes to life. You're aware of your own perfume, the warmth of your flesh, the light in you companion's dark eyes. You smell an extinguished candle, and another woman's bath oil, then catch a whiff of cumin and something else, haunting but unrecognizable, one of Philippe's 13 secret spices, no doubt. Secrets, here, are expected.
In fact, they are encouraged. The table's Moroccan-red entrance curtains are discreetly tied back with gauze and silk tassels, yet they divide you definitively from the other diners — the ones who need bifocals or arch supports, or can't pronounce sauvignon. Freed of the tiresome need to empathize or even react, you arch your neck back and laugh, splendidly indifferent. This evening, you bear no responsibility. You are hiding. You have never felt so visible. At the window, more curtains, these at cafe height, shield you from passersby who would, of course, be curious — tonight you are sure of it — as they trudge home to their tame routines, their TV shows and TV dinners.
The waiter approaches, clearing his throat tactfully. Lamb couscous, perhaps? Duck flambé au cognac? Had you known, you could have ordered ahead, special fresh lobster for two à la parisienne. But had you known, this evening would be planned pleasure, measured and wanting, instead of sheer delight.
The table is tiny, its white lien cloth hanging over the side in a sharp point. As hot bread and steaming dishes begin to crowd its surface, you laugh at the abundance and readjust your plates, savoring the complete sufficiency of the moment. Grayed images of unfiled tax papers and a sinkful of dirty dishes appear and dissolve. The camera zooms in on the two of you, framing tight close-ups of your hands, your lips, your tangled feet beneath the table. Your companion's eyes narrow into Bogart's squint; you tilt your head like Bergman and smile at nothing in particular. Someday, somehow, real life will resume. For now, there is only now.
Reprinted with permission from the ©Riverfront Times Restaurants 1999. Article by Jeannette Batz.