Neo-bistros, Chinese dumplings and pizza, Neapolitan-style: residents of this edgy Parisian quartier look beyond French borders when picking their dinner, making for a distinctive restaurant culture
01 September, 2022
Home
to a diverse community of immigrants – including from
Armenia, Greece, Tunisia and Poland – Paris’ most defiantly
independent district feasts from tables spanning the globe. Far
from the bouillons and brasseries favoured elsewhere in
the city, a traditional Belleville lunch more often takes the form
of a stacked Tunisian sandwich from Di-Napoli, and even where typical French restaurant
culture does seep through, it’s often with a distinctive twist.
Stroll Boulevard de Belleville and you’ll find French-Caribbean
favourites, aromatic broths borrowed from China’s cookbook and the
Tunisian Sephardic staple of shakshuka, to name but a few. Here are
three we’re booking next time we’re in Belleville.
restaurant
With its eclectic architecture and multicultural vibe,
Belleville definitely has something of New York about it, and this
lively pizza restaurant plays with that, with its Brooklyn-ready
interiors featuring exposed brick walls and glass ceilings. Expect
delectable Neapolitan-style pizzas made in an authentic wood oven,
from classic margherita to pizza bianca and calzone. Sunny day?
We’d recommend sitting outside on the terrace to soak up
Belleville’s buzzy ambience.
restaurant
It’s worth getting the Paris Metro to the east of town simply to
dine at this excellent neo-bistro. The front of house is run by
Edouard Lax, formerly of the popular Au Passage, while Emily Chia,
an alumna of St John in London, presides over the kitchen. Expect
an ever-changing offering of seasonal delights (consult the menu on
the handwritten chalkboard) that give French classics an Asian
twist: think a jambon-Comté-kimchi pithiviers pie, or a tartare of
zander fish, melon and shisho. Dishes are accompanied by natural
wines.
restaurant
This 30-year-old Belleville institution takes its name from
Wenzhou, a port town in southern China, from which many people
emigrated to Europe by boat from the 1930s onwards, a good number
ending up in Paris (there’s even a micro-quartier in the Upper
Marais known as Little Wenzhou). The restaurant was opened in 1992
by Monsieur Xu to serve local immigrants from Wenzhou, and little
by little began to be frequented by locals outside of the Chinese
community, too. Today Xu Senior’s son Alex Xu runs the popular
restaurant, which has Parisians coming from all over town to sample
the famous dumplings, dried meats and sautéed aubergine. It’s
old-school and cash-only, so bring your euros.
