Finding the Great American Meal in France

Parisburgers: Finding the Great American Meal in France

Posted by Globespotters in Food and Drink, Paris

by Joe Schmid, IHT Paris

Is a hamburger still a burger if you need a knife and fork to eat it? That's what I was wondering when the Figaroscope, the weekly entertainment guide of Le Figaro newspaper, ran a story on the best places for hamburgers in Paris. From their reviews, it sounded like most were gourmet meals. And now that I have sampled a number of recommended burgers, I can attest to the fact that — for good and bad — most bear only passing resemblence to this humble American meal.

by Reuters

My wife and I have long considered the hamburgers at the Coffee Parisien to be the finest available, not fancy but consistently great, and they've got the Americana theme nailed, right down to the place mats listing all the U.S. presidents. But Coffee Parisien was only #3 on Figaro list, so we decided to eat around.

The burger that won the Figaroscope's contest is served at Scoop, near the Palais Royale, a narrow place with a lunch counter downstairs and a cozy lounge with tables upstairs. It looked more like an ice-cream parlor, and indeed, they advertise homemade ice cream. More on that later.

There are just a handful of burger options, all variations on the Classic: 200 grams of meat, or more to my understanding, almost a half pound; sauteed onions, artisan buns from a nearby bakery. You can add cheddar cheese, bacon, or go for the Scoop burger, which is topped with a fried egg. They came with roasted potatoes with fresh rosemary sprigs, and the beer choices were few, but smart: Sagres of Portugal and Beck's of Germany.

The burgers were extremely good. The ground beef was lean and tasted like a good steak, the onions were tangy and the bread was thick like an Italian roll, easily able to withstand the weight. Having never thought of eggs and burgers, I decided to try the Scoop speciality, but I confess the egg didn't seem to add anything flavor-wise, and made the burger even messier to eat.

The individual elements of the Scoop burger are best in class, but even their basic burger is nigh impossible to bite into. So you switch to silverware, and inevitably the full burger experience falls apart: with each bite you get meat and egg, or bun with onions, or onions and meat — all sorts of combinations, but never all the flavors at once.

It was even more of a problem when we tried Floor's — number 4 on Figaro's list — and just a few blocks from our apartment. It's housed in a former printing shop in a gritty neighborhood near the Chateau Rouge metro stop. It's three floors of dining space are reached by a winding staircase in the front of the building and are visible behind huge plate-glass windows as you climb.

Though the decor is simple American diner, the burgers definitely have higher aspirations. First of all, you can order duckburgers, fishburgers and chickenburgers, or stick with the classic. The classic is ground to order and mixed with onions before it hit the grill. The buns are big and squishy, and they have all sorts of high-quality cheese and garnish choices, up to and including foie gras. I went for the duck burger, topped with grilled mushrooms; pretty darn good. But my mother-in-law, who was in town helping us figure out how to raise a child, ordered the double hamburger. It was obscene. I can't see any way to justify a hamburger that's a tall as a glass of beer.

The sides were homemade and excellent, with potato salad, jacket potatoes and classic fries, or onion rings — they were my choice, and though I thought they were a little heavy on the batter, you don't find fresh onion rings in Paris every day. They're part of the price of the burger (the classic starts around 13 euros), and you also get a choice of small salads, ranging from chinese noodles to a handful of greens.

The draft beer selection stuck to the basics, Kronenbourg 1664 et al, and although the deserts sounded great (cheesecake, brownies and, bizarrely, blueberry pancakes) we were too full to give them a try. We did have the fresh guacamole and chips for an appetizer, they were top-notch.

But you know what? After our fancy burger-eating adventures, we ended up thinking the Coffee Parisien was still our favorite: You can eat their burgers with your hands.

But we will be going back to Scoop soon — for the desserts, which were really outstanding. They make all sorts of ice cream floats (Catherine got vanilla with an espresso poured over it, really nice), and I had a chocolate brownie à la mode (the French don't use that term yet) that was one of the best I've ever had, and by far the finest in France. Not dry, but not too fudgy, either, and full of walnuts. I remember telling Catherine that someone had really done their homework.

Turns out she didn't have to: Scoop's owner is from Milwaukee.

Floor's
100 rue Myrha
75018
Metro: Chateau Rouge or Anvers

Coffee Parisien
4 rue Princesse, 75006, Metro: Mabillon
7 rue Gustave Courbet, 75016, Metro: Victor Hugo
46 rue de Sablonville, 92200 Neuilly-sur-Seine, Metro: Porte Maillot

Scoop
154 rue Saint-Honoré
75001
Metro: Palais Royale or Louvre Rivoli

PDG (Number 2 on the Figaroscope list, haven't made it to this one yet; the name is the French equivalent of CEO)
5 rue du Dragon
75006
Metro: Saint-Germain-des-Prés

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