Books Bourbon & Bacon Recommends

Welcome to our recommendations section. This is continually updated and curated by our core BBB team and those we hold in high regard. There is not promotional consideration received for these. And if that day comes, we will be clear to point that out and vet everything so it is to our standards. So check it out. What do you have to lose?

Paris (France) Restaurants:

Verjus - For €133 you get one of the best tasting menus in Paris AND lovingly selected wine pairings. €78 without the vino. Everything is market fresh, creative, modern and classic, and in a romantic setting. Check out the wine bar before dinner, or just make a meal out of the fantastic offerings there. Make reservations and understand that they are closed on Saturday and Sunday.

Le Saint Sebastien - Dine, a la carte, and enjoy flavor-bombs and some of the most creative and filling plates in the city. Excellent and very reasonable wine list. Amazing selection from the Jura region of France. Just try and resist ordering one of everything on the menu. Cozy up to the bar and enjoy snacks if you don’t need a full meal and want to sip wine and cocktails.

Le Grand Bain - Hip, delicious, creative, fresh. The menu changes every day according to what makes the best ingredients and combinations. A mainstay is the 7-hour roasted shoulder of lamb, served with a knife for you to carve - though a fork could suffice. Always excellent vegetarian, vegan and fish options. Small plates for most items. Excellent natural wine list. Great desserts.

Restaurant Affinité - This gem on the Left Bank, nestled between Notre Dame and Blvd St. Germain has a wonderfully creative menu, open kitchen and bargain fine wines. Their tasting menu is extremely affordable by Paris standards and the portions will leave happy and satiated. You can also order a la carte, and the front of the restaurant opens up during the summer.

Robert et Louise - Found in the charming Marais neighborhood and featured on the first-ever episode of Anthony Bourdain’s ‘No Reservations,’ this spot fills up and you may share a table with strangers, but the côte de boeuf for two and the duck breast (and all the meats) cooked over an open fire is well worth rubbing elbows with others, and why not make new friends?

Chez Gladines - This Basque-influenced Paris restaurant ‘chain’ features only one item over €20 (the kilo côte de boeuf for two), but features AJ’s favorite dish in Paris - the Chef’s Special: a pile of potatoes, mushrooms, cream sauce, veal escalope, and thinly sliced Basque ham (Escalope de veau montagnarde). It also features AJ’s favorite duck breast in the city (served with potatoes and a Roquefort sauce). All bottles under €20 with some unique wines and grapes from the Southwest of France.

Le Burger Fermier des Enfants Rouges - Best burger in Paris. Made à la minute (literally grinding the beef, pulling the house made buns from the oven, cutting the fries, etc. before each service). Get a classic cheddar and bacon or try any of the specialty cheeses. Everything served comes from farms north of Paris, and it’s tucked into the always charming Marché des Enfants Rouges.

The Hardware Societe - Go for early on weekends for the brunch. No reservations and the line will be to the end of the block. Worth the wait. Sometimes they tell you that’s the end of the line, but you can probably still slip in. Weekly French Toast (the best French Toast) and regular menu items are out of this world. Saché a few steps up the street after your meal and you are looking at Paris from the top of Montmartre at the footsteps of Sacré Cœur.

Mama Jackson Soul Food Restaurant Gare de Lyon - Soul food brunch on weekends. AJ’s “Top 3” favorite fried chicken in the world. And waffles, fruit, sides, beverage, etc. for under €30. No reservations. So get there early for one of the two seatings and put your name in. It’s small, so you will be cozy. But the food will make you fuzzy, happy and full.

Dessance - A dessert-inspired menu (go for the Hedonist menu) that takes you from salty to sweet with wine and liquor pairings OR non-alcoholic beverage pairings. Open kitchen. Food combinations that you likely never considered. It’s in the Marais neighborhood and extremely walkable if you are staying in central paris.

Ellsworth - Sister restaurant to our recommended restaurant Verjus. A la carte offerings. You can sit at the bar. And home to yet another of AJ’s “Top 3” fried chicken samplings in the world. Located just down the street from Verjus in Palais Royal and offers plenty of crowd pleasers on seasonal and market fresh menu.

Bistrotters - Rotating pork belly, the greatest salted caramel French toast on earth (potentially), and very reasonable prices make this spot worth the trek to Paris’s 14th arrondissement. The staff is wonderful, the location is cozy, and they are open every day in Paris (which is no small feat). Their menu also includes seasonal appropriate dishes, excellent fish offerings, and a relaxed atmosphere.

Books about Beverages:

World Atlas of Wine - Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson: Indispensable. The upcoming new edition to be released in October 2019 promises to be, as usual, an incremental improvement to the last

The Oxford Companion to Wine - Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding: Another indispensable book for the wine-obsessed, professional or amateur.

Inside Burgundy - Jasper Morris: Another indispensable resource

Tasting the Past - Kevin Begos: We wish we had written it. Exciting, no matter how you know there’s something to learn here. And so much fun. A travel book, wine book, science primer, really well-sourced history…and what intellectual wine can resist a visit to a biomolecular archeologist?

Cork Dork: A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste - Bianca Bosker: A fantastic exploration of the current state of the wine world. Really fun. And it lives up to the title.

Gastrophysics - Charles Spence: Start exploring how your brain perceives tastes. It doesn’t work like we thought. Surrounding colours, sounds, the temperature of your skin there are so many things that influence taste perception. The ideas in this book can change your entire culinary Weltanschauung.

Matt Goulding's trilogy on Japan, Italy and Spain - From the Anthony Bourdain protegé, very engaging reading

The Angry Chef: Bad Science and the Truth About Healthy Eating - Anthony Warner: Even very smart, educated people get fooled by false food-science all the time. Warner, an amusing, ranting passionate voice is one of the best educational prophylaxes.

Coffee The Epic of a Commodity - HE Jacob: From 1934 one of the classic founding texts of creative culinary non-fiction