Review: Le Potager de Charlotte
A vegan in Paris
It’s Saturday night in Paris. I’ve put on my favourite red lipstick, & I’m winding my way down to the street from my 6th floor chambre de bonne. I can smell meat cooking in one apartment I pass on the 5th floor, & hear the lively chatter & laughter of friends emanating from another. In the Haussmann’s tiny lift I brush past a man hurrying in the opposite direction, clutching a bottle of white wine in one hand & a paper bag of unspecified foodstuffs in the other. “Pardon!” he cries, as he hurries onwards to his destination.
Out on the street, the roads of the 17th arrondisement are similarly a-bustle with Parisians heading to dinner. I wonder, as I watch them hurry by, how long it will be until I am one of them - with friends & dinner parties & places to go on a Saturday night. And yet, it has been less than a week since I first arrived in Paris, with a broken heart, faltering French, & more luggage than I could drag through cobbled streets. That life will come — & until it does, I am content with where I’m at, & happy with my own company.
Le Potager de Charlotte is where I have chosen to dine on this solitary Saturday night. According to the website, it is a purveyor of gourmet plant-based cuisine which can be found in two locations across Paris, & was founded by two brothers who have embraced veganism. It is one of the most consistently highly rated vegan eateries I have come across in Paris, & being not a five-minute walk from their 17éme location, I am excited to try it out.
On arrival, I am struck by the dark, emerald green interior. It’s modern, with exposed lightbulbs and plant features that would be at home in Shoreditch or Brooklyn, but gives a nod to mid-century style, too, with dark wood and emerald green velvet-upholstered barstools. Indeed, the whole restaurant has more of a London or New York feel to it, and the diners are predominantly English speaking, as I have found is often the case in vegan restaurants in Paris. Dommage, but probably not surprising.
The menu, however, has more of a nod to France. Provençal food features prominently, perhaps because of the region’s abundance of fresh produce and the vegetable-heavy nature of a traditional peasant diet relative to a meat-heavy aristocratic one. Broader Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and Far Eastern influences are also in abundance, though.
I order a glass of Turbigo, a Parisian wine - I didn’t know there was such a thing, but here we are. It is heavy, tannic, & unremarkable, but then it is the cheapest wine on the menu, & I’m no connoisseur. As with most heavy French wines, though, you can feel the fire in its heaviness as it rushes down your oesophagus. The Côtes-de-Rhône I order afterwards, La Gariggue, is much lighter, fresher, and more to my taste.
Things get off to a good start when the bread basket arrives. An unsolicited bread basket is always most welcome in my book, & not having to share it with anyone at all is by far the best part of dining alone. This particular basket contains regular sliced baguette alongside dark rye baguette, which is particularly tasty.
I order the sesame marinated tofu as a starter. This is crispy; a little tough, & dry in parts, but with a light sesame flavour & encrusted with crunchy black sesame seeds. It is covered with greenery, spring onions, and beansprouts, and set on a bed of soy yogurt infused with lime. The yogurt really makes the dish; it is a perfect blend of sweet and tangy, and goes beautifully with the sharp spring onions, the kick of chilli, the saltiness of the soy. I find myself scraping all the yogurt from the plate before reluctantly relinquishing it to the waitress.
Outside, the sky grows darker, & it starts to rain. I watch the outdoor diners rearrange themselves under the umbrellas, sinking a little further back in my seat, listening to the soft jazz playing in the background. By the time my main arrives — roasted aubergine on a bed of hummus with cucumber, bell peppers, red onions, herbs, pistachio, sesame cream, & pomegranate — I have polished off the whole bread basket. In my heart of hearts, I wanted to order the rigatoni à la provençale, but having lived on pasta all week I simply couldn’t justify ordering it; but now the lighter aubergine dish feels like a good call with all the baguette sitting in my stomach.
Although the construction of flavours & ingredients is hardly original, it is very well executed, & a delight to the tastebuds. More than that, it is a sensory overload; the aubergine is hot, tender, caramelised, & melting into the hummus. The hummus is fresh & delicious, especially if you’re used to the supermarket variety. The fresh mint, fresh pomegranate, fresh parsley, and chilli together create a complex and delightful sensation. Texturally, the crunch of the raw onion, pomegranate and pistachios, when merged with the silkiness of the aubergine & hummus & complexity of whole mint leaves, combines to make a complex and well-constructed dish.
Absolutely stuffed & slightly tipsy, I have precisely zero cause to be ordering dessert. But to a vegan, dessert is such a novelty when dining out that I cannot turn down the chance to order a chocolate mousse.
By now the restaurant is full, softly lit, & a-buzz with bilingual chatter. Outside the rain has stopped & the street grows dark, & I grow sleepy. I sip the Côtes-de-Rhône & question the wisdom of ordering dessert, while observing the three other solo diners around me. Whether the solitary nature of their evening is by design or by circumstance I have no way of knowing, but it is interesting not to be the only one for a change.
The mousse, when it arrives, is truly impressive. I have eaten many a vegan mousse in my time, many of which have been good, but few of which were really mousses in the truest sense; few replicated that airy consistency of a classic mousse. This proves an exception, however; the air bubbles are visible, & it has been whipped into the lightest, airiest, daintiest mousse imaginable. The fresh raspberries, roughly chopped dark chocolate & caramelised pecans add further tartness, texture, crunch, & complexity. Reader, I lick it clean & were not my fear of judgment — from other humans and from my own digestive organs — so strong, I would order a second in a heartbeat.
Unfortunately, the evening is somewhat ruined by the fact that, no sooner have I finished eating, than I am harassed to pay up & be gone. I am only 1 hour 20 into a 2 hour reservation, but the waitress lets me know in no uncertain terms that she needs my table, & I see her repeatedly point at me from across the restaurant; pointing me out to hungry, waiting diners, as though to say “as soon as that greedy b*tch is gone, you can have your dinner”.
I can’t blame the staff for being busy & stressed, but given I have just spent €50 here, I might be made to feel a little more welcome — & at least be permitted to finish my wine. Awkward & embarrassed, however, my Britishness overcomes me; I abandon my half-full glass, & scuttle away into the night.
Currently…
Reading: Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Eating: honestly, a lot of pesto pasta
Enjoying: exploring the produce section of French supermarkets