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HUÎTRERIE RÉGIS, PARIS
The initial tip came nearly a decade ago from my Parisian friend Mélanie, who loves oysters almost as much as I do. “Huîtrerie Régis has just opened in your neighborhood,” she e-mailed. “You must go; it’s on the short street between the Marché Saint-Germain and the Boulevard Saint-Germain and like no other place in the world… Sorry, but they don’t take reservations.” She knew I would love it.
So I went. And went. Between October and May, whenever I am in Paris, it is my cantine, though it is hard to call one of the tiniest restaurants possible a cafeteria. The oyster has a lot to do with why I go to this seemingly one-dish restaurant, but really it is much more than that: a huîtrerie is basically an oyster bar, and there are plenty in town, but this is one of a kind. For one thing, as a regular pointed out to me early on and only semi-jokingly: “Régis picks his customers. And the customer is not zee king here, Régis is.” It is a restaurant with personality and attitude and the highest quality.
I almost blew it with Régis on my first visit. When on a lovely fall day my early-morning plane arrival from New York became a late-morning arrival, I was starving and a bit frustrated, so I thought a few oysters would reconcile me with the world. Plus, I was eager to test this new place. I arrived at almost 2 p.m., but I wasn’t sure they’d serve me as the place was pretty packed (it doesn’t take much for it to be filled), with only one gentleman seemingly ready to leave. A minute later, I had a table. I felt lucky. A great little table pour moi.
The menu arrived immediately, and a fetchingly pert young waitress took my order two minutes later. And then I waited, and waited, and waited. In a one-dish restaurant there is no amuse or appetizers or even a bread basket before the food, and the key in my head had still not switched from New York to Paris art de vivre. My stomach was growling, and I was wondering why it was taking so long to shuck a dozen oysters. Meanwhile, most customers were almost done or chatting over their espresso. I sat, feeling hungrier and hungrier. Edward, my husband of many decades, knows well that I can get grumpy fast when I’m very hungry. I was almost ready to ask if they had forgotten me. Plus, I had been in such a rush to get to the restaurant while it was still serving (2 p.m. is a common cutoff time) that I came without my smart phone or anything to read. So I just sat there, and my expression surely turned into a glare. Régis no doubt read my face and did whatever it took to “lengthen the pleasure,” or test me, as I later learned. He simply ignored me.
Fortunately for me, I overheard a regular next to me mentioning how Régis was in a bad mood today after a morning telephone argument with the credit card machine sales rep, and so patience was required (or was the man observing the show and trying to give me a heads-up?). That was definitely a hint I took as a favor and kept quiet… and waited, and waited, and contemplated the restaurant. Apparently, as I learned after a few visits and conversations with regulars, for someone like Régis, who gets up very early six days a week, rushing is not in order, and those who are in a hurry better go elsewhere. Wow, how is that for customer service? That’s how I learned his number one rule: “Nobody gives me pressure.” A few months later, a single man at the table next to me described what Régis calls difficult customers, or in his lexicon bêtes noires, and his way of turning them down: Let them wait… and wait. It’s his definition of the ultimate luxury in business! Customers should be willing to wait.
And so, my platter of oysters was delivered twenty-eight minutes after the order was taken. I was hot inside but tried to be zen or at least look zen. But then it seems that the love affair had started. Without my being aware of it, he discreetly looked at how I approached the bivalves: how I smelled them, tasted them (I had a hard time not devouring them, but then one does not do this with oysters), and followed with a piece of bread with a thick layer of salted butter. I felt right in some sort of gastronomic heaven, and it surely did wonders for the look on my face. Et voilà. Now I somehow had gained approved blessing, though nothing is ever acquired quickly in the world of Régis. And I certainly was not yet a member of the club.
The “short street” is rue Montfaucon in the sixth arrondissement. Huîtrerie Régis is at number 3. Now imagine a storefront space that’s about 18 feet wide and 15 feet deep. That’s it, the entire restaurant. Enter the windowed exterior and off to the right, say about six inches, is a small stand-up bar, more of a serving counter, behind which stands the shucker, the waitress, often Régis, the oysters, the wine, the coffee machine, the sink the size of a pasta pot, the silverware, the glassware, everything. The back wall is the “wine cellar.” A little room is squared off in the opposite back corner, the smallest toilette/WC possible. On one side a table and chairs abut the closet.
In the “dining room,” there are seven small tables accommodating fourteen people. Snug is the operative word. The majority of the tables have inches at most of separation between them. But it works, partly because the French have a way of isolating, encircling themselves in privacy in public. The way Americans are well known for talking to strangers right and left in restaurants, the French are not. The raised platters of oysters also help as territorial delineators. Outside are a couple of sidewalk tables for “smokers” or for those waiting for a table inside or a take-out order of shucked oysters.
Yet this is a spotless, soulful gem of a fancy oyster shack in white and blue, some gold feathers hanging from the ceiling (a holiday fixture), and an interesting large paintingesque work of art on the back wall. Some of us, in a mode of seaside/cityscape fantasy, have decided that when we sit against the back wall facing the outside, we have a seat with a vue sur la mer (sea view). When is a street vista not a sea? You may think the attractive decor is the work of a woman, but it’s all Régis and his sensibilities and sense of aesthetics. What makes the place a tad fancy and indicates that the owner takes the oysters seriously are the white tablecloths with real napkins, real silverware, and beautiful simple plates in white-and-blue porcelain (designed by a Brazilian female artist friend of Régis), and real service (a trio—where the man who shucks is part of the action, the young waitress is superattentive to your needs, and then there is Régis, un personnage attachant, a combination of charm, humor, and the ability to engage that Frenchwomen love. And he is… and complicated and comical and demanding and moody). And then there are the oysters… zee best. So, it works. It all works.
Consider the menu: it’s simple. On one sheet there are three tasting formulas: (1) twelve oysters fines de claires, a glass of muscadet, and coffee; (2) two types of oysters, six of each with a glass of Sancerre and coffee; and (3) two types of oysters, six of each and six large shrimp. Then there is the second sheet, with Marennes oysters, all by the dozen, going from fines de claires to spéciales de claires and the rare and most expensive pousses en claires; the Belons (second most expensive and not often available); the praires (clams); and when available and up to Régis’s standard, oursins (sea urchins). Again, the quality of the oysters and beyond is very high here, with the least expensive formula costing 25 euros. Not cheap. And at the bottom of that page are some items for non–oyster lovers perhaps dragged here by oyster lovers: terrine of scallops; huge Madagascar shrimp by the dozen; assiette de saucisson (a plate of perhaps a dozen slices of dry sausage); the cheese of the day; and the one and only dessert, tarte aux pommes, made by the master himself every morning.
The wine list is one page, too: a Roederer Champagne (noblesse oblige); one muscadet; two Pouilly-Fumé; seven Sancerre white and seven red; a few Burgundies and Bordeaux, some Charentes wines; and a list of digestifs, particularly Armagnac. The coffee is Lavazza. C’est tout. That’s all.
SUNDAY LUNCH AT HUÎTRERIE RÉGIS
In terms of weather, it is a common late-fall Parisian day: partly cloudy with a temperature of 43 degrees Fahrenheit. Walking down the short street toward the restaurant, we see a couple dressed for winter sitting at one of the two tiny outdoor sidewalk tables in front of the restaurant. They are not eating. They have not eaten. They are talking to an animated Régis, who is standing by the table in shirtsleeves.
Edward and I enter relatively late for lunch, with the time approaching 2 p.m., but it is a Sunday, after all. A distinguished-looking couple is standing and ready to leave. He is wearing a tie and jacket with a Legion of Honor pin on his lapel. She wears a black coat with a mink collar. Neighborhood folks. There are always some at Régis. It is also hard to remember a time at the restaurant when one of its fourteen seats was not occupied by someone Japanese. It seems the Japanese love oysters and fruits de mer, and Régis is known in Japan based upon some reports that his are the finest oysters in Paris. True. A Japanese couple are seated and reverently eating their oysters. There is a youngish French couple, a mixed couple—the man is French, the woman is not—and some out-of-towners, Brits by the sound of their voices.
There are Belons today, so we order six each and six fines de claires spéciales no. 3. And four shrimp, the big delicious Madagascar type. The bread from Kayser bakery comes, the butter and sauce mignonette come, Régis comes. Régis is medium height for a Frenchman, which means not tall. He’s a tad stocky in build but firm, with brown hair, bushy eyebrows in accent circonflexe (reverse V) shape, and a salt-and-pepper mustache. When he smiles some attractive dimples emerge, though when he is not so happy his forehead wrinkles into sinuous heavy furrows. He likes to speak in a hushed voice with his customers, a trait of respect for the others around him, though when a bunch of pals show up he tends to be more demonstrative and loud.
“What do you want to drink?” he asks us. We debate Champagne or Sancerre. We engage him in a discussion of Sancerre, his favorite accompaniment, and he is keen on his two producers, Daniel Crochet and Alphonse Mellot, each of whom produces several different bottlings from difficult crus. We choose the biodynamic Plante des Prés 2011 Crochet—a lovely, elegant Sancerre, drier than most but with centered fruit.
A tall, casually dressed man with what looks like a three-day-old beard walks in (anyone who walks into this tiny restaurant commands center stage) and says loudly: “Do you serve Arabs here?” Régis replies firmly, “No.” “Do you serve Arabs here?” “No,” and this time Régis swings his arm in emphasis. “Do you serve Arabs here?” “No,” even more loudly, and Régis and the guy burst out laughing. The man is obviously Arab. They go outside and talk with another man standing there.
In France there is a lot of banter and teasing, especially when men get together (not to say women don’t play the game—my mother was great at it—but for men it is part of their cultural baptism). Régis loves and excels at this. Being witty is something of a national sport, and the things people say while playing are sometimes shocking to those from another culture. But it is all part of the game, which was raised to a national virtue in the seventeenth-century court of Louis XIV when epigrammatic cleverness and the mode of being witty were much admired. To wit, the wits.
Back at the huîtrerie, the original couple are still sitting there, just outside our table’s window, not eating. It is after three, and we are up to the fabulous apple tart and down to our last (okay, it’s Sunday lunch!) sip of wine.
Régis is nowhere to be found; he has gone off somewhere. The tall “Arab” returns and chats with Alain, the first-rate écailler (shucker), and pours himself a glass of a red wine from the Loire, a Saumur. We couldn’t see, but perhaps Alain passed him an oyster or two. He departs, consuming all in perhaps three minutes.
The restaurant is winding down. People keep coming in, asking if they are still serving, and, hearing “Non,” take a card then walk away.
Régis returns carrying about eight loaves or so of brown bread. Kayser is a long-established, well-respected baker in Paris with a number of outlets (and now franchising globally). “On Sunday the Kayser bakery is closed, so I have to go to a bakery that’s not close,” he says in passing and begins preparation for the evening service.
We order two cafés. We overhear Régis and the waitress—they are about six feet away; everything in the restaurant is about six feet away—discussing the merits of GPS versus printed road maps. The girl, who is in her early twenties and speaks enough English to handle the room, as Régis and Alain do not speak any English, is, curiously, a fan of the printed maps. Régis prefers GPS.
It is 3:30. We close the restaurant.