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Le bar à soupes

What's on the menu today?

Friend Elizabeth found the reference on the first page of this week’s Figaro Scope, which tells you what’s hot hot hot in Paris for the coming week. And right on the first page, first item for restaurants, was Le Bar à soupes. Courez-y!, it said: “Run there!” So Christine and I did the very next day for lunch–jumping on metro line 1 and off at Bastille, closing our eyes to resist the temptations of the fabulous January sales on Faubourg St. Antoine, then hooking a left on Rue de Charonne in the 11th.

Whew, we were just about the first customers, and it was a good thing since the tiny place filled up to bursting in the next quarter hour. Who knew this was a Paris institution?

Anne-Catherine Bley (pictured) opened it 9 years ago with a single concept and hasn’t changed it one bit since then: Six freshly made, homemade soups every day but Sundays and holidays, 12 noon to 3, then 6:30 to 11pm. For 5 euros, you can sit down (or take out) a big bowl of soup, a fabulous seedy roll, and a sparkling carafe of water spiced with fresh lime. OR, for 9,90 euros you can settle down with the “formule.” This last means 1) a big bowl of soup with bread; 2) a choice of really delectable cheese, salad, or dessert; and 3) a glass of wine or coffee or tea. Carafe d’eau, of course, if you ask for it–it’s required by law for all French restaurants.

I got the pois chiche à l’orientale–a nice chunky little soup with chickpeas, tomatoes, a little pepper, and the surprise of plumped sultanas; Christine settled on the crème de carottes . We chose; we took a window seat; we were served; and we had the best time soaking it all in. Attractive and slim Anne-Catherine bustling over her soups like a mother hen (haven’t I always told you that the more soup you eat, the slenderer you’ll be?). Young, enthusiastic serveurs. Attractive setting with down lights; charcoal granite floor; blond, stainless, and glass counter crowned with dramatic flowers and revealing the soups of the day like an artist’s palette; and large oil portraits on white walls of a big fat turnip, a fennel, a tomato, and a beet. In the back room, racks of newspapers and magazines stood by to charm and stimulate the clientele. Because this wasn’t a snooty, stylish crowd at all. This was tweedy professors, and students in jeans and back packs, and young arty professionals with laptops. Possibly the 21st century de Beauvoir was in the back room arguing and slurping and writing.

The soups are very nice and very French and very much in season. This week, lots of creamy vegetable soups–carrot; red pepper; mushroom; broccoli; pumpkin; chestnuts; peas–sometimes spiced with a little mint or citrus, sometimes smooshed with the housewife’s favorite soup cheese, La vache qui rit. Lentil soups. Some surprises of borshch or celery with blue cheese.

Do I recommend this place? You know I do. Anne-Catherine delivers the goods: she says, Car une soupe c’est bon, c’est simple et c’est surtout pas triste ! , or “Because a soup is good, is simple, and above all never sad.”

Courez-y!
Le Bar à soupes
33 rue de Charonne
75011 Paris
01.43.57.53.79
www.lebarasoupes.com