La Maison Rose

As a foreigner living in Paris, I often have friends and family visit me here. I always check out places before recommending  and so last week I checked out La Maison Rose. I had seen it many times, thought atmosphere looked good, limited menu usually means better quality and not as cheap as most restaurants at Montmartre. Unfortunately, I was extremely disappointed. The menu is very limited, lots of pasta but not Italian style. I had onion soup which  had literally 2 pieces of onion in onion tasting water and the duck had a very peculiar taste at one end of the piece. Very tourist quality at a high price. Euro 59 for 2 courses and 50cl carafe wine. My advice: go up the hill nearer sacre coeur  for  better value for money!!!!

It was a cool day in early October, and the last one that my husband and I would be spending in the City of Lights after a gorgeous week absorbing all things Parisian.  We stepped out of the Basilique du Sacre Coeur on that last afternoon to a true downpour.  Lagging energy told us it was lunchtime and we had already explored most of our must-try French eateries, so we sought out somewhere warm and close-by.

A few quick blocks away we found La Maison Rose, which was, as the name implies, a charming pink house we had noticed on an earlier walk through those windy Montmartre streets.

Wet clothes and glasses turned steamy as we entered the cozy eatery.  We were kindly welcomed to sit at one of a few small tables and shed layers of soggy outerwear.  Outside we watched as the rain continued to wash off rickety roofs and down steep Parisian cobblestones.  Inside, our bodies warmed by bowls of hot french onion soup (accompanied by a carafe of red wine), we were dry and happy.

It was a quiet, simple meal in an unassuming hideaway: the trendy bustle of many other, more popular restaurants we had enjoyed was replaced here by an almost country-style modesty.  A reminder, perhaps, that historically Montmartre had its own cultural heartbeat, peripheral to Paris' decisively cosmopolitan pulse.

As we were downing our last sips of wine the rain cleared up and the crisp, damp, autumn air invited us back outside.  The rest of the afternoon, just like our respite at La Maison Rose, was sweetly enjoyed as we said goodbye to Paris, at least until memories of French food call us back again.