Chef Mashama Bailey and her business partner, John O. Morisano, in front of their latest restaurant, L’Arrêt by the Grey, in Paris’s Left Bank.

I had three days on the ground. My first stop after dropping my bags was E. Dehillerin, the legendary kitchen supply store favored by Julia Child and more recently Kamala Harris, famous for its vast supply of copper pots. Inside the rustic market that’s served Parisian chefs since 1820, I found canelé molds, escargot tongs, nutmeg mills, metal pastry bags, duck presses, syrup pans, vinegar cruets, mezzaluna knives—you name the specialty kitchen tool, and they have it. Punching above my weight class, and unable to speak the level of French that their complex numerical pricing system demands, I bought a single slotted fish spatula and hauled tail out of Les Halles for a taste of my home state. 

Last fall, chef Mashama Bailey and her business partner John O. Morisano, of the two-time James Beard award-winning restaurant The Grey in Savannah, Georgia, opened their second restaurant in Paris’s Left Bank. It is called L’Arrêt by the Grey and it serves Port City Southern food to Parisians who, according to the New York Times, are gaining more interest in the cuisine. 

Six months in, Bailey told me that the standard difficulties of opening a new restaurant are all there, but “we are feeling those pains you feel when you’re finding your stride.” L’Arrêt occupies a corner space just a few blocks from the Seine, with a handful of outdoor tables and inside, Minnie Riperton playing over portraits of Cole Porter and James Baldwin for American tourists and locals alike. My eyes lit up when I saw Hoppin’ John (black eyed peas cooked with rice and ham hocks) on the menu, which I grew up eating in Atlanta every New Year’s Day for luck in the year ahead.

Bailey said French customers have taken a particular liking to some of the Southern specialties on the menu, like cornbread, braised greens, and deviled eggs. There was also salsa macha duck, shrimp toast, hand pies, and cockles served with lobster reduction and lime. Though the menu was emphatically Southern, my dining partner and I left feeling the food tasted decidedly French.

Painter and hobbyist food critic Henry Taylor at Le Vaudeville. His opinion on the monkfish? “It’s like catfish, but HARDER.”

A nyhow: fashion week. All weekend, while mingling in Le Marais at the creative set’s trifecta of brasseries, Le Progrès, La Perle, and Café Charlot, a few new restaurants kept coming up. Those in the fashion game were keen on nabbing reservations at Tarantula, a new Northern Mexican-influenced small-plates bar in the 11th arrondissement, Dandelion, chef Antoine Villard’s buzzy restaurant in the 20th, and Clamato, the seafood-heavy sister-restaurant to Septime. 
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