Still reminiscing about Paris, I have a little Glover Gardens Makes the Bigtime story for you, set at Bistro des Augustins in the City of Lights.
A tiny bistro and wine bar nestled along the Seine at the Pont Neuf, Bistro des Augustins is the REAL DEAL for casual French food, and in my humble opinion, serves the best gratin in the world. Not that I’ve tasted all the gratin in the world, but that isn’t necessary, because of the Bistro des Augustins version. It’s the gold standard.
I wrote about Bistro des Augustins here before, and have been back many times, either alone or with different people in tow, since my first encounter with this little gem in the summer of 2017.
Since I love this place so much (I really do), of course I had to take The Grill-Meister there for dinner on our first day in Paris on our 11th anniversary trip in 2019, which I talked about in yesterday’s post, Time to Go Back to Paris! Travel Day Reminiscing. We both ordered gratin, of course.
Other than my late father, my husband Tom, AKA The Grill-Meister, has always been the biggest champion of the Glover Gardens blog (as it should be, in my humble opinion – he’s got my back). He often tells strangers about it, casually slipping it into conversations (but only when appropriate, of course, he would never be obnoxious about it). It’s nice to know that he’s proud of my hobby. But also, a couple of my most popular posts are his recipes, like the one for the U-Boat Sandwich, which is in the top 20 and usually gets hit hard around Super Bowl time.
You can probably see where this is going. While we were at Bistro des Augustins, we got into a conversation with the super-friendly and super-interesting bartender / waiter. After conveying our appreciation for the food, the wine, the service and the ambience, Tom mentioned my blog and the post about Bistro des Augustins (which, by the way, is #10 in all-time popularity on the Glover Gardens blog).
He said something like, “Her blog is called Glover Gardens, and she highlighted this place and especially the gratin. You might enjoy reading it; you can find it at glovergardens.com.” To my surprise, this nice young man said, “Oh, I know, I have read it. I found it when I was googling the restaurant before I started my job here. It sounded like a great place to work.”
Wow, we’re famous! Glover Gardens hits the bigtime across the pond!
I know, I know, it’s a little thing – just a single person looking at my blog post raving about a restaurant across the Atlantic from my computer in Southeast Texas, right? But for me, it hit the target. If I can relate my experiences in a way that’s interesting to someone, somewhere, in a way that I didn’t predict, I’m happy. Knowing that it was a tiny part of the super-friendly, super-interesting bartender / waiter’s experience makes it even better.
This happened in Paris, on our anniversary, and Tom’s eliciting that knowledge from the bartender was a bonus gift for me.
Life is good.
By the way, I can’t tell if our bartender / waiter still works there from looking at the Facebook page, but I can tell you that every other person who has waited on me has had the same wonderfully friendly, slightly cheeky and fun demeanor. They must be really good at hiring, and it seems like they have a terrific work culture.
And there’s good news! Bistro des Augustins survived the pandemic and is once again open for business, with a grand reopening just a couple of weeks ago. There’s expanded seating outside, too.
Bistro des Augustins, we will be back!
© 2021, Glover Gardens
Reminder: this is a non-commercial blog, and any recommendations are strictly my opinion and not a paid advertisement.
