Rue des Martyrs: Paris’s eating heart

Paris’s Rue des Martyrs has become a must-visit destination for local and visiting foodies.

Geraldine Leser, manager of Paris’s Maison Bremond 1830.

“What I like about this street is that there are many artisans who specialise in one product,” says Geraldine Leser, manager of Paris’s Maison Bremond 1830, which sells olive oil from hand-picked producers in Provence.

“For example, we have Les Grands d’Espagne, a specialist in the finest Spanish ham, at No 36; Juice Lab, where you can get freshly squeezed fruit and vegetables at No 83; and Popelini at No 44, which sells delicious choux buns in lots of different flavours.” Not to mention the fishmonger, cheesemonger, chocolate shops and award-winning bakeries.

The street to which she refers is Rue des Martyrs, stretching north about 1km from Notre Dame de Lorette church in the ninth arrondissement to about halfway up Montmartre hill.

Diners on the Rue des Martyrs, Paris. Picture: Imagefolk

Over the past 10 years or so, it has become a must-visit destination for local and visiting foodies, especially on Sunday mornings when the southern part is closed to traffic and becomes a kind of open-air market. From North African fruit sellers to hipster dads with their scooter-riding kids, people from all walks of life can be found here. Thanks to the city’s Plan Local d’Urbanisme, it should remain that way because when an artisan shop closes, another must take its place.

Maison Bremond 1830 (No 9) and its next-door neighbour La Chambre aux Confitures, which offers about 100 different flavours of jam including seasonal varieties and unusual combinations such as pear and dark chocolate, both feature in Passport Martyrs from Le Food Trip. To find out more, I meet one of this new food tour company’s three founders, Adrien de Dumast, at nearby KB Cafe Shop (53 Avenue Trudaine), which happens to be one of Paris’s best coffee shops.

“My friends and I all love food, and after studying in France and other countries, we came back to Paris in 2015 and set up Le Food Trip. Originally we just organised tastings for friends at the boutiques of artisans we know but it grew from there as it was so popular,” Adrien tells me. “So we developed a ‘tasting passport’ in the form of a booklet featuring the details of six specialist food shops where the purchaser can go, in their own time, and enjoy a personal tasting and learn more about the products. We began with Rue des Martyrs, because that’s my favourite foodie street, and now we offer ‘passports’ for other parts of Paris and also Lyons.”

Another big fan of Martyrs is Elaine Sciolino, the former Paris bureau chief of The New York Times, who has shopped in the street since she moved to the city in 2002 and now lives nearby. Her latest book, The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs, was inspired by an article she wrote about her favourite fishmonger closing and the effect it had on the neighbourhood.

The resulting work is an engaging and fascinating overview of this ancient thoroughfare, whose name origin is unclear, and also gives great tips for lunch or dinner.

Cafe Miroir (No 94; open daily) is a welcome sight when you’ve climbed to the north end of the street.

Headed by Sebastien Guenard, who formerly worked at Alain Ducasse’s Aux Lyonnais, this neo-bistro and wine bar serves inventive dishes made with top-quality local, seasonal ingredients such as chicken ballotine on a bed of thin, crisp root vegetables; the three-course lunch is excellent value at €19.50 ($27.50). Accompanying wines, mainly organic and biodynamic, are sourced from leading small producers; you can even buy a bottle or two to take away. Cheers to that.

CHECKLIST

Le Food Trip excursions start at €35.

More: le-food-trip.com.

The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs (W.W. Norton; 2016) is about $30 online from local bookstores such as

abebooks.com or booktopia.com.au.