Aux Deux Amis

45 rue Oberkampf, 75011 Paris

Remember fun? Aux Deux Amis isn’t a restaurant so much as a weather system. A humid, joyous front of noise, bodies, bottles, and heat pressing up against the glass on Rue Oberkampf. It’s the Paris of late-night promises, a room where wine flows with the stubborn insistence of a flood and the food tastes like the cooks are trying to keep up with the appetite of the crowd.

Plates arrive fast, loud, unbothered by symmetry or fuss, carrying flavors that punch and hug at the same time. A mussels escabèche so bright it could sharpen a knife. Jamón sliced thin and shimmering, draped on a plate like soft scandal. Warm octopus and potatoes, glossy with olive oil and paprika, the sort of thing you tear apart between conversations. A windfall of fried things that you nibble on between cigarette breaks, and let me tell you, you will have at last half a dozen of both.