Buvette

Buvette is easy to overlook. Situated on a quiet block in the West Village, it’s narrower than most coffee shops. The bar takes up nearly half the space in a restaurant lined with little cafe tables on one side and a communal table in back. It’s so petite it’s practically miniature.

Recently a French expat we know recommended Buvette as one of the most authentic French restaurants in Paris. Vraiment? Chef Jodi Williams wrote the book on small Italian plates at Gusto, Morandi, Gottino and more. And now she was cooking the most authentic French food in the city? There have been several positive reviews of Buvette, but this recommendation was what convinced us to go.

The space is decorated with the same offhand finesse that French women demonstrate in the art of scarf tying. Beneath tin ceilings and Art Deco pendant lights, lady apples act as a centerpiece, a map on a chalkboard delineates the wines, and vintage champagne buckets and silver trays hang on the wall. It’s very practical, but it’s also chic.

Another reason we hadn’t been so far: Buvette doesn’t take reservations, and the system for getting a table is somewhat confusing. The host wouldn’t even take our name until all were present, though the wait was only 15 minutes on a Tuesday night at prime time. With space at a premium, you may have to wait outside or wedged into a corner. Another point of confusion is the menu, because the dishes that appear here as small plates are often massive in Paris. A petit cassoulet? Oxymoron. Our waitress filled us in on the basic rule of thumb here: order two dishes per person and plan on sharing.

A starter of leeks ($9) is cooked in the French style, braised until falling apart and tender. But the leeks, which have a very delicate flavor as a rule, could use more oomph from some sea salt of a spritz of lemon.

Buvette’s terrine ($8) of country pate with cornichons, pictured at top, is textbook: very good, flavorful ground pork dotted with fresh pistachios, the whole slab ridged in a border of fat. A spoonful of excellent whole grain dijon mustard (Maille?) rests alongside. We only wished the portion had been bigger. They’re usually quite generous with their terrine in Paris – where restaurants like Aux Fins Gourmets actually let you serve yourself. Here we could only get a tiny bit each between four of us.

The cassoulet ($15), with its wonderfully porky sauce, silky with beans that have been stewing for hours, loaded with generous chunks of sausage and a whole chicken leg, was not just good as but better than many you’ll find in Paris. This is wintery French slow food at its finest.

The sauce of the coq au vin ($15) is also exactly as it should be, rich and plummy with wine, dotted with soft browned globes of mushrooms and stewed chicken legs that are smaller and leaner than most you’ll find in the U.S. It’s deeply satisfying, elegant yet homey.

Buvette has several specials listed on a chalkboard, including rabbit à la moutarde ($15) that night. Here was more of that great whole grain country mustard, then cream, and the licorice-y perfume of tarragon taking it all to the next level. Despite American perception of rabbit, this dish actually tasted less gamey than the chicken, more refined.

Another special of fried sardines ($15) was piled with wilted onions, pine nuts, raisins and just a little bit of fishy sauce seeping into charred toasts below to excellent effect.

There are a number of good and reasonably priced wines here, including the versatile Cotes du Roussillon Villages Bila-Haut ($41). Though there are only a couple of desserts, do not skip them: the chocolate mousse ($8) is superb.

Some of our apprehensions turned out to be well founded: it is indeed difficult to share a mini cast iron pot of cassoulet without slopping it all over the table and turning it into hacked up pieces of meat. It’s also tricky to filet a sardine for sharing. We were only allotted one small salad plate per person for the whole meal, and no matter how much detritus built up – chicken bones, mussel shells, various sauces – no one offered to refresh the plates for us.

The mussels ($12) were a disappointment. Not only was the sauce too thick and gloopy, half of the mussels hadn’t opened. That’s $6 worth of mussels, nothing to sneeze at in a small plates meal. When we pointed this out to our waitress, she paused for a moment, considering, then offered to pry the uncooked mussels open for us at the table. Mon dieu! One wishes that Mr. Carson of Downton Abbey could somehow consult servers of today. Furthermore, our friend’s inquiry about the possibility (albeit slim) of getting a birthday party of 20 people somewhere, anywhere into Buvette at 4pm on a Saturday, met with scoffing. Impossible, she said, because “Jodi books this table months in advance.”

Well, if you aren’t already on a first-name basis with chef Jodi Williams, perhaps you will be soon. With cooking this good and a string of successful restaurants in her wake, it seems like only a matter of time before she’s as well known as some of her more-famous peers. As for Buvette, at times wonderful, romantic and enchanting, at times exasperating, it is indeed truly French.

Buvette
42 Grove Street, between Bleecker and Bedford
212-255-3590 ilovebuvette.com

No reservations. Menu on Menu Pages.