Jody Williams Dishes On Buvette NYC Vs. Buvette Paris
Buvette chef Jody Williams never had formal culinary training, but what she lacked in a degree and textbook pronunciations she made up for in passport stamps and real world language barriers. The California native spent six years working her way through kitchens in Italy before returning to New York to open Buvette in 2011, the West Village's very first gastrothèque — not a traditional restaurant, not a bar and not Italian. "My first experiences were in intensely French kitchens — that never leaves you," Williams explains. "And, who doesn't want to eat pots of cassoulet today?"
While Greenwich Village was the obvious place for Williams to lay down additional roots (she had been cooking in the neighborhood for decades), she wasn't one to settle down. "I couldn't imagine just living in one place," she says. "I wanted to branch out, I wanted to be able to go back and forth. I wanted two different neighborhoods." So in September 2013, she opened a second location in Paris's bustling Pigalle neighborhood, where Parisians swiftly filled seats — to Williams' surprise. "I've always thought that Parisians don't queue, but they do queue — they just queue in a perfectly straight line." A wait for Williams' tarte tatin isn't the only thing these pond-spanning gastrothèques have in common. Read on for more similarities and differences that the sister spots share.
Number of seats
NYC: 50
Paris: 40
Number of staff
NYC: 40
Paris: 16
Most popular dish
NYC: Steak tartare
Paris: Coq au vin
Tie: Chocolate mousse
Busiest Night
Both locations: Saturday
Williams on partying in Paris: "Pigalle is wild, huh? I'm so impressed with how people party in Paris. They hang out the window partying. We go outside in the morning and see all the cigarette butts on the sidewalk and are like, 'man, we were really busy!'"
Purveyors
NYC: Saxelby Cheese, Westwind Orchard
Paris: L'Arbre à Café (coffee), Kalios (olives and olive oil)
Williams on Parisian purveyors: "They don't want to share. You have to knock on their door three times to introduce yourself. They want to know who you are. 'Who are you? I only sell to friends,' they'd say. It took all summer long."
Biggest challenge
NYC: The volume
Williams: "When you run a business that's a real buvette — a neighborhood, walk-in, no reservations spot — you have to take care of everybody that walks in the door. And when it gets really busy and you have to tell someone it's a two-hour wait, that's really challenging."
Paris: The unknown
Williams: "You have your questions answered only through this experience."
Biggest advantage
NYC: The volume
Paris: Taking tradition and doing it untraditionally
Williams: "We like going to Paris and doing a New York-style service. You're waiting for your kids after school, and you want a Manhattan and a plate of cheese? Making ourselves that available and that warm is what's really rewarding."
Average check price
NYC: $30-32
Paris: €25 (~$30 U.S.)
Favorite season to cook
Both locations: Fall
Williams: "I like that moment of Indian summer, when you get to September and October and you still have the best remnants of summer and you have fall coming in. I love that moment when you're getting the first glimpses of squash and radicchio. I also love cooking for the holidays — pumpkin pie and galette de roi and those holiday markers."
Music
Both locations: Early jazz
Williams: "I want to create an environment that sends you somewhere else — music that has energy. Joe Venuti, Django Reinhardt, Old Dixie Blues."
Wines
NYC: By the glass
Paris: By the bottle
Coffee
NYC: Preference for cappuccinos
Paris: Preference for espresso
Most popular social media outlet
Both locations: Instagram (@buvettenyc; @buvetteparis)
Interior design
Both locations: vintage, used, lost and found, tin ceilings from Brooklyn, Toledo industrial stools from Ohio, carrera marble
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Buvette NYC, 42 Grove Street, 212-255-3590, New York, 10014, newyork.ilovebuvette.com
Buvette Paris, 28 Rue Henry Monnier, Paris, 9th arrondisement, +33 1 44 63 41 71, paris.ilovebuvette.com