We enter Iné a Paris after walking through Bollywood galleries with Indian menus and Afro hair salons in a Bombay-Dakar clash typical of Paris’s 10th district.
The Enghien Street Neighborhood: An Ugly-Cool Place
It’s no wonder this is Jean Paul Gaultier’s favorite neighborhood, whose offices are just a few blocks away. The Enghien Street area is part of one of the most eclectic zones in Paris, among theaters, bars, very hyped restaurants, and a young scene that breaks the myth that to attract followers you need to be in Instagrammable neighborhoods. This neighborhood is ugly-cool, if one can say it that way.
In the middle of these streets full of paradoxes and contrasts, Franco-Japanese Sarah Ueta recreates at Iné a Paris, the new bento bar, an atmosphere between Japanese zen minimalism and that timeless Parisian touch so cool that as soon as you’re settled in, the stress disappears.
A strange cinematic calm settles in: behind the counter, two Japanese women, imperturbable, cutting and chopping vegetables for the bentos; we are no longer in Paris but in one of those Japanese films where everything moves in slow motion. For those of us who aren’t millennials, this place could well have been part of the mythical and now-gone concept store Colette, bringing with it a certain nostalgia for something still recent. Iné a Paris And it’s not without reason, Sarah changed her previous career as a public relations specialist in the fashion world at the prestigious Parisian agency Lucien Pagès (Sacai, Jacquemus, Paco Rabanne, Coperni, Courrèges among others) to dedicate herself to this much more personal project, and we’re greatly thankful for it. How Japanese “zen” minimalism works wonders on the busiest day: we decided to go to Iné before continuing to the airport.
Iné a Paris: The anti-stress session
The anti-stress session comes included in the unbeatable EUR 17 that each costs: They come in 3 options: classic with pork and beef, with cod, and the vegan version with tofu and mushrooms – As accompaniment we have an authentic Japanese garden: rice with edamame, carrot kinpira, pumpkin salad, eggplant in miso sauce, baked zucchini, and marinated red cabbage.
And as kindness isn’t only toward the environment: No jugs of hard water, Sarah welcomes us with a refreshing iced matcha that’s a massage for the senses. Is it possible to go from visual and auditory agitation to a state of inner Japanese garden?
Absolutely, and these bentos, besides being comforting, take the palate on a journey with discreetly contrasted textures and flavor combinations that are harmonious and surprising at the same time. And that’s how Sarah’s personality is, who without saying much, tells a personal story of Japanese comfort food ideal for the urban jungle that Paris can sometimes be in the 2020s.
A Modern Vision of Rice: Tradition and Chic at an Accessible Price
A modern vision that respects tradition, with rice as the star ingredient without artifice and at a more than accessible price, the height of chic. There is millennial tradition in rice and immediate relief to all tribulations of our hyperactive 21st century. The homemade matcha cheesecake cut at the moment (5.50 EUR) like when a friend welcomes you home for dinner, shows us that umami can also be an indescribable and pleasant state of mind. There is happiness in rice. And it’s innate, which is what “iné” means in French.
Iné a Paris https://www.ineaparis.com/
Menus between 21-25 EUR, bentos between 16.50 – 17.50 EUR,desserts 5.50 EUR.
All prices -1 EUR for take-away.
