Rather late but never too late: a great restaurant in Paris

I should have written this one almost on my first entry. However I never did. Today while organizing some business cards I found their BC and I could not resist any longer :-)
During 2006 and 2007 one of my best friends Juan Villalobos was the CFO of ING Direct in France. He did live in the St. Germain district (on the 6th). Juan is a Cosmopolitan guy but inside him he is a Cuenca (in La Mancha, 2 hours from Madrid and a magical city) born and raised and feels very proud of his origins. So obviously he did know about a Cuenca born chef who also happen to be 5 minutes from his house (the restaurant used to be at 10, rue Saint Julien and has sinced moved to 45 Quai des Grands Augustine, about 10m from its original location) and in my opinion one of the most creative and yes riskiest chefs (in terms of "Gastronomioe Espagnole") that I know. The restaurant name Fogon (formerly Fogon St. Julien)
Another great advantage of going there with Juan is that we did not even bother to order. The Chef Alberto Herráiz (extremely well known and with many different cooking books already published) will come out and suggest the tapas we should try that day. Then gave a choice of different rice dishes and then voila, the result was always amazing
So here the star plate is the Rice. But again this is a risky place :-) so don't come here expecting a normal paella or the ones serve to most of tourist. Alberto plays with many different ingredients (from french influenced by using foie to all types of seafood, Jamon Iberico (ham), meat or vegetables) and many different ways to cook the rice (caldoso, meloso, seco). So throw away your expectations and just get ready to discover new ways to flavor rice. He also follows a similar line with tapas (never too many on the menu, just a selection) and top of my mind is always his inventive gazpacho (Cold soups in different formats). Now I remember a lettuce gazpacho that was as special as different as delicious)
And by the way as a final note he always uses mineral water "Solan de Cabras", from Cuenca, with some old design bottle that it is just great (and this happened much earlier that the fashion industry has discovered this brand)

Fogon (formerly Fogon St. Julien
45 quai des Grands Augustins - 75006 Paris -
(+33) 01 43 54 31 33
fogon@fogon.fr
http://www.fogon.fr/en/index.html