Bubar
There is no better way to spend a casual evening in Paris than sipping wines in one of the many wine bars scattered through the city. Bubar is a cozy, hidden wine bar located near the Bastille, and it’s one of my favorites. Packed with old friends and locals in-the-know, the simple bar has a casual, inviting allure about it. There are tall stools and standing room around the bar and old wooden tables (and a vintage school desk) fill out the rest of the space. The bearded owner is very nice and helpful in choosing wines and provides a selection of cheeses, olives, and fruits to accompany the wines. With a good choices by-the-glass and an even greater selection by-the-bottle, the owner can steer you toward something in your taste. Oddly enough for a French wine bar, the wine list shows no allegiance to French wines. The owner prides himself of finding uncommonly good wines for a reasonable price. We had a few wines from Argentina, Spain, and -of course- France.
The name of the bar is actually a clever pun on the owners beard. A popular style of French slang is to inverse the syllables of a word to create a new, different word that means the same thing. This is called verlan (the name is itself an inversion of the French word for “inverse”, “l’envers”). The French word for bearded is barbu, and the slang would be bubar. To up the cleverness quotient, the phrase “bu bar” literally means “drink bar”.
So after a nice dinner, show up with some friends, chat with the barbu owner, and have a nice glass of wine. And yes, you are allowed to feel clever knowing the origin of the bar’s name.
Just don’t confuse it with Babar…
0 comments
