Rosa Jackson's Edible Adventures

Jambon-beurre. They are just two apparently humble ingredients, yet choose them carefully, tuck them into a crackly-crusted baguette, add a swipe of Dijon mustard and you have one of the world's most extraordinary sandwiches. No-one understands this better than the staff at Le Petit Vendôme in Paris, a boisterous Auvergnat café around the corner from the Hotel Ritz.

Every day, office workers from the area cheerfully line up in front of its takeout window for the best sandwiches in town, made with baguette à l'ancienne from the bakery Julien (one-time supplier to the Elysée Palace) and products brought in directly from the Auvergne. Famed for its cured hams, sausages and Cantal, this once-volcanic region in central France has little time for vegetables: its year-round accompaniment to any meat is aligot, a stringy purée of potato, crème fraîche and fresh tomme cheese. Thus, the only nod to this food group you will find here is the occasional gherkin.

Bite into its jambon-beurre or jambon-cantal*, though, and you will probably agree that in this case a lettuce leaf, or heaven forbid a slice of tomato, would only get in the way of the star ingredients. Men in suits cluster around the bar, savoring every perfectly balanced bite, while those with heartier appetites squeeze into the dining room and order a hefty steak or pungent andouillette with piping-hot frites that taste reassuringly of animal fat (be warned that sandwiches are not served at the tables). Even the rough house Gamay goes down easily in this no-nonsense setting, at least after the first mouth-puckering sip.

* How picture-worthy is this sandwich? Very, but you'll have to take my word for it since my camera's battery ran out at the most inconvenient time.

Le Petit Vendôme, 8 rue des Capucines, 1st, 01.42.61.05.88.

Tags: Paris, Restaurants