The most interesting wine of the night was “The Picrate” from Eric Callcut, a funky, slightly oxidized natural wine from the Loire that tastes like limestone and clarified butter. Callcut doesn’t sweat the rules, so the wine is designated as a vin de table, the most common rating. Still, it’s a wine for collectors, impossible to find.

The most interesting diners of the night were these three gentlemen, sitting in a room too small to be a room, at a table too small for such appetites. When their cheese course was served the tray was clamped to the side of the table.

They were the first to arrive and the last to leave. They punctuated conversation with expressions only the French are allowed to make.

The cheese course at le Comptoir du Relais. Or: Thanksgiving in Paris.

The cheese course is a part of the set menu - the waiter brings a tray and leaves you to it.

Also on the set menu that night: scallops roasted in the shell with black trumpet mushrooms; a single Breton lobster raviolo in a frothy bisque with vinegar pearls rolling around the bowl; milk-fed veal seared on the plancha; (one of us ordered the lièvre façon royale, rabbit in its own blood - intense, elegant, rich); and mousse with tropical fruits and lait ribot ice cream. Caramels come with the check.