PARIS - Secluded in private apartments, unmarked buildings, blind alleys and underground caverns, a host of hidden new hangouts has sprung up in the City of Light¡¯s shadows.

At one end of the spectrum are small supper clubs like Hidden Kitchen and the even more obscure Chez Nous, Chez Vous, the offspring of a Brazilian couple who left dead-end jobs in their native country to train as chefs at Le Cordon Bleu. On the other are splashy and super-expensive hotels like La Reserve, a spread of 10 luxury apartments that occupy an anonymous upscale building just off the fashionable Place du Trocadero.

Together, this new crop of eating spots, crash pads, galleries and salons forms a sort of private Paris - one that hovers below the normal tourist radar and chugs along quietly by word of mouth and mentions from the global blogging cognoscenti.

For those in the know, the reward is a distinctive Parisian experience. For the proprietors, being out of public view and restricting access offers greater autonomy and much more intimacy with clients.

¡°More than an opportunity to cook, we just wanted to have an opportunity to make friends,¡± said Braden Perkins, an American who, with his girlfriend, Laura Adrian, started Hidden Kitchen.

¡°We figured we¡¯d do this once a month, invite some cool strangers, get some cool people at the table, strike up a conversation and from that meet some new people,¡± he said . The concept quickly caught on, and now the pair serves two dinners a week for 80 euros. The menu - which Mr. Perkins described as ¡°new American, pan-European¡± - changes every month.

For my education in food¡¯s essential companion - wine - I returned to the Louvre district, ducked under a darkened archway along the Rue de l¡¯Arbre Sec, crossed an open courtyard and wound down some poorly lighted stairs into a stone cavern.

I was greeted by Olivier Magny, a jovial, fast-talking 29-year-old Frenchman. Like the creators of Hidden Kitchen and Chez Nous, Chez Vous, he had abandoned his previous career path ? as a business student - to pursue his dream: teaching foreigners about the complexities of Burgundies, Sauternes and other French wines.

¡°I always liked the idea of wine,¡± he said . ¡°It had a bit of poetry. Every time I went to a wine tasting or a winery I found people to be really joyful.¡±

In 2004 he founded O Chateau, his wine-tasting operation, which began organizing events in the most costeffective and cozy place he could find: his parents¡¯ apartment.

By January 2009, the operation had grown so much - an array of 15 to 20 wine tastings, wine lunches, Champagne cruises and other events per week - that he moved the business literally underground. Fittingly, the subterranean space, known as Les Caves du Paradis, long ago was the private wine cellar of King Louis XV. Though the fast-rising O Chateau has begun to appear in tourist guides, the cellar location still feels like a speakeasy.

¡°I want people to feel like guests, not clients,¡± Mr. Magny explained. ¡°I like the fact that it¡¯s off the main tourism track in Paris.¡±

The most innovative new hangout in ¡°private Paris¡± is the Box in Paris, stashed amid the neon-lighted boulevards and porn theaters of Pigalle, the city¡¯s notorious red-light district.

Conceivably, you could see an art exhibition there in the afternoon ; take in a film, a literary reading or a rock concert in the evening (there¡¯s one event per week); crash for the night in one of the two rentable guest rooms (each furnished like a boutique hotel room); then wake up for a breakfast.


By SETH SHERWOOD


TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Olivier Magny, center, owns the wine-tasting bistro ? Chateau, which has a speak-easy feel because of its subterranean locale.