Anyone who goes to Paris to eat will tell you that the city has been steadily tilting east, specially toward the 11th and 12th arrondissements.

Creative types with expensive jeans and well-paying jobs are rediscovering the city's original bohemia. So are a lot of chefs.

The scruffy exteriors of the building along the Rue de Belleville haven't changed, but something is definitely stirring in this bawdy working-class neighborhood tucked into the northeasternmost corner...

Think of this area as a developing photograph, an image progressing from blurred first impression to materialization in detail.

The scene has moved to a collection of fringe neighborhoods that are redefining what it means to be young, hip, and hungry in 21st-century Paris.