PARIS > EATING
EATING / DRINKING / SHOPPING / SEEING / SLEEPING
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If you think it's weird when people say “snails” and not escargot then you’ll probably enjoy the following restaurants, ranging from haute, national cuisine to basic regional dishes. Did you notice the faux pas I just made in using “restaurant” as an umbrella term for eatery? If you’re not quite there yet in your introduction to French cuisine, then you’ll qualify for the consumer equivalent of a Michelin star after studying our list.
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French
The restaurants on our list are bound together not only by their patriotic choice of cuisine, but by the locally sourced foods and wines they serve (a lot of them do anyways). As you work through this list, play a game of “guess what this store used to be”, because the answers couldn’t be further from the restaurants that occupy them today.
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1. Arpege
Vegan friendly haute cuisine curated by a chef that has not only mastered the art of cooking but also the art of storytelling.
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2. Epicure
The meat and fish that lie on the beds of exquisite vegetables, under the chandeliers that hang from roof of the equally as exquisite Le Bristol Paris, are sustainable being that they’re locally sourced and from wild fisheries respectively.
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3. Lasserre
Notice those decorated saucepans in your menu designating signature dishes? Back in the ‘50s, actual mini porcelain saucepans were given to female diners as mementoes.
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4. Septime
Step right up! Come, pull up a front row seat and watch Chef Grebaut tantalize all, from the haute to the nouvelle diner, in his modern bistro in the 11th arrondissement.
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5. Les Parigots
For a relaxed meal, visit this very French bistro. We recommend brunch, the most relaxing meal of the day (when you’re on holiday brunch switches from an irregular meal to a regular one).
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6. Vivant Cave
With professional fish slapping-dancers running what was formerly an exotic bird shop, this restaurant certainly packs a lot of character - and that extends to their dishes. In the words of many guests compelled to leave words of gratitude on Facebook, it’s simply Parfawww.
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7. Clamato
If you’re Canadian, then be warned, this isn’t where you come to swig back your national drink with your fellow country people. While in homage to the juice and designed to resemble the Canadian outback, this is a bona fide oyster bar.
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8. Le Chateaubriand
The one that started bistronomy in Paris and gave some of the restaurants on this list their wings. Besides wanting a punch of Basque flavour, the eight course tasting menu is only 77 euros!
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9. Le Bistrot Paul Bert / Le 6 Paul Bert
For classic French bistro fare pull up a seat at Le Bistrot Paul and order the house specialty, steak fries. If huge portions aren’t your thing head down the road to Le 6 Paul Bert, where small plates of more creative ensembles are served.
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10. Le Loir dans La Théière
Named for the dormouse in the teapot at the Mad Hatter’s party. Here you’ll be sure to get baked...goods that is! On top of the lemon tart meringue to celebrate your un-birthday, order lunch and stop by for weekend brunch.
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11. Monsieur Bleu
Museums restaurants, governed by the altruistic museum ethos of ensuring accessibility to the public, are usually reasonably priced and well designed. The restaurant of Palais de Tokyo isn’t only an extension of the museum that houses it, but an experience of food as art, and, with the Tour Eiffel in plain view, a door to the city.
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12. L'Avant Comptoir
You catching the train out of here in a few hours and haven’t got time for a sitdown dinner. But I’ve hardly made a dent in my must-try list! Small and with no chairs, though run by a classically trained chef, L’Avant Comptoir is where to go to satisfy your neo-bistro cravings, avant de partir.
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13. Frenchie / Wine Bar / Frenchie To Go
The holy trinity lives among us in restaurant form. Frenchie To Go, inspired by the BBQ joints of New York and the breakfast cafes of London, was in turn inspired by a customer bringing a pulled pork sandwich to the Wine Bar which serves smaller plates of the food from the one that started it all - Frenchie.
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14. Breizh Café
As far back as Japonism, the French and Japanese always did always go well together. You’ll know what we mean when you taste an ikura and crème fraîche galette. And chances are you didn’t grow up with galettes so prepare yourself for the best parceled surprise since Christmas.
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15. Chez Aline
Just 5 euros for a one ingredient sandwich baguette. Given how long it probably took you to find, you’d probably want as many ingredients a sandwich can hold to rid you of your hunger. Oh, and you know how octopus has been on your mind since Clamato? Go crazy with Chez Aline’s tentacle salad - it’s only 4 euros!
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16. Roger la Grenouille
Somehow the clichéd image of a snooty looking waiter, with a center part and pencil moustache, lifting up a silver cloche to reveal frog’s legs while saying the benediction “bon appétit” has been overwritten with the image of a neo-bistro. Keep Jean-Bob’s ‘leg’acy alive by visiting this institution in the Latin quarter.
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17. Les Deux Magots
Grandma Cafe de Flore’s only surviving friend. When both get together the stories are unreal (literally they’re about the Surrealists who dined there almost a century ago). If you’ve any appetite left from savouring the restaurant’s rich literary heritage, up your traditional French dish repertoire and order (don’t worry, Hemingway will finish it if you can’t).
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18. Au Bistro
When the desserts section of the menu eclipses the mains, you know you’re at a place that values conviviality. And Au Bistro, with its penchant for good wine and tasty “without fail” classic bistro dishes, is the place you always wish you end up whenever you’re at the point of starvation in a deadlock debating where to eat.
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19. Cafe des Deux Moulins
Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, Amélie - three icons of Paris the cafe represents. Combined, they create a force that turns even the biggest of cynics into romantics. Where to take sufferers of Paris syndrome.
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20. Le Petrelle
Even those morbidly afraid of dust and old things will dare to dine at Jean-Luc André’s parlour, for stepping inside is like having a past life regression - where the tarnished silverware transforms right before your eyes to look as new as the day they were made.
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21. Aux Lyonnais
The best Lyonnaise food in Paris is served at this Ducasse run, century-old bistro. While in all this time the regional cuisine served has stayed the same, the dishes have become a little lighter and more accessible. Peckish for pike fish? Order the Lyonnaise favorite “quenelle with Nantua sauce”.
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Italian
Still asserting themselves in the Paris scene, the hunger for collaboration is strong among the city’s Italian restaurants. Some of the most honest and best works are created in these early stages, when the restaurant is still humble. So, enjoy the effort and unbridled creativity while you can and, in doing, so support them.
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1. Pizza Chic
Wanted to go to Italy on your Eurotrip but could only do France? Order an artichoke pizza, take a bite, and hey presto you’ve just saved on flights and time.
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2. Tondo
Like its creator, Tondo is an Italian who’s fallen in love with France. An Italian that loves France loves working with French ingredients and impressing his French friends with his mastery though has nonna recipes on standby for whenever he misses www.
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3. Daroco
Don’t judge a restaurant by its cover, judge it by the magazines that choose to feature Daroco. And with a write up in a number of interior design mags, your visit to Daroco will be as much for its vintage industrial design as for its rustic trattoria dishes.
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4. Faggio
Even humble Parisian pizzeria’s can’t help but look effortlessly chic. Inspired by the pizza trucks the owner, the man behind L’Entrée des Artistes, saw growing up in Southern France, Faggio has an exciting pizza repertoire with a few white pizzas in the mix.
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5. Caffe Stern
Alberto, the learned Venetian leather craftsman with a fox as an alter ego, played the game “in style of…” and got the genres of restaurant + magic realism. The site? None other than a former engraver’s workshop. The decor? A taxidermied fox with wings… and the food? The essence of Venetian cuisine.
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American
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1. Ralph’s
Where to bring your bags to be admired. If you love Ralph Lauren’s aesthetic, quality of fabrics, and fragrances then you ought to dine at Lauren’s own namesake restaurant so that you can say ⅘ of your senses have had the Ralph Lauren treatment.
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2. Holybelly
Like the most interesting people we know, Holybelly cannot be described with just one label. Most similar to a Melbourne style café for its friendliness and delicious fare, served daily from 9-5, ranging from classic French to Southern comfort, the many varieties of food give you an impression of the depth of character of this place.
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Middle East
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1. L’As du Fallafel
Like any great muse, L’As du Fallafel has at least two love songs written for. See what’s got Lenny Kravitz calling this place his favorite by having the falafel special for lunch and then guess which one of his hits is dedicated to it.
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2. Le Mansouria
You’re the sort of person that would love to get to know the creative mind behind the products you’re into. That’s why you love VTC and why you’re going to take an instant liking to Le Mansouria, where head chef, Fatema Hal, is an ethnologist, writer, and leading figure in North African gastronomy.
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3. Miznon
The best burritos, wraps, sandwiches etc. are filled with food that, on their own, are delicious standalone meals e.g. a burrito filled with your breakfast plate of scrambled eggs and home fries and the ubiquitous ramen burger. Imagine a charred, chewy, yeasty pita filled with beef bourguignon or tarte Tatin! Paradisiaque.
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Healthy / gluten-free
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1. Noglu
We don’t like the negative connotation of “dietary restriction” or the sombre “oh...” that results from letting it be known you observe a gluten-free diet. N'importe quoi! GF foods have the most fun! Noglu is one of the fine restaurants that’s turning the axiom of “good-tasting bread contains gluten” on its head. The only label you’ll feel weighing you down on your trip to Paris is the one of tourist being that you won’t be able to take-away everything you haven’t yet tried.
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2. Jaja
You’re not the only one who has La Vie en Rose on shuffle in your inbuilt “Paris” playlist. Quaint locations are definite triggers for the chanson classic, and, set among the café-lined side streets of the 4th in a hidden courtyard, Jaja (slang for “wine”) is one such location. Also, the restaurant is backed by the incarnation of Piaf herself, Marion Cotillard.
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3. Macéo
There’s so many things that catch your eye as you’re seated across the Palais Royale in the airy, Second Empire styled, restaurant. As your professional waiter fills the white tablecloth in front of you up with spectacularly plated dishes it’ll resemble a blank canvas being turned into a work of art, reminding you of the euphoric moments you stepped into each of the Louvre’s grand halls.
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4. La Cantine de La Recyclerie
Last but not least here’s what dining in utopia is like…only responsible food is served here, and that means a menu of local foods, some of which are produced by the organic waste the restaurant collects and feeds to plants and animals in their urban farm. A playground for the bobo locavore, idle away in the a colorful, common dining hall, with a cocktail and plenty of good company and then come full circle with a tour of the tactile garden.
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