City Guides: Paris - Restaurants
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At Foodtourist we book our Paris accommodation using the Tablet Hotels site. Click on the link below.
This article represents the personal favourites of Foodtourist’s editors Sue Dyson and Roger McShane. These are the places they haunt on their regular visits to Paris.
Paris is the city of unrivalled food opportunities where you can dine at some of the most expensive restaurants in the world, wander to some of the best food shops to be found anywhere or simply sip a cup of coffee while watching café society in action.
If you want to splurge on a 3 star meal then options to consider are L’Astrance, Pierre Gagnaire, the quietly elegant Taillevent, the more radical Arpege or the refined l’Ambroisie.
However, more and more these days we are attracted to the less formal bistros and the tiny cave-à-manger (places where you can buy wine to try there or take away) that somehow seem more connected with the soul of French food.
This style of food probably reaches its purest expression in the funky Le Comptoir run by megastar chef Yves Camdebourde. The food here is deeply rooted in tradition and executed with flawless precision by the chef. A dish of tripe we ate there recently was one of the most soulful dishes we have enjoyed in a long time. Turn up exactly at 12 noon to secure a table if you have not booked an evening meal. The breakfast here is also one of the best in Paris.
Another very special place that we love is Les Papilles. Here you dine in a wine shop with many interesting wines lining the walls. The menu is fixed. Four courses with no choice. But what food! We enjoy the conversations we get into here as people stroll along the shelves trying to choose the best wines to go with their meal. You can choose any wine from the shelves and they will open it for you for a small surcharge. A dish of long cooked pork belly and vegetables we had there recently was superb as was a dessert of pannacotta served in a chunky glass.
For lovers of natural wine (wine produced organically or biodynamically with minimal intervention) there is a place that should be on your 'must-visit' list. This is the funky Racines where the food is delicious and the wines are memorable. The food here is strongly influenced by the owner Pierre Jancou who is of both French and Italian extraction and who cares passionately about the food and wine he serves.
We were amazed by the quality of the Carerra lardo that had been cured in marble by one of leading Italian producers, Fausto Guadagni. and the natural wines from Loire winemaker Claude Courtois whose offerings were simply stunning. Expect dishes such as osso buco to be on the short menu.
Another hot spot where the food is very good is in Rue Saint Dominique in the 7th. Les Cocottes is yet another restaurant in the stable of Christian Constant. Sit at the bar and enjoy one of the many interesting snacks on offer. It is also open all day including breakfast. This restaurant does not take bookings so your chances of getting a table are as good.
No visit to Paris would be complete without a visit to Ribouldingue Restaurant in the 5th. The area around this restaurant is infested by tourists and there are many really bad eating places in the vicinity. However this one is different! Some of the best offal dishes in France are available here. We order dishes such as lamb tongues or marrow bones or a main course of a stunning and sparsely presented whole veal kidney or a dish of tripes au vin blanc and potatoes.
If you want to experience part of the Basque food craze that is sweeping France then a visit to L’Ami Jean in the 7th is a must. The garbure and the rice pudding here are worth a very long journey.
We also have a great deal of affection for Spring in the 9th (although it is likely to move soon). This is a very small restaurant run by an American chef (Daniel Rose) who is receiving a lot of praise from Parisians for his cooking. We have eaten here twice and it has been excellent on both occasions. There are only 16 seats, so make sure you book in advance.
Le Jeu de Quilles is a delightful, tiny restaurant that we discovered on our most recent trip to Paris. There are only a handful of tables seating 19 people. The kitchen is open and the regular customers chat constantly with the laid-back chef. The prices are very reasonable with the fixed-price lunch being only 25 Euros for three courses on the day we were there.
Le Chateaubriand is a wonderful, old-fashioned bistro serving 'new' food in the 11th. The food cooked by Basque chef Inaki Aizpitarte is excellent and sometimes exciting and the wine list is new and clever. Go here for the buzz as much as the food. Sometimes a dish can fail. On one occasion the dessert failed and on another the dessert was superb but others didn’t quite hit the mark.
Other places you might like to experience include La Cave de l'Os a Moëlle in the 15th where the food is served family-style at shared tables, the laid-back Astier in the 13th, the frenetic La Regalade in the 14th and the Alain Ducasse bistro Aux Lyonnais in the 2nd where the pike quenelles in nantua sauce are wonderful. If you want to go to somewhere on the spur of the moment you could also check out L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon which has a no-bookings policy most of the time. Our last meal saw some bad lapses in service but the food is always interesting and it provides a chance to try the famous mashed potatoes.
Good wine bars include Le Verre Vole in the 10th just next to the Canal Saint Martin where the tiny kitchen turns out some very good food to accompany the extensive range of natural wines that are available.
Another place we feel comfortable in is the haunt of locals at the back of the 5th (not the tacky tourist part near the river) called Les Pipos where they stock interesting wines such as the Morgon Cotes du Py of Foillard and Catherine le Goeuil ‘s elegant Cotes du Rhone from Cairanne to accompany soulful dishes such as steak tartar or the incredibly vibrant oysters from Brittany that are always available.
4, Rue Beethoven, 75016
+33 1 40 50 84 40
Métro: Trocadéro
9 Carrefour de l'Odéon, Le Comptoir, 75006
+33 1 43 29 12 05
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Metro: Odeon
30, Rue Gay Lussac, 75005
+33 1 43 25 20 79
Open: Lunch and dinner daily
Metro: Luxembourg
8, Passage des Panoramas, Paris, 75002
+33 1 40 13 06 41
Open: Lunch and dinner Mon - Fri
Metro: Grands Boulevards
10 rue Saint Julien le Pauvre, 75005
+33 01 46 33 98 80
Métro: Cluny – La Sorbonne
181 rue de Lourmel, 75015
+33 1 45 57 28 28
Closed: Monday
Métro: Lourmel
32, rue Saint-Marc, 75002
+33 1 42 96 65 04
Open: Lunch Tue – Fri, dinner Tue – Sat
Metro: Bourse
28, rue de la Tour d'Auvergne, 75009
+33 1 45 96 05 72
Open: Tues –Fri dinner only (Sometimes open Fri lunch)
Metro: Notre-Dame de Lorette
5, rue de Montalembert, 75007
+33 1 42 22 56 56
Lunch and dinner daily
Metro: Rue du Bac
132, rue Saint Dominique, Le Cafe Constant, 75007
+33 1 45 50 10 31
Open daily
Metro: Ecole Militaire
27 rue Malar, 75007
01 47 05 86 89
Closed Sunday and Monday
Metro: Ecole Militaire or La Tour-Malbourg
44 rue Jean-Pierre Timbaud, Astier, 75013
+33 1 43 57 16 35
Lunch and dinner daily. A four course dinner is available for 29.50 euros.
Metro: Parmentier
67 rue de Lancry, Paris, 75010
+33 1 48 03 17 34
Closed: Monday
Metro: Jacques Bonsergent
2 rue de l'Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, 75005
+33 01 43 54 11 40
Metro: Cardinal Lemoine
45 rue Boulard, Paris, 75014
+33 01 53 90 76 22
Metro: Mouton Duvernet
129, Avenue Parmentier, Paris, 75011
+33 1 43 57 45 95