“The earliest and most famous restaurant with an à la carte menu was Beauvilliers’s in the Galerie de Valois, which opened its doors in 1782. The success of Beauvilliers’s, which prided itself on offering dinner as a theatrical performance accompanied by the finest wines of France, was followed by some fifty or so establishments by 1789. The restaurant flourished during the Revolution and its aftermath, and by 1820, Paris boasted over 3,000 places offering luxury food.  One reason for the high quality of such restaurants was that they were often set up by the chefs of the aristocracy, now out of work in the post-Revolutionary period and looking for a way to make an honest living. Another reason for their popularity was that eating expensive food – previously the preserve of the aristocracy – in a public place immediately announced to the world one’s democratic principles.”
Excerpt From Paris: A Secret History by Andrew Hussey

Paris Restaurants

I am not a foodie. I eat of course and I cook reasonably well but I don’t go to wine and food pairings or seek out the best Michelin Star restaurants or spend a fortune on small portions to educate my pallet. I am equally happy with duck pate or liverwurst and the house wine is usually good enough for me. An oyster is an oyster and coming from North Carolina where we buy them and eat them by the bushel, ordering them in Paris for 30 euros per half dozen seems silly. My tastebuds are firmly embedded in peasant food no matter what the cuisine. And for me the brasseries of Paris offered this as the core of their menus no matter what was on the periphery. Beef Bourguignon, roast chicken, steaks or filets of beef with hollandaise sauce, and a variety of potato sides was my mainstay and the terrines, pates, salmon and beef tartares were the entertainment portion of my meals. And though I never ordered one, and regret it now, I saw French and tourists eating the biggest, juciest burgers on the most delicious looking buns, I have ever seen. The French Onion Soup looked like it was served by someone who had drunk way too much coffee or was overdosing on ritalin, with big hunks of bread and melted cheese climbing out of the bowl. In other words perfect.

I had made up my mind that I was going to pretty much stick to the 7th Arrondissment, which is the neighborhood between the Eiffel Tower and Les Invalides, since previous trips were always spent in the historical center of Paris. So almost all our meals were within a few steps of Rue de Grenelle which became my favorite street in Paris. In my aimless wanderings all I had to do was find this street and I could get home, and by following it in an eastern direction I could be in the Latin Quarter in about 20 minutes. By following the river it was a half hour or so on foot to the Louvre and the Marais. The 69 bus took me right back to my hotel and was a much more interesting and enjoyable experience than the metro which took shorter but seemed longer.

The 7th Arondissment is a wealthy neighborhood of Parisians and foreigners, with embassies, educational foundations, small shops, cafes, restaurants, bakeries and a mix of families, tourists, students, armies of children of various ages, going to, coming from, or avoiding school. Rich Americans with multi million euro apartments who roll their eyes at young compatriots taking selfies or influencing on Instagram, and workers for the shops, restaurants and other businesses, offices and classrooms, some who live in the neighborhood and many who just work here. The centerpiece is the Rue Cler, a cobblestone pedestrian street several blocks long of cafes, restaurants, gourmet food shops, delis, and fruit, vegetable and flower markets. This streetis as good a place to hang out and people watch as anywhere in the city.

“The reputation of fine cooking in Paris had been forged in the late eighteenth century with the establishment of its first restaurants (rather than cafés, taverns or mere drinking-holes). Until then, the highest arts of the table had been the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy. The impossible standards that cooks for the aristocracy set themselves were exemplified in the story of François Vatel, cook to the prince de Condé at Chantilly, who stabbed himself to death in 1671 in despair at ‘two failed roasts’ at a dinner and the slow delivery of seafood for a lunch party.”
Excerpt From Paris: A Secret History by Andrew Hussey

Cafe Caillou

Our favorite restaurant on our most recent visit was Cafe Caillou at 210 Rue de Grenelle. We actually stumbled in when we arrived from the airport at the Hotel De Alma at 11am and our rooms weren’t ready so we dumped our bags and went to the closest cafe for a coffee. We ended up having a whole meal of just about everything from oysters to tartare and wine, made friends with the entire staff and came back for dinner that night to eat anything we hadn’t tried at lunch. For the next 10 days we came every day even if it was just for a glass of wine before or after going to eat somewhere else. My daughter, who is an avid oyster lover, possibly due to an old boyfriend who buys, sells and shucks them for bars and parties in Chapel Hill, NC, had high praise for the oysters at Caillou though I have to say as far as I could tell she didn’t meet an oyster she didn’t like the entire trip no matter where we ate them. The staff, Jimmy, Xavier, Johann and the others gave us tastes and lessons on French wine and we rewarded their efforts by ordering glass after glass  and bottle after bottle. The final night Amarandi and I splurged (as if we weren’t splurging every night) on the aged 1 kilo ribeye which is the crowning glory of their meat menu. I loved everything I ate there and their Beef Bourgenion was the standard that all others were measured against. Beef tartare and sea bass tartare for the pescatarians in our group as well as other fish, meat and vegetable appetizers and entrees made me wish I had more nights in Paris. And though you might not notice it until the restaurant clears out or you use the toilet, they play great music, mostly old blues and RnB. They open at 7am for coffee and breakfast too but we never got up early enough and usually went straight from coffee to lunch for the entire trip.

Cheese, Pate and Charcuterie Board Cafe Roussillon

Of course we could not eat all our meals at Cafe Calliou no matter how at home and among friends we felt there. We had excellent meals at both Le Bistrot des Fables and their sister restaurant Le Comptoir des Fables, both on Rue Saint Dominique where we sat at the bar and started with wine and appetizers and by the time we got to our main courses were friends with the bartenders and waiters and anyone within earshot. My wife and daughter continued going to both places for morning coffee and an evening martini with oysters and appetizers while I would go to the bar at the Cafe Roussillon on Rue Cler, to drink draft Trappist Ale and eat from their generous cheese and charcuterie board with my working class pals (and my wife’s sister) all the time messaging back and forth between restaurants until we decided where we were all going to have dinner.

Satori di Parma

There were a couple hole-in-the-wall Italian places that I loved and a dozen others that I wanted to try though I kept telling myself that I didn’t come to Paris to eat pizza and pasta. Nevertheless Sapori di Palma, on Ave de la Bordonnais, is a small Italian grocery store that has a half dozen tables and serves some of the best authentic home style Italian cooking I have ever eaten, possibly because it is cooked, and served by an authentic Italian family from Napoli. On the other hand Le Den on Rue Grenelle is a small authentic Italian restaurant with a chef from Bangladesh who makes amazing pizzas and pastas. I had to fight to get my family to eat here after walking past it several times a day, because it smelled like an Italian restaurant should smell. They were willing to sacrifice a lunch but not a dinner. If I was traveling by myself I would have gone again.

Cafe Marais Salad

While wandering in the Marais one day a sudden downpour caused us to seek shelter in the closest restaurant we could find. La Marais at 47 Rue de Turbigo turned out to be better than we had any right to expect having been chosen out of desperation. A cool bistro with an amazing chevre salad, the usual French dishes, personal pizzas, pastas, burgers, deserts and all the things that French people and tourists love, in a hip, relaxed atmosphere. They played cool music and had friendly waiters too. If you are staying in the area check it out. You will probably go back again.

Le Suffren

On our second night my sister-in-law insisted we go to Le Suffren at Avenue de Suffren and actually in the 11th Aronidissment across the Champs de Mars park from our neighborhood, because she wanted mussels. It is one of those brasseries that have rthe seafood outside so it stays fresh (and doesn't stink up the place). They didn't have any but they had a wonderful selection of seafood with shellfish we have never seen or heard of. It was a very popular brasserie with a large menu of meat, seafood and vegetable dishes plus a large number of drafts and of course a wonderful wine list that made it very hard to choose but the English speaking staff is very helpful with that.

One of my observations was that Paris had more restaurants than shops. I don't know if this is true or not but it seems to me that the Parisians found more pleasure in eating than they did in buying stuff and in my opinion this is a very healthy attitude and made me convinced that Paris was my kind of city, maybe as much as Athens is. Especially since more than half the shops also had food.

The street markets and covered markets like Saint-Germain Market (Marché Saint-Germain), Le Marché des Enfants Rouges (the Red Children Market) and a dozen or so covered or outdoor, are some of my favorite places to visit, even more so than museums. I know a little bit about art and can appreciate it, but I know a lot more about food and appreciate it much more. Being in a hotel and seeing the variety of foods made me long to live in Paris with my own apartment and fully equipped kitchen. Alas my hotel did not even have a kettle to boil water so besides buying a piece of cheese or a sandwich I just wandered the markets like a tourist lost in the Louvre.

Beer, Wine and Coffee

And finally there is Beer and Wine and other more potent spirits in Paris. I am not going to go into detail about any of these because I assume if you have the patience to read this far you are better off reading about French wine written by someone who is passionate about it, and the same goes for beer as well. But I will say that I drink better wine in Paris than I do almost anywhere with the exception of my house on the island of Kea after I have just received a shipment of Assyrtikos from Santorini. Even the cheapest house wine at the most run of the mill brasserie that cost 6 euros a glass was better than the $14 glass at my favorite fancy restaurants in Chapel Hill, NC. And the pours a lot more generous. But since my wife and daughter are both wine connoisseurs I got to drink plenty of the good stuff and the waiters are more than happy to tell you the merits of different wines and the regions they come from. As for beer, like every country in the world these days there is a proliferation of microbrews making IPAs, Lagers, Pilsners and more and most brassieries have at least one or two as well as beers that are standard for them but probably new to you, from France, Belgium, Germany and Brooklyn. The best beer I had was at an actual beer tasting at Le Manoir Vins et Épicerie Fine at 187 Rue de Grenelle. The beer was called GODE and it was almost like a Champagne but definitely still a beer. It comes from a brewery in Flanders and at 38 euros a bottle you will probably be saving it for a special occasion but it was the best thing I tasted in Paris whether it was a beer, wine champagne or something in between. See their website. As for coffee it seems that not all the brasseries have embraced the high-octane psychosis-inducing coffee that we in the far west have grown used to and need to function. My theory was that they serve coffee that makes you come back for more, not because you like it but because you need it to reach your normal level of functionality. But if you look carefully you will see that there are small specialty gourmet coffee shops in most neighborhoods so you can get your fix and later drink the normal cafe coffee as the price you pay for people watching until it is late enough to drink wine.

Paris Before 2024

I am not an expert on French Cuisine but I know what I like and in Paris I liked almost everything I ate.  If you have never been to Paris or have not been there enough to really know about French food I recommend to find a website about it and study it and write down the names of the things you think you might like to try because you may find yourself in a restaurant where the menu is only in French, which can be the case in some of the best restaurants. You may find an accommodating waiter who will translate one or two things on the menu for you but it is unlikely he will go line by line until you pick something. Some of the guidebooks will have a section on French food and what to order and if they don't they should but it depends on the size of the book. The popular pocket guides that are easy to carry around usually don't have a lot of space to go into detail besides giving you a general overview and recommending a few restaurants. So just as you would take a course on European Art and History before going to Paris, spend some time studying the food. Our first night we ate at a small Bistro called Le Lutin dans le Javulin (now closed) on rue Git-le-Coeur, a tiny street that runs between Rue Andre-des-Arts and the river, about a block from the giant statue of St Michel killing the dragon at Place de St Michel. There was one other couple there and the young waiter had plenty of time to explain what everything was in English. It was a very nice dinner for a first night in Paris and the fact that my daughter refused to leave the hotel with us made it easier to fumble along, making mistakes in French, without her criticizing us. That experience and a little bit of reading gave us the courage and the comfort level to eat in any restaurant whether the menu was in English or not. And since then almost all the restaurants have English menus, the waiters are happy to explain things in English without making you feel like an idiot, and in case you actually are one, almost every brasserie/restaurant had a hamburger of some kind because believe it or not, the French eat them too. (I haven't yet but I want to. They looked really good).

There are several catagories of Paris eating places starting at the top-end gourmet places which usually have a name chef and will cost almost as much as your airfare, and more if you flew Easyjet. Bistros, Brasierres, Creperies and Cafes all serve food and are generally in the affordable range. They usually have a menu and some daily specials (plat du jour) and often they will have a set price menu as well where for say 25 euros a person you get an appetiser, a main course and desert. There are plenty of fastfood places too and you can eat well for little, feasting on souvlaki, gyros, falafil and the baguettes and pastries you will find in shops all over the city. If you are staying in the Latin Quarter the famous Rue de Huchette is full fastfood places and 'traditional' French and Greek restaurants though I have yet to see a guidebook that recommends them.  There are also some sit-down Greek restaurants in the same neighborhood that advertise the adventures that await you inside with a pile of broken plates at the entrance. They also have live music.  If seeing is believing then I would take a chance on something middle-eastern or Greek if I was hungry and poor or didn't live year-round in Athens where they no longer break plates, but throw flowers instead. As it is I had some spending money and I really don't like dancing on broken plates, or to eat standing up, so here are a  few of the places I went to...

The area between the Square of St Sulpice and Blvd Saint German, more precisely Rue de Cannetes, and Rue Princesse and the streets around them seem to be a can't-miss neighborhood when it comes to just picking out a place by the way it looks and leaving satisfied. My favorite was le Bistrot d' Henri at # 16 Rue Princesse (tel 01 46 33 51 12), a tiny restaurant with a chalkboard full of daily specials and an atmosphere like a Greek basement taverna during Carnival. This is the kind of place you go to Paris for and if you go here first you will have time to eat here again. If it is full try their sister restaurant Chez Julien at 16 Rue Mabillon (tel 01 43 54 56 08) just a couple blocks away which specializes in fish. For both places come early, late or make reservations on weekends. If you are craving Italian food try Pizza Santa Lucia at 22 Rue de Canettes which is as authentically Italian as you will find outside of Italy. It is the only restaurant I have ever been to where I saw a customer have a heart attack and be taken away on a stretcher by paramedics. Yes, its that good.

For a treat, though not an overpriced one go to Brasserie Balzar at 49 rue des Ecoles near the Sorbonne which has been open since 1898, but make sure you have a reservation if you are going on Friday or Saturday night. I had the charcot plate with sauerkraut, more German than French in my mind but if I did it again I would get the pepper steak with the home-made fried potatoes (French fries of course) which looked amazing. It's simple, traditional French cooking. If you don't eat meat try the rai which is some kind of stingray and tastes and has the texture of shark. Really terrific waiters and if you speak to them in bad French you may be rewarded when the speak back to you in good English. If you have read Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnick this is the place that the waiters and the neighborhood protested the new corporate ownership. We were there after the changeover and it was good and we went with people who had been eating there for decades who still liked it though they said it was better in the old days.

If you are up at the top of Montmarte try Le Vieux Chalet which has a set menu and is one of the only restaurants on the mountaintop village that has been continuously owned by the same family and still maintains a traditional atmosphere and serves traditional food, the proverbial 'place the locals eat'. 

According to Cindy Bellinger from my Greece Travel Group on Facebook L'ilot Vache at 35, rue Saint-Louis on the Isle Saint-Louis is a cozy bistro in a beautiful old building serving very good food, with good service and a lovely atmosphere. Try the Lamb Shank with Potatoes Dauphinois, Salad with Warm goat cheese, Beef Bourguignon, Foie Gras, Duck Confit and their Chocolate Mousse. Tables are close to each other but if you like making friends this is a good thing and completely normal in Paris. Many people who eat here their first night in Paris come back at least once more. Great atmosphere that makes you happy to be in France. Go for the prefix menu which is €38 including salad, entrée and the dessert.

Sally Peabody suggests... "Les Papilles on rue Gay Lussac-- run by a guy who was the pastry chef at Taillevant and who started this excellent little bistro. It is tiny, animated, and they offer a set menu every day but the food is amazing. Avant Comptoir in the Carrefour de Odeon makes great take away crepes and has fantastic Basque/French tapas.  Always totally packed but wonderful."

Dave Rochelle from my Greece Travel Group on Facebook says "La Tartine at 24 rue de Rivoli are famous for its open sandwiches (tartines ) served on sour dough from Poilane and its rude waitresses over 100 years old, a hang out for Trotsky and his pals in the good old days."

Also try L'Industrie at 16, Rue St Sabin near the Bastille which serves good food, served by beautiful waitresses in an atmosphere that will make you wish you had been around in the thirties.

You can find decent food at most cafes and braserries and finding a good one will be just as easy on your own as with a guidebook. Any of the famous places like Café Les Deux Magots or Café de Flore will cost a lot more than some hole in the wall on a back street and may not be any better. But that's the price you pay to sit where the world's greatest artists and writers once sat. But if you are practical you can pass them up and find your own special place and maybe one day people will eat there because you did. My favorite afternoon and morning hangout, Cafe de la Mairie is at the top of Rue de Canettes on the square of St Sulpice and they serve inexpensive cafe food, great coffee, salads, sandwiches, delicious wine and deserts of course. It was the most down-to-earth cafe that I found in Paris. If the downstairs is full then go upstairs. Of course the best time to be here is in the warm weather when you can sit outside ansd watch the square (and the foot and automobile traffic) but its a very warm and cozy place in the winter.

Simon Sez

After I wrote this section my friend Simon Wroe, a classic rocker from the UK who lived in Paris but I had not seen or heard from in years, wrote and told me that he googled Cafe de la Mairie and found this article and could not believe it. This was where he hung out every day while he was living in Paris. Simon also recommends Chez Omar at 47 Rue de Bretagne in the upper Marais and says "Chez Omar may have been there since the 50s & is quite unchanged. Old school in every way but a working persons' restaurant & very affordable. It's classic Moroccan cous cous with different meat choices. Worth trying the Cous Cous Royale so you can taste all of them. No reservations. It was fashionable when I was there but no longer in any listings so I went there a couple of years ago & guess what. It was just as good, the people had changed, not the restaurant. I worked round the corner & took countless dates there. If the boss' wife didn't like my date, my meal was hell. I love them." He also mentions "Chez Robert & Louise at 64 rue Vieille du Temple, also in the Marais where they cook the meat on an open fire. Utterly unchanged for decades. Also try the Basque restaurant Chez Gladines at 30 Rue des cinq Diamants in the 13th, a great restaurant in an area worth checking out just south of the center. But if you don't want to stray too far from your comfort zone they have another Chez Gladines at 44 Boulevard Saint-Germain, one at 11 bis Rue des Halles and another at 74 Boulevard des Batignolles.  But the one in the 13th is considered by some to be the best budget restaurant in Paris. Also try Le Rubis, 10 Rue du Marché Saint-Honoré. The same since the 30s, game, pork, sausage & pulses to eat as the French always did. It's expensive because of the neighbourhood but still totally real & for me worth it."

Going Asian

There are Chinese and Japanese restaurants scattered all over the city. We liked a friendly little sushi place called Matsuya at 39 Rue Galande between the river and the Sorbonne behind the Square R Viviani. In fact my daughter went back just about every night after she decided she did not really like French food. I could not tell you if it was the best in the city but it was better than I expected and not as expensive as I expected. We came back in 2024 and it was even better than I remembered and still owned by the same family. For more Japanese restaurants check out Rue Monsieur le Prince near Blvd St Michel which has several. Paris does have a Chinatown, by the way. At least two. The first is in the 13th in the southeast part of Paris near the place d'Italie and it is the largest Chinatown in Europe made up of more than 450,000 Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians. It is also full of Chinese and other Asian restaurants as you might expect and the kind that cater to eastern clientele rather than tourists (though that should be an incentive rather than a deterent). Try Mer de Chine considered by many to be the best Chinese restaurant in the city at 159 rue Château des Rentiers. The second Chinatown is in Belleville and there are numerous restaurants and oriental groceries on Rue de Belleville and scattered around the area. But you really don't have to travel far to eat Chinese food. There is probably a restaurant within a couple blocks of whatever hotel you are at, no matter where it is. There are several hundred of them in Paris.

Or take the advice of Sally Peabody who says "If you like Asian forget the places on Monsieur le Prince-- they are OK but just Ok. Head for the rue St. Anne on the right bank. Higuma has great noodle soups and there are other better choices. That's where you see the Asians visiting Paris.  I also found an amazing place called Les Pates Vivant on rue Faubourg Montmartre which makes handmade noodles and believe it or not, really great HOT szechuan food.  That is almost impossible to find in Paris.  There is also a huge 'Chinatown' out near the Place de Italie and several good places up in Belleville near where the rue de Belleville and the avenue de Belleville cross."

A popular option for lunch if the weather is nice is to find a market or a shop and buy some bread, cheese, a bottle of wine and whatever else jumps out at you and go to one of the parks or gardens and spend the afternoon like the people in Manet's Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Be sure to check the open air markets of Paris which are scattered all over the city. The best one is probably at the Bastille on Blvd Richard Lenoir. If you are in the Latin Quarter try the covered Saint Germain market between Rue Mabillon and Rue de Touron because it is close to the Luxembourg Gardens.

For breakfast stay at a hotel like the Hotel Europe Saint Severin-Paris Notre Dame which serves a buffet for ten euros. It may seem like a lot but you can drink as much coffee and eat as many croissants and as much yogurt, cheese, hard-boiled eggs, fruit as you can fit in your stomach, which will save you money when you consider in the outside a cup of coffee alone may cost you four euros. Of course half the fun of being in Paris is drinking coffee and people watching in the cafes so it is a toss-up. But if you require large amounts of carbs to get through the day then fill up in the hotel. When choosing a hotel factor this in the price because if breakfast is included that is 10 or 15 euros less you will be spending elsewhere.