Paris Food & Dining
Paris is one of the great food cities in the world. Aiday and I ate incredibly well and thoroughly enjoyed the food culture. We were fortunate that many friends visited many times, and they generously provided their recommendations. We couldn’t make it to most of their spots but every place we did go was quite good. In addition to the quality of the food, we were also pleasantly surprised by the value. Perhaps we’ve gotten too used to the high price of eating out in Chicago, as felt like we got great quality, reasonable portions and fine service in Paris for prices comparable or lower than what we are used to. We found some excellent and more casual places, and we did not go to the super fancy haute cuisine places that cost multiples more. The trip definitely makes me want to seek out quality French places.
We were determined to enjoy ourselves but also wanted to balance our desire to see the attractions, as this was Aiday’s initial visit. Thus, we focused more on the dinners as the main eating event. The food throughout the day was based more on finding interesting spots near the places we were visiting, rather than starting with the food destination first. We didn’t do any big lunches nor did we plan on the all-day grazing model that I typically prefer. We were able to sample a good variety of places, including patisseries, chocolatiers, cafes, food halls, bistrots, and tasting menu restaurants.
Unfortunately, the jet lag aspect of traveling got in the way of eating. Our stomachs took a bit longer to adjust to being in Europe, even more so than our sleep schedules. While our first day was mostly normal (arriving in the morning, checking in to the hotel, then walking around the rest of the day), the next few days were a little off. On our second day, we woke up initially at around 8am, but then fell back asleep and woke up a second time in the afternoon hours (equivalent to waking up at 6am in Chicago). Thus, we missed not only breakfast but part of lunch that day. In general, we ended up eating a breakfast or light lunch, then explored the city before going out for a more substantial dinner meal. We started the day at an Eric Kayser located close to the hotel, but otherwise missed out on exploring other patisseries and boulangeries.
Here is the lineup of places that we visited (in order). Our choices of where to go were based on recommendations, along with Paris by Mouth (PBM) and David Lebovitz’s (DL) lists and other sites. I’ll provide a recap of the meals below.
Le Comptoir (6th arr): lunch on 14 Feb – first meal in Paris
Papillon (17th arr): dinner on 14 Feb. PBM’s #2 Modern & Creative
Verjus (1st arr): dinner on 15 Feb. PBM’s #2 Contemporary Tasting Menu under €100 and a DL favorite
Breizh Café (6th arr): lunch on 16 Feb. DL favorite
Bistrot Paul Bert (11th arr): dinner on 16 Feb. Highly recommended by friends, PBM’s #4 Classic Bistro and a DL favorite
L’avant Comptoir de la Mer (6th arr): post-dinner snack on 16 Feb. A DL favorite
Le Train Bleu (12th arr): dinner on 17 Feb (post-engagement). Highly recommended by friends
David Toutain (7th arr): dinner on 18 Feb – final dinner in Paris. Highly recommended by multiple friends and PBM’s #5 Contemporary Tasting Menu over €100
Before going through the meals and other food exploration, here is a list and gallery of my favorite and most memorable bites:
Poached cod with carrots at David Toutain
Smoked eel and black sesame at David Toutain
Duck course at Verjus
Scallops, truffle with foie gras and parmesan emulsion and port reduction at Le Train Bleu
Grand Marnier soufflé at Bistrot Paul Bert
(Before starting, please note that most of the food photos were taken with the iPad or iPhone 6s camera, as my iPhone Xr was stolen the first night. The photos, particularly ones in low light, are going to be of lower quality than normal. Also, not every bite is included in the galleries.)
The food part of the trip got off to a good start. After freshening up at the hotel, we walked to Yves Camdeborde’s Le Comptoir for a light lunch. This is a popular and no-reservation place, but we walked in with only a minimal wait. We ordered a foie gras toast and a lobster bisque. The bisque was a lot lighter (i.e. less thick) than normal. The foie gras was a nice way to start for me, too. Service was quite slow, so we had to leave for our timed entry tickets for the Eiffel Tower before we could get dessert, which looked great.
For Valentine’s Day dinner, I had a reservation at Papillon, PBM’s #2 Modern & Creative restaurant. For this day, they served a 6 course tasting menu, instead of their usual a la carte menu. As my phone was stolen in the Metro station on the way to this restaurant, my mind was not really focused on the meal. The highlight of this meal was a fish course with black truffle. So in my first two meals features foie gras and truffles. Some of the other courses were a little too acidic for me but still tasty. We were a little surprised that the restaurant wasn’t full even as we were leaving after our 7:30pm reservation. It was a full travel day for us, so we finished the meal and went back to the hotel and fell asleep quickly.
As mentioned previously, Friday got off to a late start. We weren’t that hungry to start, so we ended up getting some chocolates at Pierre Marcolini and kouignettes at Maison Georges Larnicol. Larnicol is an MOF-winning chocolatier, and the hotel gave us some excellent chocolate squares for Valentine’s Day. However, Larnicol’s signature kouginettes were a little disappointing. They are smaller sweet and savory versions of kouign-amann. The kouginettes we got were a bit too dense and undercooked. It did get us through the day, though.
Any disappointment from the lunch was made up for by the meal at Verjus. This was both a fabulous meal and a fantastic deal. The meal started with 5 canapes, bread & butter, followed by 5 courses, for a total of €78, including tax and service! The portion sizes were substantial. In fact, they were so sizable that I wasn’t able to completely finish the menu, despite only a very light lunch. I’m someone who’s been known to enjoy second dinners and have regularly gotten burgers even after a full 20 course tasting menu. So to be stuffed when walking out of Verjus is saying something.
The atmosphere was very good - relaxed and friendly. The dining room was fairly intimate, with a good number of English-speaking diners along with some French-speakers. The service staff was very friendly and comfortable in both languages. The room was a little darker than usual, thus my pictures don’t do the meal justice.
The 5 canapés to open the meal were served at all once. My favorites were the egg (served in the shell) and the potato with horseradish sauce, which didn’t bother me as much as I thought it might. All of them were 1-2 bites that packed in a lot of flavor. The soup course that followed further confirmed that this was going to be a great meal. While Aiday and I have been making butternut squash soup ourselves, Verjus’s version took it to several levels beyond what we’re used to. Verjus adds mozzarella, lobster oil and caviar to the dish. Many tables had this course at the same time, and the predominant sound was spoons clinking against the ceramic bowls to make sure we finished every last drop of that soup. It seems like everyone else had already finished their sourdough and butter, as that would have been an easier way to soak up the flavors. The next course was a celeriac and chestnut dish with a truffle sauce (yes!). The taste was very good, even if it doesn’t photograph as well as the rest of the meal.
The main course was duck, served with three sides dishes. This all counted as one course at Verjus, even if other restaurants would consider this 4. The roasted duck body is first presented to the table with an explanation of what is to come. The meat portion of the course is one of my favorite things we ate in Paris. The duck legs were confit’d and made into a sausage. That sausage is then stuffed between the skin and the breast meat, and all of it is finished on a wood burning grill. It came together with a great combination of flavor from the crispy skin, the meat, the seasoning and the subtle, yet distinct, smoke flavor. It was so tasty by itself and didn’t need any sauces, though the jus that was served did not take away from the meat. Three sides courses came with the duck - a radicchio salad (slightly too acidic for my taste right now), a beet tatin (very nice flaky crust), and potatoes (nice cream sauce). These complemented the duck, but the duck really shined.
The last two courses moved into desserts. The first was Far Breton, a flan with Armagnac-soaked prunes. I don’t think I’ve had this dessert before, and it was revelatory. Aiday really enjoyed this as well. I could see her eyes get wider and a grin come across her face as she tried this. This is not necessarily a light dessert, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t return this plate to kitchen clean. The final course was a yogurt with clementine and carrot. This was a good way to end, though the clementine aspect of it was a little too much for me.
Overall, this was a wonderful meal and probably my highest recommendation for anyone visiting Paris. There is a wine pairing for €55. At this point in Paris, I was not able to drink wine, so I only sampled a bit of Aiday’s pairing. It was very good. I can’t think of another place that serves such a great menu for that value. It was so good that I didn’t even think about eating a post-dinner snack.
Saturday (the next day) was more typical of an eating day for me when traveling. We started the day at Breizh Cafe, a well-regarded mini-chain of creperies. They are known for Breton-style crepes and buckwheat galettes. Thus, Aiday and I ordered one of each, a savory buckwheat galette with ham, fried egg, Comte and a generous helping of Bordier butter; and a sweet crepe with cider poached pears, dark chocolate, and vanilla ice cream. This was a perfect beginning to the day - tasty, casual (they are open for breakfast), and providing enough energy to get us through.
After exploring the day on foot, we had dinner at Le Bistrot Paul Bert. This is a classic bistro in the 11th, one that everyone seems to recommend for its food, despite some occasional misgivings about its service. We had a 7:30pm reservation, which is on the early side in Paris, as we were one of the first people in the restaurant. It seems like the restaurant seated all the English-speaking patrons in the same room, as we were surrounded by Americans, Canadians, and British tourists. The daily menu is written on a chalkboard (all in English in our room), but I already knew that I was going to get the steak frites au poivre as my entree. We were “warned” that this would be a rich meal, and that turned out to be how we ordered. To start, we had the razor clams with chorizo and the marrow bone with red onions. Both were very tasty and plentiful. For the entree, Aiday went a little lighter, with scallops. My steak frites were very good, though I can’t say there were excellent, much less transformative. The steak and au poivre sauce were prepared very well, but the frites were average at best - a bit too soggy for what I like. While I enjoyed the au poivre sauce, it won’t haunt me the way that the au poivre sauce at Raoul’s (NYC) does. For dessert, I was already thinking about getting the Grand Marnier souffle, so when we overheard another table talk about how they came back to the restaurant for that dessert, it sealed the decision. It is worthy of all the praise - light, fluffy, perfectly risen. My only regret is not ordering more desserts, as I now see David Lebovitz’s post about how much he loves the Iles Flottante and Paris-Brest there.
All-in-all, this was a thoroughly enjoyable meal. It was not hard to get a reservation, even for a Saturday night. You just need to call them, as they do not do anything online. The cost was very reasonable as well. They charge €41 for a starter, entree and dessert. Along with one glass of wine (my mouth could still only handle sips at this point), the total was €104, including tax. It’s hard to top that value in Chicago.
For the first time, we actually enjoyed some post-dinner treats. In fact, we visited two spots. First, we walked around the area and looked into Septime (closed) and Clamato (their seafood spot, which is no reservations and fully covered for the night). We did stop in to get a glass of wine at Septime Cave, their wine bar. It was small and super casual. They did allow us to taste a few before deciding on a glass, so that was nice. I wish we had ordered some food to at least sample their offerings.
Despite nearly falling asleep in the car on the way back to the hotel, we could not resist stopping by one last place. As the hotel is very close to the Odeon, we kept returning to that area for meals. We’d already been to Le Comptoir and Breizh Cafe, but we figured to try some oysters at L’avant Comptoir de la Mer, the seafood spin-off. Aiday is a huge fan of oysters, and we hadn’t had any from Brittany nor Normandy yet, so this seemed like a good place to try, especially since they are open late. (Next time, we’ll have to try out Huitrerie Regis. which is also in the same area.)
Once again, we found the service to be very friendly and helpful, going against old stereotypes. We started off with some oysters from each region, along with a glass of wine to wash it down. These were excellent and tasted very much of the sea. For some reason, we got some sausages as well. As I started to wake up from the brief car nap, my second dinner stomach started to awaken as well. The place is more of a stand up bar than a restaurant, with the food items displayed on cards hanging from the ceiling rather than a menu. Some of the items intrigued us, so we stayed for more. In addition, they’ll provide fresh bread, which for me was a conduit to eat more Bordier butter. They just have blocks of it sitting on the bar counter that you can cut onto your plate. I have to admit that I took a bit more than I could be expected to each, so I wrapped some up and took it back to the hotel. The butter made the hotel’s morning pastries (from Paul) taste much better.
So in addition to the oysters and bread, we decided to try some sea snails. Some other people really seemed to enjoy these, so tried them for ourselves. They are served with a horseradish mayo that was the right amount fo spice for me. The snails have a surprising amount of meat in them. It was probably the most unexpectedly enjoyable dish we had on the trip. I also couldn’t resist trying out at least one dessert (especially after seeing them at lunch the first day), so we had a chocolate mousse with mango. Quite good. It was a nice way to finish off a day full of eating. I suppose we could have stayed out a little later that night, as the outdoor cafes and bars were still full of people when we walked back to the hotel, but we were pretty tired.
Sunday, 17 February was an important day for us, as that is when we got engaged (see previous post). As noted there, we had a dinner reservation at Le Train Bleu, which had both opulent decor and highly recommended food. Before even looking much at the menu, we had to order some champagne (Bollinger Brut) to toast ourselves and our new status. It felt appropriately celebratory.
To be honest, I didn’t really want to make too many decisions that day, so we opted for tasting menu. Sometimes, I’ll study a menu to see if I can create my own tasting menu for two instead of both of us having the same menu, but that night was not the time for that. Plus, the tasting menu looked good - 7 courses plus two glasses of wine (full pours) - for €110 including tax and service, which also has good value.
The meal itself was very good, especially the first few courses. The meal started with some really nicely smoked Scottish salmon with beets and apple. The next two courses featured more foie gras. The second course was a duck leg confit between generous portion of pressed foie gras with mango chutney and litchi and cardamom, while the third course had a foie gras and parmesan emulsion to go with oysters and shaved truffles. The scallop course in particular bordered on being a bit too rich, but it stayed just on the right side of it.
While the rest of the meal was fine, it didn’t live up to the opening courses. The lemon granita palate cleanser, was perhaps to the most acidic dish I had in Paris, so it was hard for my tastes to handle. The main course was a veal chop with spinach and potatoes. This is one of the collaborations on the menu with Maison Rostang, a Micheln 2-star restaurant. It was fine, but nothing too special be honest. Perhaps a little to subtle for my preferences. After that, we had a very good cheese course. Our inability to eat lots of cheese - what restaurants typically serve as a cheese course is what we’d eat for two of us - is a certain sign that we are not French. While it was really good, we ended up taking much of it back, to enjoy at a later time. The final course was another Maison Rostang collaboration - a rum babba with chantilly cream. This was quite a good way to end the meal.
While I was able to drink a bit more than in previous meals, the wine pairing was not the focus of the meal. It was nice to be able to finish a few glasses and enjoy them, but finding the perfect pairing wasn’t the focus. Overall, the combination of atmosphere (see other post) and food made it a great choice for our first post-engagement meal.
Monday, 18 February, was our last day in Paris. There was still much that we hadn’t seen, so meals during the day were not the main focus. We started with some more pastries at Eric Kayser. After that, I made sure that I was able to buy some chocolate bars from Patrick Roger, Pierre Herme, Alain Ducasse, and Jean-Paul Hevin. The latter three were all from Galeries Lafayette Gourmet, a really nice food hall near the Palais Garnier, where we visited. We had a lunch there, which consisted of a baguette with Bordier butter, leftover cheese, and a piece of a terrine from Maison Verot, a butcher at the food hall. We did later have some Pierre Herme macarons, which I quite enjoyed, even though I’m not the biggest macaron fan.
So before the grand finale dinner, here is a gallery of some of the food we experienced, specifically some chocolate stores, bakeries and food halls.
The dinner reservation for our final meal in Paris was at David Toutain. This was recommended by several friends. The chef has worked with some of the culinary greats (Alain Passard, Pierre Gagnaire, Andoni Luiz Anduriz, and others), and it’s a favorite of many people. In addition, for a Michelin 2-star place, the price was better than many places in the US - €120 for 10+ course meal, again with tax and service included (lunch can be as low as €60, with options for longer menu at €160 as well). This time, my mouth felt better, so I got to enjoy the pairings with this meal.
Sadly, Aiday was not able to enjoy this meal the same way I did. Even though we ate the same things all day, something really affected her in a bad way. In fact, her stomach was so unsettled that she could only eat 1-2 bites of each dish. What that meant is that I ended up nearly a double portion of a tasting menu. We also had to rush through the last few courses. She was really a champion for sitting there and allowing me to eat the meal, despite her obvious discomfort (enough that the server brought out some soothing ginger tea to help). I am proud to say that I finished it without any issues.
Overall, the meal was really excellent. We did not get the supplements, as we already had plenty of truffles and caviar previously. The menu is vegetable and seafood focused, and felt lighter than other meals. Everything was flavorful and balanced, without heavy sauces to make the dish. It was one of those meals where I sequenced my last bites of each course, to ensure I savored every last drop. The meal started with “finger foods” that reminded me of the style at Mugaritz. I won’t describe all of the courses, though I’ll put the photos with descriptions below.
A few courses really stood out. The first was a poached cod with carrot and “Mikan Clementine” (still not sure what that is). The fish was extraordinary - my most memorable bite in Paris. I’m not sure how they did it, but the texture of fish seemed like something I’ve not had before. It was perfect - just cooked, moist, and flavorful. The carrot had a similar soft texture and the sauces complimented the fish and vegetables really well.
Another incredibly tasty dish is the smoked eel with black sesame. I really love these flavors and together they were excellent. It was one of those dishes where I was scraping the dish to make sure I got it all. For the pairing, the sommelier presented a “mystery” glass and said she’d come back later to tell me what it was. I was very pleased that my taste buds are still working well, and I was able to identify it blind as a sparkling pear cider. It was made by Eric Bordelet, so I’ll be seeking that one out.
After the excellent meat course, Aiday started feeling worse, so we rushed through the last few bites. The kitchen was able to bring out the remainder of the desserts in quick succession. We figured it’d be better to eat them in the restaurant vs. packing them for takeaway. They were all very good, but I can’t remember them specifically a few weeks after finishing them.
The service was interesting, I had to say. First, when we arrived, they told me that my reservation was cancelled. I could see that being the case, as I was not reachable by phone, but I was sure I had confirmed via email while we were in Paris. Our table was on the second floor, which isn’t quite as lively as the ground floor. Finally, I’m still not entirely sure we got everything on the menu. At the end of the meal, they brought out a menu but the one we got looked to be for the extended menu with supplements. Some of our dishes may have been out of order as well, as the corn bread came out last for us. That being said, the host was cognizant that Aiday wasn’t feeling well and brought out a ginger tea to try to help things.
That was the last of our Paris eating. It didn’t quite go as we had hoped. While it was excellent, Aiday wasn’t able to share in the meal. It featured a two dishes that I’ll remember for a long time. Being able to describe a dish in detail and with enthusiasm is my main criteria for being a memorable meal, and several met that standard at David Toutain. The atmosphere was relaxed and less stuffy than some other restaurants at this level. Highly recommend this place.
The next morning, we had an early train to London - so early that Eric Kayser wasn’t open when we had to leave for Gare du Nord to catch the Eurostar.
If you've made is this far, first of all, thank you. If you aren’t hungry or your mouth did water at some point during the post, then I have failed in covering how much we enjoyed the food.
We were going to another great eating city, and there will be a post about our London eating adventures next. After that, I’ll plan to write about our visits to some great historical sites, renowned museums, architectural marvels and other attractions we experienced on our trip.